Summer fun with kiddos....wait, I'm sorry, was that fun?

Ah, the joys of gardening; the soft soil between your fingers, the warmth of the sun on your shoulders, the scent of freshly turned earth. It has been said, "You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt." And so you can, if only I could bury the three young children insistent on helping. Okay, I shouldn't be quite so hard on them. After all, it was my idea to plant the flowers as a family in the first place. Of course, I'd never planted anything beyond the stray apple seed on the playground or the pumpkin seed in the science class window box. I had no idea what planting and tending a flower garden actually entailed, let alone how much destruction a small child could do to that carefully tended plot of earth.

This summer's family project started at the grocery store. Just before reaching the checkout stand one of my four-year old daughters spotted the brightly colored rack sporting every variety of flower, herb, and vegetable known to man. Remember, at this age color is everything. If the color is bright the object must be good! So my little miss ran to rack and began her admiration of the numerous seed packages. "Plant flowers?" I thought to myself, "It would be fun. It'll get us out of the house, and our front lawn is in desperate need of color!" With these thoughts leading me on we proceeded to spend the next hour sorting through various colors of marigolds, azaleas, violets, and geraniums. You name it, we considered it.
Throughout this process each of my three children had a different vision of what would look great in front of our bland abode, and each child's vision was drastically different than my own. On top of the color and variety standards placed by each member of the family, we needed flowers that grew easily. We didn't want our first attempt to be a complete failure. The "guaranteed to grow" packages drastically narrowed down the options and after some heated debate we settled on wildflowers for one section, marigolds for another, and morning glories for the last. Finally, we had flower seeds! High fives were given all around until we realized we had no gardening tools. With a frustrated sigh and my patience wearing thin, I trudged my gang to the back of the store to get our gardening supplies. I had yet to reach the checkout line and my bright "plant some flowers" idea was dimming by the minute! We walked down each gardening isle at least twice making sure each child had their own gloves, watering can, and hand-held shovels and hoes. We also needed special soils, mulch, plant vitamins, the list seemed to go on and on. It was then I realized our dear flowers were going to be receiving better treatment than the dog, hamster, and fish put together!
Planting day arrived with a flourish. As the children always do on special days, they awoke me before the sun had even risen. Rubbing my swollen eyes and cursing the God that blessed me with the little angels I sent them down to find food while I tried to grab a few more precious minutes of sleep. Not three minutes later I was dragged from my soft, warm bed by the sound of the front door opening as my toddler decided the gardening wouldn't be waiting for first light.

After carefully reading the packages of each type of flower we began meticulously placing each seed. As meticulously as twin four-year olds and a two-year old can get, that is. The twins and I dug swallow holes, sprinkled plant food, placed seeds, and then covered each hole. The two-year then followed us using his shovel to flick dirt, plant food, and newly placed seeds right back out of their resting places. This continued until each child had lost interest in digging holes and had found other activities to distract their wandering minds. One child proceeded to cover the perfectly mowed lawn in cedar mulch, another began using the flower beds to hunt for new bug species, and the last decided the packages of seeds would be of better use down the gutter. In spite of all this, after hours under the hot sun, we finally had some seeds in the ground.
Now we were in for the long haul. Caring for them daily was our next feat. We watered and weeded, weeded and watered. I prayed for rain on days I was just too tired to herd all the kids outside to water each patch of sprouting flowers. And we watched in awe as our little sprouts turned into stems, stems sported buds, and buds bloomed to flowers. We had done it. After what seems like a thousand exasperating trips to the flower beds we had grow beautiful brightly colored flowers. I reveled in it, and still do for that matter.
As autumn now falls and my flowers are beginning to wilt, I can't help but feel a small sense of loss. Loss for the sunny afternoons spent begging children to stop drowning the marigolds. Loss for the handpicked blossoms lovingly arranged in bouquets by my darlings. And loss for the smile that would light my son's face each time he would pick a flower and hold it to his nose, basking in the sweet fragrance.
I learned a lot during those sunny afternoons spent tending flowers with my children. I learned that wildflowers drown when a young one becomes overzealous with the watering can, planting marigolds near your front door attracts skunks, and morning glories are a climbing plant that look fairly silly lining a walkway without a trellis to climb. But, I also learned that freshly picked flowers look gorgeous on the kitchen table, the beauty and wonder of a fragrant flower never ceases to amaze a child, and gardening brings pleasure, joy, and pride to even the youngest of children.