As my baby turns into a full-blown toddler, I notice how many pieces of our days are coming together as rhythms — and as far as he’s concerned, the more repetitious the better.  Some of them are as sweet as life can get (being awoken with a kiss on the nose) but most, I find, are simply the actions that make up a day — from trips to the grocery store to trips to the potty.

So many of these small occurrences throughout the day warm my heart — wishing they’d last forever but knowing he’ll outgrow them — but none so much as the ritual unpacking-of-the-day that happens just before he settles into sleep for the night.

After a storybook and before any expectation of quiet, we snuggle in and I walk him through the day that has passed, attempting to catch as many of the details as he has language for.  With each word that arises that Orlis knows how to say, he’ll repeat it after I say it, allowing his burgeoning vocabulary one last hurrah before the sun settles.

And nearly all of it, like I say, is comprised of the usual suspects within the day of a 19-month-old — a snack here and there, a glass of milk, some drawing and digging and riding trucks at the park.  Hopefully, we’ve gone for at least a short bicycle ride, and maybe he even helped a little to cook dinner.  Many days he’s cuddled in for a good cry, and nearly every day we’ve discovered something utterly hilarious (to repeat over and over again.)  It’s likely we’ve gotten out the crayons and I can almost guarantee he’s showed me the picture of the waffle in the Richard Scarry word book.  Certainly we’ve managed to brush teeth and have found plenty of time for singing.

And such is the song I hear as he begins to settle his body…”bicycle…pasta…milk… potty…hat…bicycle…daddy…truck…cheese…bicycle…nigh night,” and I see the effect on him of remembering and, I’d like to think on some level, appreciating, the small things that somehow make up a day.  I think he lets it go.  And, as he does, so do I — the bumps on his head and the half-done list and the mess downstairs and the worries big and small.

We let them all go, in those last lovely moments of my little boy’s day, as he calms his legs and drifts into sleep.  (And by “drifts,” what I mean is, he takes his sweet time.)

photo by Albert S. Bite

In musing about how to aptly honor my mom on Mother’s Day I find I’m often stumped.  Purchasable gift options seem trivial, sending flowers seems played, and sharing brunch when we live across the country from each other is impossible.  Even my own words on a carefully-chosen card can often feel a little forced…not because I don’t feel it…on the contrary, I feel it a lot.

Being a mom myself now only compounds the issue because I really get it now, the endless commitment and sacrifice and ups and downs of being someone’s mom.  It’s a deep, intense, complicated role, no question, and I feel that with every bone in my body at some moment, nearly every day.

So, when words fail me along with Hallmark and gift shops, I turn to the trees.  They say what I can’t — something about deep roots and strong, unwavering trunks, and shifting with time and temperature.  They say something about branching out, and also about sticking around, deeply in the ground, while everyone else scampers about.  They say something about digging themselves as deep as they stretch themselves high.  They say it all pretty well, actually.

Of course, I’m one of the lucky ones, and this I know as well.

You might be thinking: why would I take tips from a 2-week-old gardener?  I’ll tell you why — for the same reason it is so important to learn from kids — because the perspective is so fresh and current.  I remember when I was breastfeeding for the first time, and while it was crucial to me to have the support and wisdom of experienced breastfeeders — both live and in books — it was equally as crucial to talk with moms who were at the very same stage as me: the awkward hard stage.  There’s just nothing like the beginning — of anything — but once we are seasoned, so soon we forget.

So here they are: my top 5 tips for starting a garden and hoping it’ll grow:

1. Grow something easy.

You might remember that I went out and bought a 2-pack of mint starters before realizing, in fact, half my backyard is covered in mint.   Indeed, this little herb does like to grow.  You can try to stop it, but it’ll likely be in vain.  That makes it a great starter pot for your herb garden.  I planted that two-pack in a decent-sized pot and I swear, two days later it had doubled in size.  It’s more prodigious than most weeds.  And thus, it builds confidence.  If all my other plantings fail to thrive, I won’t be a complete gardening failure.  I’ll have plenty of mint.  And that’s good for the ‘ole confidence.

2. Incorporate some gardening vernacular into your speech.

You might remember I did a lot of the yard prep and planting when my mom was in town.  She had no sooner picked a shovel up off the ground than she started spouting gardening idioms like weeds — they were spilling out everywhere!  Gardening does bring out the joker in many of us, I’ve noticed.  My personal favorite was when she found an old hoe in our garage and upon testing it said, “this isn’t my favorite hoe I’ve ever met but it will really be your friend in the garden.”

There are thousands of gardening idioms that we like to throw around all the time and they take on a whole new meaning once you are really planting things.   Calling tools by their proper names and acting like you know what you are talking about just makes the whole proposition so much more fertile for laughter and confidence both.  Upon weeding, I actually heard Rob say, “I love weeding!  I love just getting in there and tearing it from the root!”  I rest my case.

3. Hire a professional.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of getting a bit of help from some experienced gardeners.  They need not be “professionals” per se, but someone who has actually brought something from seedling to string bean is very helpful.  Gardening is a lot about trial and error, as everyone’s yard is so different.  Having some of the trial spawn from time-tested advice can be a boon to the possibility of an actual harvest.

