AIBU- garden toys

[MotherOfDragon20]

need opinions on this because I’m about to lose my shit with DH

we’re very lucky to have a very large mature garden, lots of lovely trees and bushes, and a very large lawn. This has become DHs pride and joy, and he does a really good job on maintaining it. The problem is we had 2 kids, 3 year old DD and 12 month old DS who has just started walking but obviously very unsteady and falls a lot. They both love to play outside and we have lots of garden toys. Every night DH goes outside and moves all of the toys onto the patio so the grass doesn’t die underneath them. This drives me absolutely crazy. Every single time the kids want to go outside and play I need to move everything back onto the grass. We also have stairs in the garden so really I can’t take my eyes off the baby for a second incase he heads to the stairs. Some of the toys I can’t move myself like the Wendy house and the sandpit so really they are useless. So moving 2 slides, a mud kitchen, sand pit, Wendy house, various cars, tunnels, tractors, ball pit etc is actually very difficult while keeping an eye on the baby. I have asked him a hundred times to stop it and really this just isn’t the time in our life for a perfectly manicured lawn and it’s more important for the kids to have a safe garden to play in. He agrees, apologies, says agrees to stop it, yet here we are again a lovely day looking at garden with all the toys piled on the deck. I know it’s not a massive deal but as anyone who has young kids will testify to, anything that makes life that little bit harder is just a pita.

AIBU- really not a big deal.

IANBU- bury him under his precious bloody grass

I am on the fence frankly.

As soon as the kids are old enough to kick a ball, the garden will be destroyed. Lawn don't survive football, neither do plants around. So your DH needs to make his peace with the loss of his immaculate garden, it's happening!

On the other hand, it's not necessary to ruin the garden if you can avoid it. I wouldn't enjoy my garden transformed into a playground when that can be avoided.

Try to work a compromise: place for the kids, and what he can see from the window. It's only going to get worst, for the lawn, anyway. I still believe there's a special place in hell for people who put plastic grass!

The issue is the baby isn’t great with keeping shoes and socks on (anyone know of any shoes that are tamper proof 🫣) and he has got quite a few skelfs on his feet from crawling about it, yes it probably needs treated but in the mean time I would be happier for him to just be playing on the grass.

You need the big foam mats under the toys on the patio.

This is my point, I want my kids to be able to kick a ball about the garden without worry of running the grass. Yes it’s lovely to have a green lawn but to me it’s more important for the kids to have a good childhood enjoying playing outside in the garden. Obviously I don’t want it to get completely ruined and happy to move to toys about to limit damage but I just feel like he needs to make peace with it not being perfect.

Dunno, we leave the paddling pool out for several months. The grass does die, but it grows back over the winter months. We had a trampoline for several years and again grass died, but it all grew back, didn't need terfing or sowing it just came back. Maybe it depends on the quality of your lawn? When kids are young it seems to be a shame to be a bit precious about lawn useage😬.

But to him the lawn IS important

And you're getting a kid's area in a few months.

Manage which toys they use and keep the Wendy house etc on the patio to then

Kids will just enjoy playing outside with a ball and some bubbles tbh

My thoughts exactly!

Just because you have kids doesn’t mean you can’t have something nice for yourself though.

get the children’s area sorted, work together and make that priority ready for this summer. Use the patio area for things like the Wendy house. Smaller toys won’t matter as much.

"
Maybe I don’t understand the complexities for lawn maintenance but I kind of don’t really care if it dies under the toys. These are going to be a feature of our garden for years yet and if we have to pay to have it fixed down the line fair enough. "

DO NOT DO THIS take it from me 😂 you let it die under the slide and Wendy house etc then as soon as it rains there's no grass to absorb and those bits become insanely muddy and unsafe anyway and it's more of PITA

That said I don't agree with your DH either. Group the toys into about 1/3 of the lawn if it's big and have him rotate them to a new section every 3/4 days that's what we do now and it's fine

But why is what’s important to him (his green lawn) more important than what’s important to me (our children being able to play freely outside) the kids area will be ready in a few months and that will be fine when they are little but when they are school age they will want to play in the big garden and I want that for them. Going exploring in the bushes, playing football with their friends, making tree swings, treasure hunts. This is what we spoke of when we bought this house and used our entire savings making it our forever home. We will have years to have a beautiful garden when they are older. For now I feel it’s for making memories not for admiring

I’m obviously not suggesting letting them destroy it!!

