As most of you know, we traded our lovely three-story 1912 home in Wichita for a suburban box in Northern Virginia that costs three times as much. Most of the unpacking is done, and my very good friend Lyndal is coming out next weekend to help (let's be honest, to supervise my very unskilled labor) frame and drywall the basement and install a bathroom. So the wife and I decided this weekend would be a good time to plant some trees in our empty yard.

Off to Lowe's we went. After spending well over an hour, at least twenty percent of which involved tracking down the one employee entrusted by the corporation with sensitive information like how much it costs to rent their truck, we had settled on a ten-foot willow, two redbuds, a cherry tree, some other assorted flowering tree-like things, and a dozen azaleas (an opening salvo -- trust me, we'll be back).

Wife: "Don't you think we should just pay the $20 to rent their truck?"

Me: "Nah, we'll just have to lay all these trees down anyway. I can make them fit in the minivan."

Wife: "Are you sure?"

Me: "Oh yeah. No problem."

I asked the cashier for twenty or so large plastic bags, some of which I used to enclose each tree's base, others of which I tied together as rope to rein in the willow's branches. We slowly rolled our cargo to the minivan.

Wife (as I open the back): "Oh I forgot, I have the old paint cans back there."

Me: "Well then. This gigantic Hummer-brand stroller you bought at the yard sale takes up a bit of space too, doesn't it?"

Wife: "Here, let's put the paint up in front of the kids' seats." (translation: honey, lift these enormously heavy boxes of paint cans and cram them into these two really small spaces).

After much fitting and refitting we were on our way. The inside of our minivan was much like I imagine the rainforest, teeming with green things and echoing with the squawks of pygmy natives in the background. Poor Caleb had his legs bunched up to his chest, squeezed from their normal resting place by the Bradley Fighting Vehicle my wife had mistaken for a stroller. He periodically swatted at the willow branch invading his head space, fussing each time, "No, willow, get away. Stop that."

Eli had no quarrel with the redbud branch hanging over his carrier, as we discovered minutes later when we stopped at the Food Lion for baby wipes.

Wife (exiting her seat and opening the side door): "I'll be right back, I just need to get (sound of side door opening, followed by a bang and a splat). . . Oh my God."

Me: "What?"

Wife: "I just got paint everywhere."

I rounded the minivan to find a large growing puddle of white paint on the asphalt, inside the well underneath the floorboard (where the side door's rolling mechanism resides), and along the inside of the side door. The wife ran (so she says) in to buy water and paper towels, leaving me to battle the paint with five old Wendy's napkins. In the midst of my pitiful cleaning effort I looked up to see Eli eating an entire redbud leaf. His eyes met mine, and he gave me a large conspiratorial grin.

"Give me that." He gurgled. "Do you have some in your mouth? Oh, you little stinkpot..." I dug around and extracted a piece of leaf the size of a quarter. "Is there any more in there?" I circled his mouth with my little finger, which he gratefully gnawed with his two teeth.

"Ouch." I pulled back my finger, and he smiled as he grabbed another leaf with great zest. I immediately confiscated it. "Stop that. Stop it." I adjusted the branches, evoking protest from Caleb on the other side of the new greenspace.

"Quit it willow. Quit touching me."

I stooped down to continue cleaning, only to be distracted seconds later by a horrid belching sound from Eli. He had, of course, yakked up the rest of the leaf. He smiled.

"Look at you, covered in your own vomit. Have you no self-respect, man?"

"Da da da da da." Burp. "Da da da."

Eventually the wife realized that I would not in fact be able to clean the minivan with five Wendy's napkins, and so she emerged from the store with a three-gallon jug of water and a roll of paper towels. We proceeded to dilute and mop and wipe, while Caleb griped at the willow and Eli increasingly asserted his wish to be liberated from the baby carrier. We finally hopped into our somewhat cleaner minivan and sped off, leaving a paint can stuffed with wet paper towels on the cement parking lot island.

But I did save $20 by not renting that truck.