Garage sale madness!! We spent hours today hitting up a ton of great garage sales all over our town today. Sam and Avery were both such troopers, even when it started to rain on us. The rain drops started falling and I said "oh girls I think we better head home" and Sam responded "oh those are just little drops mommy we can keep shopping!" Love that!
Anyway, between the rain and the shopping we were also able to get some seeds in our garden today! Sam and I planted the carrot patch, a small group of sunflowers and some marigolds. Sam had a blast "helping" to dig all the holes and watering the seeds. I am happy that we got our first session of planting behind us.
Now, most of the time I am pretty patient with Sam. Willing to let things get messy and chaotic when we are working together on projects. But today was VERY hard for me. She did not understand the concept of needing to measure out where to put the seeds, trying to carefully place tiny carrot seeds in a line or gently watering the freshly planted seeds instead of dumping a whole watering can in one spot! I lost my patience very quickly.
I think I struggled today because gardening is new to me. Not general gardening, I grew up helping my mom out in her very elaborate flower garden. We trimmed, weeded, transplanted, split, watered, etc. all of her flowers and plants. But we never did much with vegetables. The careful planning, planting, watering, tending, etc. that is required with veggies is all new to me and I am terrified of messing this whole thing up. I would like to see some real produce come out of this garden and so my stress and nerves turn into becoming a bit more of a control freak than I would normally be.
I need to get over this. I am sure the plants will be fine. Carrots will come up. No they may not be in a perfect row, each plant exactly two inches apart but the excitement and joy that Sam gets when she pulls on that plant to see a bright orange carrot at the bottom will make it all worth it; even if that is the only one!
So, the lesson of the day for me was to relax! Let go of the expectations and perfection. I need to treat this year as a bit of a practice year and be okay with myself if we don't see a huge bounty from our garden this year. The outside time, bonding and learning that we are all doing is making the experience worth it no matter what.
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The Nitty Gritty!
Relaxing is easier said than done! SO if you have any other types for this newbie gardener OR great gardening with kids posts or resources that you use I would love to hear about them. Please share!
I am hoping to add more resources to the Gardening with Kids page on the sidebar so if you share something that fits you may just get a permanent link over on the side!
Thanks!
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