It was early spring with the temperature finally lifting out of the frost range. The perfect time to get the majority of spring cleaning underway. Kristin and Phil had been using their time carefully for the past week or so between them to get it mostly done. The boys being asked to help on the smaller tasks every so often. Today, however, was sort of a treat despite it being another cleaning day.

It was yard work day.

With the sun out and warming everything up it was too fine a time not too. Also, with it being the second weekend in April both of the Watson adults were home and thus able to coordinate their efforts. By getting at least a handful of it done over this particular weekend it guaranteed the place would be in order come the start of summer vacation for the boys.

That fact didn't seem to make Wilbur any more thrilled to be helping out with it. As usual it had been his job to go around collecting the small sticks and branches that had fallen from the large tree over the winter. Apparently the cold season had been harsh on the old thing as Wil had made quite a few trips to the stick pile since starting.

During this time Techno had been entertaining Tommy out of the way of the rest of the family. The two were kept to the center of the yard while the others were spread out with their tasks, though Wil was quick to join them the second he dumped the last visible stick off with the others.

Phil could see a few left here and there but he didn't say anything. It was too nice a day to not allow Wilbur the chance to fully enjoy it with his siblings. He would just make sure his son did one last walk around before lunch or something.

Phil looked back to his own task with a bit of a sigh. Now, Phil will say he wasn't incapable of building things, he could work his head around the basics easily enough. However, if anyone asked if he considered himself a 'handyman' he'd probably have laughed in their faces. If he had a useful secondary skill set like that he'd not be nearly as worried about the future.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to put in his best on building up the fence around their yard.

A few places had come loose enough to create gaps and so it was on him to fix that. One might ask why he didn't call in a carpenter or someone in a more 'build it/fix it' line of work? Well, after looking up prices for those very skills Phil decided it wouldn't hurt for him to learn his way around a hammer. How hard could it be?

"Ah! Shi-" Phil was quick to pop his finger into his mouth before the throbbing pain in his thumb released the string of curses dying to fall from his tongue.

"Careful, Phil. Tommy repeats after you enough." Kristin laughed from where she was kneeling on the other side of the small yard.

"i kno', 'm tryin'" Phil replied from around his finger as he turned to look at her.

He pulled his thumb out and held it up as if she could see some sort of cartoonish pulsing to show off his pain at all. Instead it just looked like he was giving her a thumbs up with a grimace.

"You try not to curse after cracking your thumb with a hammer." He stated defensively but with no actual heat.

"Maybe hit the nail then instead." She supplied casually, a large teasing smile growing all the more across her face.

"Thank you so much. I hadn't thought of that." Phil huffed with a roll of his eyes.

"That's why you have me here~" Kristin said with a particular brightness to her tone as she continued to smile at her husband.

"I thought I had you here for your pretty smile." Phil returned with a cheeky grin of his own.

Kristin let out a short laugh before going to speak again, but was cut off by Wilbur letting out a long 'ick' noise. Glancing towards the boys the older Watson's were met with the scrunched up face of their eldest child facing them.

"Are you going to make 'goo-goo' eyes at each other now?" Wilbur asked with obvious disgust.

"What if we were?" Phil asked with a chuckle, even more so as his answer earned him a further wrinkling of Wil's nose.

"That's gross though." He protested, his arms drawing up to his chest with a little shiver.

"Its not 'gross', its 'cute'." Kristin tried to explain, but it fell on deaf ears as Wilbur just shook his head.

"Old people being all 'lovey dovey' is weird."

"Oi, we're not 'old', we're barely twenty-nine!" Phil defended with a bigger laugh than before.

"Yeah? So your old." Wilbur concluded with a nod.

"We're not even thirty yet, Wilbur. We don't even qualify as 'middle aged'. We aren't 'old'." Phil tried once more, this time with a mild sigh.

He thought he'd have at least until Wil's teen years before hearing the 'old folks' commentary.

"That's doesn't mean you're young." Wil said as he uncrossed his arms to place them confidently on his hips.

"Yes it does!" Phil couldn't help but blurt out.

At this point Kristin was laughing into her hand as she watched. Honestly, the pair of them could go on for hours back and forth with Wilbur leading the way with outlandish claims and even more outlandish logic behind them all. She truly enjoyed watching and listening to them go about it.

"-so then you're 'old'." Wilbur was just finishing some explanation or other that seemed to have dug at a nerve in Phil.

Phil, of course, was taking this all in good humor. That didn't mean the tattered and childish rational didn't cause his brain mild frustrations trying to keep up at times with his eldest.

