Our Garden Walks

Dahlia that I found on clearance at Lowes

While I’m not much of a routine person, our mornings nearly are always the same. The boys wake up right around the time my husband hops in the shower, they play on the bed or in the bathroom until he is dressed, and then we all go downstairs where they get chocolate milk and begin systematically destroying the first floor of the house with their toys and breakfast.

Around 8am, we bust out the back door in our pjs (or diapers) and each enter our own worlds. The Man-child chugs his trains around the deck, the Baby toddles through the garden paths poking at things, and I walk around looking for ripe tomatoes, squash and beans with a camera around my neck. Around 9am, the cool of the morning begins to burn off and we make our way back inside to cool down and mop up the sweat.

Striped Roma Tomatoes

These morning garden walks are my sanity. It’s a short bit of time, but during that we all escape into our own worlds of discovery and don’t demand too much attention of each other. The Baby is a fearless adventurer, and I just love getting the chance to see the world through the babies eyes as he walks up to a gourd saying, “Ball!” and points with a grin at the sunflowers leaning over top the tunnel as they begin to dry.

The Man-child is too busy enacting stories with his trains to take much notice of the garden, but he does get excited to say “Hi” to the spiders and hold the really long climbing squash. I make little escapes outside throughout the day, and then we all go back out together after dinner armed with bug spray. Sometimes the boys take a quick dip in the kiddie pool, which I count as a perfectly reasonable bath.

Sunflower bending to the weight of ripening seeds

Inevitably, we are almost always dirty. Yesterday I took the Baby out with dried tomato seeds all over his shirt. He had found cherry tomatoes on the table and delightfully squished three or four of them between his fingers. He and I take pride in our dirty fingernails and the hint of tomato on our breath. I don’t worry about either of them getting into too much trouble in the garden. Our plants are fairly resilient and so are the boys!

Bean blossom