This is a compromise I could live with.

From what you’ve written about him, my impression was he’s trying to have both - somewhere for the kids to play and a beautiful garden he takes pride and joy in all at the same time. Not everything for the kids now and kicking all the adult desires down the round 18 years.

How about every night he moves them round to the other side. So they are moving round in quarters of the lawn. The grass won’t die if it’s not covered permanently. So rather than on the patio just move it round the lawn a bit.

But why is what’s important to him (his green lawn) more important than what’s important to me (our children being able to play freely outside)

You could equally ask why what you want is more important than what he wants. He clearly puts a lot of effort into the lawn, the kids area will be ready soon - can you really not find a compromise for the sake of two months? To be honest I’d be pretty pissed off if, having worked hard to make the lawn nice it got ruined because garden toys were left on it rather than just being moved at the end of the day when a dedicated area is two months away.

To be honest oP they will have nicer memories on a thicker, softer, lusher lawn. We had a lovely soft green lawn when I was growing up and I still remember how lovely it felt underfoot and I actually remember that more than the things i played with. This sounds like a huge array of toys to have out at once. Can’t you just keep it all on the patio and put one or two things out at a time? Surely you could pop the baby somewhere safe ( where you put them when you shower for example ) while you put a couple of toys out.

But yes your days sound like an episode of the Night Garden: all repeat of the intro song and then Iggle Piggle’s bedtime routine at the end and only a short burst of actual story/ play in the middle !

@Maddy70 what??? Expensive re-turfing? Why? When my kids were little, every year they trashed the garden by playing football. I just put grass seed down and every year a lovely new garden grew. That’s the miracle of plants. Plant them and they grow.

This, we had grass die underneath hutches and guinea pig runs, but it came back on its own.

I think it comes back differently from the kind of lawn OP’s DH has. If you want it close-bladed and very green and soft it does need quite a bit of curating

YABU I'm with your DH on this one. It's so hard to get an immaculate lawn!! I don't blame him for this at all. But obviously, to stop it impacting your life, then he needs to either put the stuff back out the next morning, or just keep rotating it around the garden, leaving it on the lawn. But I think your priority should be to get the side garden done for the children, is there a reason why that'll take a few months? Would be good to have it ready for the summer!!

Firstly, I have garden envy from your description and am genuinely happy for you having such a lovely outside space! 😊 Secondly, I agree with you that kids playing outside with ease comes above perfect grass. However- it sounds like you're soon going to solve the problem with the seperate area for the toys. So in the meantime I think let him crack on with fannying about getting things on the patio every evening, but he should move them back each morning. We have a hardy lawn that recovers from such abuse by itself (once we scattered some seeds on a particularly dead bit to help it along and it came back fine), but I don't think that's the type of lawn your DH is cultivating! Seems a shame to create a cost for yourself for the sake of a couple of months. He should definitely be doing the heavy lifting though!

DH is a bit Gardeners World, so we designated the far end of our (very long) garden as the children’s section. He then got to be all geeky about flattening it, lining the ground, putting wood chips down etc. DDs can do what they like down there and he doesn’t care.

It sounds like you’re getting the same, so in the meantime could you not just keep the heavy toys on the patio and move the other stuff as needed?

house is on a hill so we needed to do a fair bit of building to get it a usable space, retaining wall, railings etc so unfortunately are at the mercy of trades people schedules. We actually started it last year but had to pause it during the winter and work has just started back.

I agree about the rotating. As long as it’s done often the grass will be fine.
I also agree with looking after the lawn so that it remains a nice place to play!

I'd have made him come back from football to put them back.

And every morning I'd be reminding him to put them back.

He's not even adding to your workload. You can't move big things like that alone while keeping kids safe.

A fucking Wendy House?! I thought you were going to be talking about bikes and balls. Wendy houses, slides, sandpits are stationary objects.

I'm not a passionate gardener but I love DIY and interior design.
When our DS was born, I had just finished doing up our house and I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my own labour to my own benefit.
DS got a beautiful room out of the process but hell would freeze over before I'd turn my living space or bedroom into primary coloured plastic-stuffed crèche.
Adults are allowed to keep their own identity, dreams and hobbies - even after children.

Let him fret over his garden. The play area is on it's way after all.
I didn't have a garden or garden toys growing up but I was still out from dawn till dusk and #makingmemories didn't pass me buy.