"We're not 'old' and we are perfectly allowed to show affection in our own home." Phil sighed, head tilted up at the sky as if asking some higher power for added patience.

"Why though? Its weird." Wilbur insisted with a huff as he once more crossed his arms.

"Careful, Wilbur, or we might blow kisses at each other next." Phil stated in a teasingly warning tone, though he fully meant it.

Wilbur had a talent for causing his brain to stutter with odd arguments and reasons for any given subject that caught his fancy in the moment. However, Phil was more then aware that he and his wife had their own kind of power that could cause Wil's entire work to crumble into his own discomfort. All they had to do was show open affection, something Phil was more than happy to do.

From the sudden look of shock on Wil's face Phil knew his words had stuck something. Almost like a fear or dread. Wilbur knew his father would go through with it.

"Next we'll hold hands and give actual kisses." Phil went one until Wil was covering his ears.

"No!" "No!"

Two shouts came about from that one, both Wilbur and Techno speaking at the same time. Tommy looked surprised by all the shouting, looking between his siblings as if waiting for it to go on.

At this both of the parents began to laugh, Tommy joining in for lack of understanding. It took a minute or so before his brother's each cracked a smile.

The short laugh break was nice but soon enough Phil was getting himself back to work. While cleaning up the yard could be spread out over the coming weeks, fixing the fence could not. Especially when it ran along the side and back alley of the house and nearby taller buildings. While the neighborhood wasn't exactly 'dangerous' it was still a city and it was better safe than sorry.

Wilbur had taken up post with Tommy, pulling the smaller boy to his feet in order to start kicking the old and worn soccer ball around. Tommy's coordination was frankly terrible, but he enjoyed chasing the ball all the same, which made Wil honestly laugh when is skittered to the far side and Tommy trundled after it.

Not wanting to play a chase and running game right now Techno had opted instead to go and peek in on what their mother was doing. The kids had all been sent away from her earlier as she had been digging into a large bag of dirt and depositing it into two medium wooden boxes.

At this point the boxes were full and the bag was tightly rolled and pinched closed, resting just beside Kristin's leg as she continued to press into the freshly laid soil.

"What are you plantin?" Techno asks as he squats down to watch more closely.

"I'm planting us a vegetable garden." She replied with a cheerful lilt in her voice.

"Why?" Techno pressed further as he reached out to prod at the soil with his own fingers.

"Because its fun and we get fresh food out of it." She answered without missing a beat, lifting a hand to bop him on the noise with a dirt covered finger.

Techno laughed as he swiped at his face with his other hand, pushing hers back but missing the dirt her action left behind.

"I was thinking of starting with some bell peppers, sweet peas and perhaps broccoli." She continued to inform him, using her fingers to measure out distance and create small dips for seeds to go.

"Not broccoli. Broccoli's gross. Techno protested with a wrinkled face, similar to the one Wilbur had worn earlier.

"You like broccoli though. Remember? We steamed some up just the other day." His mother insisted, though leaving out the part where it had been smothered in cheese to get the kids to actually eat it.

Techno, however, only shook his head at her with a continued frown.

"Okay then, if we don't plant broccoli then what do we plant?" She prompted as she leaned back on her heels to look at him fully.

Techno tilted his head to the side as he considered this. He stared down at the dirt as if it would give him give him some kind of suggestion.

"Can we plant pumpkins?" He asked as he looked up at her with a small glimmer of hope.

Kristin couldn't help the small snort that left her as a sudden laugh.

"I don't think we have enough room for pumpkins, Tech. Sorry." She replied with a mild shake of her head before motioning to the boxes, "We have to do something smaller. What about carrots?"

Techno once more took on a pensive look, head tilting in the opposite way now. It lasted almost a minute before he was shaking his head with another scrunching of his nose.

"What about-" Techno paused, having spoken sooner than his brain had pulled in another option, "Potatoes?"

This time it was Kristin who tilted her head, brow furrowing lightly. She looked down at the boxes before her. They were a bit shallow for potatoes…but adding a quick new layer of boards at the top of one could fix that. Potatoes were a good staple to have too.

"I think…I think we could manage that." She finally answered with a smile and a nod at her middle child.

She let out another short laugh as he let out a victorious 'yes' hiss into the air.

"Do you want to help me plant them? You can be my little garden helper." She suggested after watching him go back to poking at the dirt.

"Can I?" Techno asked as he looked up at her with wide and hopeful eyes.

