Lesson 39

I know, I know. A long time since my last post. I know I say it every time, but we've been pretty swamped. Dad had his pacemaker put in, and just as things were getting back to normal around here, he had to go in for his valve repair. That took open heart surgery, and 6 weeks of recovery time before he's getting back into things. Let's see, we got a dog. She was a beagle. She was 7, but she kept doing her business in the floor. Even our bed. We tried our hardest to re-train her, but after 2 months we ended up taking her back to the rescue. You handled it well, Dad didn't even though he's the one that made the call. We've spent the summer swimming, going to the park, and even a couple trips to Paradise Park. We've spent a lot at home too, we got lucky and had a pretty mild summer except for a couple weeks of crazy hot. You've been swinging outside and running around, dying for your brother to be able to walk and chase you. We had a small herb garden and tomatoes growing on the back deck. You loved watching them and taking care of them. Anytime I picked anything, you wanted to do it Which brings me to lesson 39...


It's good to care for living things. Even just plants. It's very good for kids to do it. One day, when I have grandbabies, plant them a garden. It doesn't have to be much. We did tomato plants in 2 large planters on our deck and various herbs in some window boxes. Every morning you would run out to see if there were any "matoes" yet. When it was time to pick them, you were so careful to not knock off any of the other blooms. Once, you knocked off a bloom and spent 10 minutes trying to put it back. Finally, you buried it under the dirt so it would grow a new plant. It didn't work, but you had fun doing it. Tending a garden helps teach skills. Patience, self sustainability, it grows a knowledge of how to care for plants, and makes kids more willing to try new foods. Before growing our own, you refused to eat tomatoes. After growing them, I hardly got any of our cherry tomatoes because you would eat them right off the plant! Right now, our herbs are looking a bit ragged, mostly because it was a learning curve for me, I've never grown and used fresh herbs, but they're great. Much cheaper too, we're going to expand next year I think. You're already excited about planting more too. If nothing else, $50 will buy you a summer of "something to do" with the kid(s).