High Hopes…
Earlier this summer, in an effort to cross something off my bucket list, I bought a load of seeds, soil and planters and spent a few days trying to cultivate a garden.
In my head, it would be a thriving little batch of vegetables that we would steadily harvest throughout the months so that we could cut down on our spending and eat completely fresh veg. I had planned to use the bountiful plants to make my own baby food for Dexter, thinking there would be plenty to go around.
But with the summer came either buckets of rain or scorching sun, and my halfhearted efforts never stood a chance. I hadn’t known that planters should have holes in the bottom, and as a result, they were more often than not completely flooded by the heavy precipitation. I also didn’t take into account that seeds may be small, but you shouldn’t plant 50 in the same small pot, or else the roots don’t really have anywhere to go and become tangled together to form one giant root.
By summer’s end (namely two days ago), I finally accepted that none of my work would be rewarded, and there was really nothing edible to indulge in.
My little garden looked pathetic:
But amazingly, somewhere in the gloomy tangle of dead leaves and weeds, I noticed something.
Something red. Bright, shiny red.
And when I looked closer, I noticed there were THREE little red things.
Somehow, despite my worst efforts, I had managed to create the miracle of life… in the form of three tiny, but perfectly formed tomatoes! My heart leaped, and I jumped up and down with it. I ran to Dexter to show him that our efforts weren’t totally wasted. He grinned his sloppy little toothless smile, gave a great belch, and proceeded to try and steal the little rubies from my hand. But I quickly stashed them in the kitchen so that I could show Mark when he got home.
The moral of the story, I guess, is that if you want to plant a garden, you can’t really wing it. For goodness sake, we HAVE a green house! We have proper terracotta planters that I could have cleaned out and would have worked much better than the 99p plastic pots I bought at the pound shop. We have a hose for water and plenty of sun will hit certain sections of the garden. But when you do something as complicated as gardening, you really have to devote your whole heart to it. Doing it just to cross something off of a list is downright silly.
So next summer, me and my little guy will do it right. Start early, plan it out and most importantly - we’ll label everything so that we know what’s meant to be growing. ;)
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In other news, Dex has been sleeping SO much better lately. He is taking actual NAPS during the day and sleeping most of the night through, from around 7:30 PM until his hunger wakes him at 5:30 AM. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to not be up most of the night anymore. Mark has been amazing, though. In an effort to help me wean, it is daddy who gets up for the night feeds now. I think it’s more in an effort to keep me from bringing Dex into the bed with us, which I have done every night since he’s been born (if I even put him to bed at all!).
And now that I’m not zombie-like every day, I can appreciate how adorable the little man is when napping. Today was a gem. He curled up in his playpen with his tiny white teddy bear that his Aunt Amanda gave him, and he dreamed sweet dreams I’d give anything to know.
Then, reenergised from his rest, he woke up, brought himself to his knees, pushed up with his little legs and grabbed hold of the side of the playpen and looked at me as if to say, “I did it mommy.”
This post originated at A Mother Thing (http://www.amotherthing.com). If you want to leave a comment, please do so here: http://www.amotherthing.com/2011/10/high-hopes/#comments