Mean Mommy

Today after I had finished zoning my client I went on a walk with my friend, Jasmine. We love to get together once a week and walk and catch up on what's going on in each other's lives. We also love to dig into topics that we usually can't discuss with others. It's a beautiful friendship that I cherish.

Okay, so today I had to take the twins. I had no babysitter so I had no choice. It was a rather hot day and both of the twins were armed with a water bottle to combat dehydration. They finished their waters early and were carrying their bottles. Towards the end of the walk I noticed that Courtney no longer had her bottle. I asked her where her bottle was and she looked at me (get this) and said, "I don't know! It's gone!"

I asked, "Did you toss it on the side?"

"No," came the reply, "I don't know what happened. It's just gone!" (Does she really think I'm THAT stupid? Don't answer).

Well, there was a bunch of goats that were grazing off the weeds and excess foliage that had grown. They were fenced off but I did, however, notice a small water bottle laying yonder in their midst. Hmmm. "Is THAT your bottle?" Pouty face and a nodding head. Busted!!!! I quickly scooped up the child and set her over the fence to go fetch the bottle in question. I then informed her that that was SO not cool to litter. I then looked over at Jacob and noticed that his bottle was MIA as well.

"Okay, here's the deal, kids." Then, looking at Jasmine, "Sorry about this but I have to teach them a lesson."

Jasmine was really cool about it and said, "No, go ahead. I agree!"

"From here till we get back to the car, you will be picking up ALL the trash you see (about 3/4 of a mile). Yes, Courtney, even you. I will expect you to climb down in ditches or whatever it takes but you will clean up this area as we go."

Okay, so here's where the difference in my twins comes into play. Jacob got excited and was hollering everytime he found a piece of trash. He was climbing down hills and we even had to request he come back to us so that we could keep track of him. He had so much trash in his little arms that it was doubtful that he could hold another piece.

Courtney, however, looked like she was going to cry. It was like pulling teeth. We had to point out every piece of trash and tell Jacob to leave it for his sister. She was not a happy camper.

Well, we (um, they) collected gobs of trash and we were fortunate enough to run into a City of Livermore worker who gave us a trash bag to continue on our quest of picking up trash. All in all I think the twins learned a valuable lesson about littering and we were able to make our walking path just a little nicer for the next peeps that happen along.