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.