The Beach

My daughter now calls this area "The Beach". Yeah, she takes her toys and dolls to vacation here, builds dusty "sandcastles" here, gamely avoids the broken glass and old nails disinterred here—really sells the vision. And, while I prefer the official Fencebroke land-use press release title of "Handsome And Well-Lain Patio To Be Completed When Children Grow Old Enough To Keep Themselves Alive And Occupied Without Supervision For 15 Minutes", I do appreciate her making the best of what has become an admittedly desolate corner of the yard.

Still, I can't help but think she might be egging us on with a bone-dry wit she's somehow adopted at the age of three-and-a-half. Am I overreacting? Be honest with me girl! Have you been watching British Comedy!? The nerve of kids these days.

Or, maybe it's nothing more than the burgeoning imagination of a child. You know, the sort of sheer force of creative will that lets the innocent turn war zones into wonderlands, tenements into treasure maps, abandoned lots into playgrounds, and—

—Good god, what is wrong with our yard!?

We live ten minutes from the shores of Puget Sound, if I take you there, will you stop coronating your princesses in this ant-ridden patch of parched earth we call a "patio"!? No! There are no crabs here! That's an old bottle cap! I don't know why—because the people who lived here before us didn't have a garbage can. Go wash your hands.

<Sigh> 

Maybe I could at least harness some of that youthful and euphemistic gusto and use it to re-brand our other unsightly garden features. The rock pile could become The Mystic Mountain, the water meter a Buried Treasure Chest, and Fencebroke's namesake fence would be transformed into the sturdy parapet of some Enchanted Castle! I mean, I'm onto something, right?

Meh, I don't know, it feels so forced when I do it. Dang kids and their ... whimsy.