Some patience, please

I snapped this shot among others just as Michael was saying what patient pets we have. Poor Olive. This is how she spends her days with us. Either trapped in Layna's embrace or under Layna's feet. Why just yesterday, I heard a cat cry. It's not a pretty sound, people. I go running into the kitchen to investigate and I find Laynee standing over the kitty with her foot pressed to her throat going, "You hear me? HEAR ME?" It was then that I had to ask myself a tough question. Is that what I sound like to her? Ugh. It made my stomach drop. But I do think I get points for not stepping on the children's' throats to to get their attention. I use a large metal spatula instead.

Speaking of child rearing, Michael made an interesting observation the other day while we were driving. Most of our good conversations come when we drive because when we're home, there's so much going on and we are constantly interrupted with tasks such as removing the kitty's claws from Corrine's legs, or refereeing a wrestling match gone awry, or mopping up the water that has overflowed from the bathtub. So driving seems to be one of our deep discussion times. We have others, but, anyway...

Moving on.

Michael said he heard a statement that he agreed to be pretty accurate about women. They tend to their gardens the same way they tend to their children. And for the most part I agreed. But what of those women who don't, who can't and who refuse to grow gardens? What of them?

See, I'm new to the whole garden growing thing. My first experience with a garden was as follows: We planted it, made sure it was being watered by the automatic sprinklers, checked on it occasionally and then we harvested it. It consisted of onions, potatoes, and peas. I rarely did much with it.

That was 9 years ago.

I didn't grow a garden again until last year.

Last year's garden was kept in an enclosed space we had previously used as a dog kennel. I planted cabbage, basil, tomatoes, peas, carrots and green beans. I watered and weeded consistently. Only the basil and tomatoes survived. The rest was taken over by morning glory and suffocated.

This year our garden was planted in two grow boxes. I once more planted peas, carrots, green onions, cilantro, okra, cabbage, and green peppers. Oh. And tomatoes. Guess what survived? The peas and tomatoes. The TOMATOES. They have taken over the garden. They accost me every time I go out there. They reach out and rub their tomato-y vines all over me, to the point of making me feel like I've cheated on my husband with an earthy smelling something who is all hands.

Here's the catch; I don't like tomatoes.

If you were to prepare a meal and include the tomato and you don't blend, grind or mash it up until it no longer resembles its true form, I will not eat it. I will simply move it around on my plate to make you think I'm interested, saving it for the very last bite, and then I'll make you think I'm so stuffed that I can't possibly eat another morsel, just to avoid putting it in my mouth. Now that being said, I love to grow them. They seem to be the one thing I can grow. In abundance. I will pull the morning glory away from their gentle root systems, I will water them, talk to them and coddle them. But there have been days this summer when I didn't water, when I didn't pull the weeds. When I completely ignored my growing garden, and can see that maybe because of that, my little garden didn't do as well as it could have. Sure, maybe I got some bad seeds and there was no amount of watering or weeding, talking to or coddling that would make them grow, but I feel somewhat responsible for it's welfare.

And this is where I deny my own comparison to gardening and mothering, and say that I love my children. If they were a fruit (or vegetable) I would eat them, even if they smelled like a tomato. I try my best to weed out the bad things. I feed them and nourish them, I take care of them, and when the harvest time comes, I will mourn their absence. And sadly, sometimes I ignore them.

But having written all this out, and read it through again, I can see some similarities. I can't deny them. And I'm a little bit unnerved by it, to be honest with you.It isn't until after the picture is taken that you can see it's imperfections. I just hope that the next time our kids take pictures with their minds, their little cameras capture us at our best. Gah! Why must Michael always be so right?

This is from only one trip to the garden. In one day.