Mrs Hannigan's Home for Girls

In my quest to live at a child’s pace, and just let my kids “be” I’ve been making a point each day to accompany my 21 month old on a walk to the garden each afternoon. She gets “itchy” to go outside with the older girls, but she’s too small to play in their games, so we walk to the garden.

Our house is on 4 acres and the vegetable garden is less than 100 yards from the door. I didn’t plant much this year; two kinds of tomatoes, six kinds of peppers, 2 kinds of eggplant, pickling cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, strawberries, a few herbs and pumpkins. The pumpkins are her favorite.

“Pukkin mommy, pukkin now mommy” That’s the signal that it’s time to head outside. “Do you want to go see the pumpkin in the garden now?” “Yeah pukkin garnin mommy pukkin now, OKAY mommy” She can be a bit impatient when I’m putting on my shoes, it takes all of thirty seconds to slip on my flip flops but in that time, she’s said “NOW” about three times. Persistence is a good thing, right? “Let’s go” I say, and she runs for the door.

We’re finally out the door and I’m headed for the “garnin.” “Uh-oh” she says. She kicked a rock off of the porch and absolutely must put it back into place before we proceed. Finally, she finds the rock and puts it back “yets go” she says “see pukkin garnin okay mommy” and we’re off.

The grass is tall, she steps in a hole and trips a little. I stop, waiting to see if she’ll cry or need me, she stands and continues walking as if nothing happened, until she sees me stopped “Mommy yets go see pukkin garnin” as if I’m holding her back somehow. “I’m coming,” I say “Want me to carry you?” “No mommy no carry you. See pukin garnin Okay.” She’s not put off, or upset about falling, and she continues.

For about 4 feet. She notices a broken branch on a peach tree. “Uh oh mommy, broken, uh oh figgits (fix it)” I tell her “I can’t fix it honey, it’s a tree. it’s broken. It’s OK, let’s go see the pumpkin.” And we’re off. yet again.

For about 3 feet. A butterfly is in the grass. Clearly having flown over for the sole purpose of making her laugh. She covers her mouth as she’s laughing, and holds her side. I wonder, did that little giggle give her a side cramp or is she copying the gestures we were making last night as we skimmed through a website of riotously hilarious photos as a family last night ( funnybabypictures.net- I dare you not to laugh) Anyway, she tells me “buhfie mommy, see buhfie? buh fie get me (laughs)” “Did that butterfly get you? that silly butterfly.” Her focus on getting to the pumpkin isn’t blinding her to beauty along the way- wow. I should walk slowly more often.

But I’m still me, y’know. Eyes on the prize…” Look, Evie- I see the pumpkin” We’re not even halfway there yet but it’s taken five minutes to walk fifteen feet and obviously my mind is wandering. So she runs toward the pumpkin, giggling.

For about 5 feet. Then she stops. “walking now mommy okay” and she reaches up to hold my hand. For about 2 feet. Running was just too exhausting.

About ten minutes and twenty distractions later, we finally reach the great pumpkin. A predictable conversation ensues, whereby we discuss that it is round, orange, big, bigger, growing, on the ground, dirty and still orange, still round.

This, in case you wondered, fulfills some of our state’s requirements for kindergarten math, by the way.

Then, we have to check out everything else. While she’s reciting her daily pumpkin speech, I munch the yellow pear tomatoes. Yes, they’re yellow, some are green and they’re not round. She tastes a tomato, just like she does every day and spits it out, to tell me that it’s “yucky.” I could have told her that she wouldn’t like it, because every day she tastes one and decides anew that it’s yucky. That’s OK, she’s reseeding. It reminds me of my sister being forced to taste just one pea at the dinner table as a child. Why does this baby CHOOSE to continue tasting something she doesn’t like and at any point in her life, will she end up liking it eventually? I don’t know, I’m just enjoying the show.

She notices that some of the peppers are red. “Wed mommy wed, wed pukkin” I break the news “That’s not a pumpkin honey, it’s a pepper.” So I pick the pepper and hand it to her, along with 5 or 6 other peppers. Gypsy peppers, fajita peppers, jalapenos and Big Jim peppers. She can’t carry them all in her arms, luckily there’s a little basket in the grass, leftover from the older girls’ play, so I put the peppers in the basket and she’s jumping up and down, wanting to show Daddy the peppers. So, we’re off…

At least seven times between the garden and the house, she dropped the peppers. Each time, she cheerfully said “uh oh” and bent down to pick them up. I offered to carry them for her, but she wanted to carry them herself. The basket was kind of small and the shape of the peppers was such that if you didn’t put the long Big Jim peppers upright, there would be no room for the round peppers. Lying down, the Big Jim peppers filled the whole basket. She tolerated me helping her rearrange them in the basket as we picked them up.

A couple times, she attempted to “count” them, to make sure they were all there “one two one two one two fee six one two SEVEN” In edu-speak, she’s expressing a preliminary understanding of one-to-one correspondence, indicating that she understands that numbers can be used to represent physical things, for record-keeping purposes and for tracking quantity.

Then, she steps on a thorn. This time, when I offer her a piggy back ride, she consents. We’re six feet from the door, but I know that can mean at least two or three more instances of dropping a pepper and bending down to fix it all. When we reach the door, I ask her if she wants to get down and walk the rest of the way to the kitchen. She drops her peppers twice on the way to the kitchen and screams at the top of her lungs when one of her sisters tries to pick them up for her. She can’t figure out how to arrange them in the basket, so one-by-one, she runs them back and forth to the kitchen counter. When the last pepper is in place, she looks for me “Awwdone mommy, peppers done” and I cheer for her.

She’s exhausted, she snuggles in to nurse and crashes for at least an hour.

I stare at her in her sleep, trying to find that place inside me where I am just as persistent, non judging, patient and focused. Then, I give up, simply grateful that I got to share that moment with her, and hoping I remember the lessons when I need to.

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