Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Plants Gone Wild

I realize that it is a bit early to be reading about parenting a toddler, since Moana hasn't even reached the 6 month mark yet, but I started regardless. The other day at Borders I picked up a book called Toddler Wise, which is by the same folks who wrote Baby Wise... I can't say I agreed with all of the advice in Baby Wise, but apparently there were enough pearls of wisdom in that book to inspire me to purchase its sequel.

Toddler Wise starts off with an interesting comparison... talking about how a gardener "does not create the bloom or the petal, or the stem that produces the petal..." But that "the power of life and beauty lies within the plant itself..." It goes on to say that it is the gardener's role to "know the time of pruning, training, and fertilizing that is necessary to bring the plant to a beautiful bloom.."

I thought that was a good analogy to the role of a parent.

Then this morning I was out drinking my espresso shot on our patio. A glance around at the plants made me second guess that analogy.

I sure hope that being a good gardener is not a prerequisite to being a good parent. Because we've got our own version of Plants Gone Wild outside.

Of course I mentioned this to Scott, since he was the one who took on the herb growing project several months ago. I think we did get a couple of tomatoes ripe enough to throw on a salad, but who knew that dill could overgrow every other plant in the vicinity? Seriously, that dill is like head high now. And it's got flowers. Flowers that Scott has apparently taken to admiring. Though in all seriousness I don't think he even knew they were there until I pointed them out.

His proud answer? "I'm letting them get to seed."

Sweet. Dill is going to take over our patio, and we're going to be parents of a wild child. I should just put those parenting books away.

7 comments:

Natalie D said...

haha, that's cute!!

Angela said...

You are too funny. And it's never to early to read up on toddlers...it'll be here before you know it! Better to be prepared than to be caught with your pants down, figuratively speaking.

Rebecca DeWire said...

I read a few baby books, but never picked up any books on toddlers. Nice plants, by the way, even if they have gone wild!

Marit C-L said...

Hee hee hee - really cute! Yeah, I tend to be a plant killer because either I FORGET or (because I've forgotten), I over water. Nice. Something tells me that (luckily) gardening is not akin to parenting... :)

Good luck with the dill!

H said...

Nice post, ha ha mainly because if you could look at our back garden you would think that Tom & I were either lazy or blind! Everything (except the lawn) is a little on the wild side, triathlon steals our time, energy and willpower to do anything about it! One thing's for sure, Moana is gonna know the things that are important in life with such great parenting :)

Sara said...

Great post! We've started talking about how to discipline a toddler (because we've seen friends with their kids) and we're both scared to see what we have in store :-) Family still in town, I'll talk to you soon...thanks for the call today!

X-Country2 said...

Great insight. I'm thinking abotu growing an herb garden this summer, so it's all great advice.