Rylan loves the outdoors. He also loves the nightlife. And to boogie. But mostly, the outdoors. And now that he is walking free and fabulous, and makes it soooo much easier to take him outside. His favorite thing to do is, literally, run through the grass. One snaffoo. He's not such a "strong" runner. Its like the horses at Oaklawn, "and their off" when he hits the grass. Then he falls down. We have a pattern: run, fall, pickup, run fall, pickup. Rinse and repeat. As long as he's outside, he could care less if its laying on the grass or walking on it.

While I'd like to be the kind of mother who is totally fine with dirt and mud and such (which I am), I'm not the kind of mother who is into letting her kid run a muck in dog poo. And we have two dogs. And they make alotta poo. How much is alotta?, you might ask. Too much. I have a tendency towards anxiety and imagining terrible things in my head. Every time Rylan falls I expect to pick him up with a dog doo stuck to his shirt. When I hear him cough, I get a random thought that he stuck poo in his mouth and is going to have dog poo aspiration pneumonia. Its an illness, I'm aware.

So, I've taken on the gross, gross, gross task of being the dog poo collector. A Wal-Mart bag goes over one hand, a Wal-Mart bag is held in the other hand and I systematically pick the poo with my Wal-Mart bag covered hand. Its nasty. I gag. The fact that I'm a GI nurse when I feel like gracing the hospital with my presence makes no difference in the dog doo world. Gag-o-matic. I'm about 1/3 done with the yard and had to take a few day rest. I'll be back at it this weekend.

Its worth it for Rylan's fun factor and my sanity.

Fun outside in the snow with Papa

Fun at the lake feeding the ducks (he ate the bread)

Fun in the leaves

The run before the fall. We have strange neighbors that often throw stuff over the fence.

One time we found a turkey leg. One time a corndog. This day, a marker. Someone

was trying to run away before his ma could get it.

I had a great idea to try sidewalk chalk

Repercussions of trying sidewalk chalk with one year old

Okay, enough fun, get me out of these leaves