Down with the kids

When I was pregnant with Big Sis I looked at the prospect of maternity leave with relish and made a ludicrously long list of things I would do! Of course once the baby was on the scene it became apparent that anything beyond caring for Big Sis and doing the washing was not in the realms of possibility.

That’s not quite true, I discovered the one thing rule. It’s pretty simple, with a new baby you can only do one thing each day - apart from care for the baby. Early on that one thing can be, for examle, getting out of your pajamas. As time goes by you can extend it to attending mothers group or preparing dinner.

Anyway, at the top of this ambitious list was fix up the garden. Of course it still hasn’t happened. My reasoning was as follows - babies sleep, so I’ll just garden when she’s down. Of course I didn’t realise the fact that once the baby is asleep there are 100 other pressing tasks to attend to like feeding self, returning phone calls, collapsing into bed to catch up on chronic sleep deprivation!

Also, babies don’t always stay asleep so messy tasks are a problem. You get changed, get out the tools, start making a huge mess and the baby wakes up! Anyway once baby is mobile it’s worse - they love to eat dirt, knock over pots, follow your activities with interest and pullout plants they just watched you plant - and I wont even mention Dogs contribution to what resembles a dust bowl in Summer and mud pit in Winter!

I have now discovered that 3 year olds and gardens don’t mix either, they are what I call imaginatively (as opposed to willfully) destructive. You plant some seedlings and then discover it has become an archeological dig - there are definitely dinosaur bones down there! They are also huge harvesters of flowers - which aren’t always destined to decorate the house, often they will be chopped and mixed with other substances including mud and water - they emerge from the the cubby on a serving platter, with some fanfare.

However, if parenthood has taught me nothing else it has taught me tenacity and I have a whole new angle. I am teaching Big Sis about the garden, we are growing flowers together! The plan is she will then understand how things grow, specifically how long it takes and why they are precious! I’ve chosen sunflowers because they are spectacular and apparently reasonably foolproof!

Big Sis is really loving it and checks the plants every day - she seems a little skeptical that proper sunflowers are going to be the result of putting the funny little seeds in the ground but she is at the moment humoring me! It’s like I’ve installed a little flower bed alarm, she runs in and tells me every time Little Bro threatens to dig them up or Dog sits on them. We’ve had a huge rate of attrition, I think we planted about 500 seeds and are down to 3 sprouts and this 38 degree weekend surely isn’t helping! Wish us luck, I’ll let you know how we go!