gardening

i love gardening.

or i shall admit i used to love gardening.

eric would laugh at this whole prospect of "gardening" and correct me in saying that i love to plant. the follow through always trips me up. watering, feeding. he usually steps in and takes over after i've done the initial planting because he has this funny objection to dead plants. it used to be a treat to get flats of flowers in the spring time and arrange them and plant them. then when i started having children it became a great mother's day treat to buy the flowers and get indulged with peace and quiet and time to plant the flowers. then i had another child and suddenly there was less and less time to plant and it was getting more rushed and more like a chore. phooey. i took a little break from planting. of course we did the usual every year. spruce everything up. lend eric a hand spreading some mulch. letting the kids run around with the watering cans watering the plants, i.e. the sidewalks.
i didn't think having yet another child would spark the interest in the hobby that i got too busy to pursue. it took a little twist. this year on mother's day we took a family trip to lowe's and picked out vegetable plants and seeds and some flower seeds and a few annuals. the initial idea was for eric to take the kids to plan the garden while i was blessed with some peace and quiet, but as anyone in the northeast knows it was downright frigid on mother's day this year. the kids lasted about 15 minutes and eric rushed to finish the rest of the veggies but left the flowers and seed for warmer weather. i sighed and figured we'll find the time somewhere. well just the other day after i picked grace up from school the time presented itself. for awhile now grace has been bored with her time after being picked up from preschool til the time her older brother gets off the bus. i'm such a mean mommy, i never let her dig holes in our yard and i don't allow her to cut and glue and paint unsupervised, but this day i allowed her to dig in the dirt, pull out the plants and place them in the pots and pat them down. tyler supervised through his eyelids which made the time extra special. just mommy and daughter. doing an activity with one of her favorite things, flowers. i think we both enjoyed it! and my hobby was rejuvenated. maybe just briefly but i had visions of being able to resume gardening on a grander scheme as the kiddos get a little bit bigger, but for now a few pots outside the back door will do.






poor child struggled so to lift the watering can! mommy made her use THIS one because it would look nicer in the pictures ;-)

proud of her finished product:

then we had some fun with our new bubble rocket:

even mommy had a go:

which apparently allowing her to use the camera to shoot mommy launching the rocket sparked an interest in photography! here's her study of mommy:

and i'll spare you from her study of the grass, her brother's snacks, tyler crying, and anything else that came across her path. not sure how many other 4 years olds get to experiment with a canon 30d, but she was enjoying herself so i just couldn't say no as i was composing what i was going to tell my photo clients the following week why i was going to have to cancel if she dropped it!

happy gardening!