Parenting by threats.

Vince and I (with a bunch of his other cub scout pals) volunteered this weekend to do some weeding at the church where the pack has all of its meetings. Earlier this week, I had assumed that Jeremy would go with Vince, and I would stay at home with Edda where we would both enjoy the afternoon reading the Sunday Times and watching Dora, but Jeremy said that he needed to go grocery shopping and that I was on the hook for the yard work as he had done it the past two years running. It's not that I mind the weeding so much, it's just that I find keeping Vince on task to be extremely exasperating. He is stubborn and does not like to do things like "work". 

First, take a look at our enemy for the afternoon: common English ivy. For a person who thinks ivy growing on a brick wall kind of makes it beautiful (and more distinguished a la Harvard until it becomes overgrown and then it just turns the structure into something haunted by ghosts), it's a little strange to all of sudden call it a weed. But this is what I weeded for two hours:



Of course, after 15 minutes, I find Vince under a tree, feigning exhausting and being the only cub scout not cleaning up (I know that this is not true, but it makes me feel better to think this). I let it go on for another 30 minutes or so, this moaning on the grass - he even got another pal to moan with him.



Finally, I got fed up and told him that if he didn't work for the next hour, that for the next week, he would not have access to anything with a power switch and then he perked right up and worked the whole time. He worked almost happily. He actually told me to stop taking photos and help out bagging the ivy.



So these are my first iPhone photos. A little unsatisfying picture-quality-wise, but very convienent.