"Of course. I would love to have you garden with me~" She said as she leaned down to give him a quick peck to the top of his head.

He wiggled in place for a second, a smile beaming on his face, before he scooted over to be directly beside her. He was practically in her lap but she didn't mind.

Techno looked up at her ready and waiting, bouncing a bit in place.

"Okay, so, first we start off with pressing holes into the soil where the seeds are going to go. Some seeds need different depths and distance from both the surface soil and from each other." She started to explain, using her hands over Techno's to guide him how to do it.

X-x

Despite his usual troubles with paying attention Techno soaked up all the knowledge his mother gave him about their current venture. He learned better with the more hands on stuff, but that didn't stop him from asking questions about the things his mother had to do herself, Techno only being able to watch.

At one point Wilbur had come over to try to convince him to play again, but Techno was far to invested in this lesson. Wil would just have to teach Tommy to hula hoop by himself. They only had the one anyway.

"Now, since this box is done we cover the seeds with some top soil and give them a bit of water. After that we're going to cover them with the burlap and we're done for the day." Kristin stated as she started to carefully roll the excess soil from the walls of the box back over the seeds.

"What about the other box? We only filled one." Techno asked as he tried to mimic her moves with the dirt.

"Well, if we're going to plant potatoes we need to adjust it a bit. But, after that I'll have you help me plant them, okay?" She tilted her head at him, smirking at the smears of dirt on his cheeks.

"...If we already planted veggitables in this one, then, why not put flowers in the other one? Like Mr. Major has in our classroom." Techno asked as he glanced back at his mother curiously.

"Well, a flower garden is something I certainly want to have." Kristin started with, hesitating when she considered how best to explain to her child, "But, for now its just more practical to grow veggies. One day when we have more space perhaps we can start a flower garden together too."

"Can we grow the big yellow ones? The ones that look at the sun?" Techno asked, once more bouncing in place as he talked, "We just learned about them. Mr. Major says that they, that they always know where the sun is!"

Kristin chuckled as she nodded.

"We can grow sunflowers, for sure. Maybe while we wait we can both pick out the others together. That way when its time to plant we'll already know exactly which ones to go for." Kristin leaned down once more as she placed another kiss on her sons head, pressing down the light fluff of mild curls he had.

"I can ask Mr. Major to be the class garden helper, then, I can help better here!" Techno was going on, motioning to the barely just planted seeds.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, Techno." Kristin nodded with a proud smile to match that of the boy before her.

"Hey."

At the sound of her husbands voice Kristin turned towards the sliding door leading into the house. Techno turning back to garden bed and patting down a bit more dirt.

"Lunch is just about ready. Want me to grab Techno so you can finish up?" He asked with a nod to their dirt cover child…to one of their dirt covered children.

"No, me and Techno will be done in just a minute. We just need to water and cover them."

"Okay. Well, if you change your mind just send him in to me. Pretty sure I'll be scrubbing down Wil and Tommy until the timer goes off." Phil stated with a chuckle.

"How dirty could they be? They were playing with the hula hoop?" Kristin asked with genuine confusion.

The last she had looked up at the other two they hadn't been that off dirt wise.

"Oh, it wasn't from playing. It was from 'helping' in the kitchen. Little shits. By the way, limited sauce for this one."

Kristin didn't hesitate to laugh, Phil chuckling along as well despite the mildly annoyed look on his face.

"Thanks for the warning. I promise we'll be in in less than five minutes." She nodded.

Phil returned the gesture and turned to re-enter the house. Kristin and Techno worked on finishing up with the plants, though they didn't get far before they both paused at the sound of shouting in the house. The familiar call of the eldest child's name by a exasperated father.

"If Wilbur gets grounded, can I have his dessert?" Techno asked, only causing Kristin's mouth to curl into an even more amused smile.

"We can split it." She offered before leaning in to 'whisper' to him, "Its going to be ice cream and banana slices tonight."

Techno smiled wide with an excited wiggle.

"I hope he keeps hiding."

Xx-XxX-xX

So, as of now my uploading is going to be a bit different. The stories for this series has taken over a bit with the whole 'each Firday' schedule I'd made for myself. Its keeping me from working on any of the other works I have and I sort of need to fix that.

From now I'm I'm thinking that this series here will go to every other Friday so that I can focus some decent time elsewhere. Mainly cus the other stories need a lot more focus and just a few days at a time isn't enough to get them properly worked on.

I hope this doesn't disappoint too many, but know it is for the greater good.