I was so grateful to have someone tell me I need to, for example, purchase some gloves.  And to show me how much dirt to turn when I’m turning dirt.  And to point out the difference between a weed and a plant-that’s-supposed-to-be-there.  My mom was great help with this, and so were the good folks over at Garden Fever, here in NE Portland.

4. Hire a non-professional.

If you can get your hands on a child under the age of 5 to accompany you in your gardening project, I highly recommend including them.  There truly is nothing like a child’s sense of wonder — especially in the great outdoors.  From a child’s perspective, what’s not to love about a garden?  It’s got all the necessities: dirt, water, and lots of tools and containers.  Include your under-fiver and I think you might notice, as I did, just a little bit more the wonder of it all: the beauty of soil, the miracle of water, the utilitarian nature of everything, the simple and ultimate pleasure of interacting with the earth.

5. Eat what you sow — immediately!

One of the advantages of starting with an herb garden is it offers itself to you in edible form pretty quickly.  I popped some heads off the basil plant about 5 days after it went in the pot.  I don’t think it had grown much, but I needed to taste the fruits of my labor.  And my goodness, was that the best basil I’ve ever tasted — I was so proud you’d think I’d given birth to the stuff.  Getting to eat what we’ve planted — even just a taste — reminds us what this is all for.  Sure, it’s about the process and the politics and the footprint and the beauty, absolutely.  But it’s about tomato-mozzerella-basil salad too…and the cornucopia to come.  Cross your fingers.

I started this quilt quite awhile ago and finished the top (aka, the fun part) pretty quickly.  Then, as we quilters tend to do, I set it aside and started up on something else…probably another quilt top.  At the time, I didn’t know who this quilt would go to…no specific babies were on the horizon yet, but then one thing led to another, and here we are, mere weeks away from the arrival of another cousin.

I love the part of the process where you lay it out so see where all the pieces fit best before you sew anything together — like a ceremony or a garden…or a decent outfit.  You can see, this early stage occurred when we were still living in the apartment in Brooklyn — hence a quilt in pieces laid out all over the floor of the music studio/everything-else room.

Admittedly, with the strange issue of having fertile friends and family members, I haven’t had the time to actually quilt any of my own quilts in the past.  I usually send them off to amazing Pat in Colorado for the quilting module while I stay home and do the fun parts, headaches averted.  This time, though, I thought I’d try my hand at the actual quilting and see how it went.

I used Rae’s Storytime pattern and followed her instructions to the tee — straight lines that make cool ditch squares all around the quilt top.  It was fun, and gosh did I learn how much L.O.V.E. goes into quilting.  I thought I already knew…but now I really know.  But, it’s busytown these days, so I think I’ll go back to employing Pat for the next set of welcome quilts.

In anticipation of popping this quilt in the mail in a few days, I let her sit in this glorious Portland sunshine on the porch for a few hours today — to soak in all that is green and fresh and good here.  When I brought it inside, I noticed the cat made her way over quickly to nuzzle her face into the soft cotton and pause for a photo opp.  As if to say, “hey, don’t forget — he’ll be my baby cousin too.”

This part of the process — the color selection — is my favorite part.  Ahh, the anticipation of a transformation is so wonderful — just picturing all the ways that this newly colored fill-in-the-blank (in this case, front door) will enhance my life.  I truly believe, as long you stay within a saturated palette, you really can’t go wrong.  You can just go right…in so many ways.

And isn’t it amazing what a difference a bit of paint can do.  I wanted a warmer welcome.  I wanted the first impression, when visitors came up the little path towards our door, to be one of cheerful greetings.  If the door itself could speak, I imagined it saying, “Hi!  Come on in!  I hope you like snacks and friendly cats and boisterous toddlers and a bit of a mess here and there, and enough colors and interesting things all around you to keep you entertained for quite a while.”

And as folks left, even those of us who live here and come and go many times a day, I imagined the door saying, “Come back soon!  Next time, let’s have tea and play checkers on the porch.  And, don’t forget your raincoat!”

And oh, I think it does — I think it says all those things.  Can you hear it, beckoning you just now?  I can.

For the purchasing of things, we split our dollars between Portland Nursery and Garden Fever — two distinct  and delicious havens for all things green-thumb.  We headed to both places on Saturday to suss out the possibilities and boy are they endless.  It’s a shifty equation, this gardening business, with the quite vulnerable variables of light and water.  There’s the planning and the pondering and the wanting-to-do-it-right philosophy that seeks to yield more than a few days of flowers or a handful of strawberries in a season. And then there’s the “plant it and try not to kill it” philosophy espoused by my friend Ric, who despite (or perhaps because of) his reckless meanderings in the soil, is one of the most successful gardeners I know.  I’d say we sauntered in with a mix of the two.

Now, my mom, she is not afraid of a little shoveling.  That woman can dig and weed like nobody’s business and with Orlis at her side sweeping up the excess and entertaining her with his “she loves me, she loves me nots” with the flower heads, we were in good spirits, and getting lots done.  I sat a bit on the sidelines and gracefully planted an herb garden (always more fun when you pronounce the “h” like the Brits do) having bought all my favorites including a duo of mint only to realize my garden is already, in fact, covered in mint from previous planters.  This is the kind of learning that just makes me giggle and understand what makes gardeners such a laughing, friendly breed.  It’s probably because they drink a lot of mojitos.

So between naps and snacks, we (mostly she) dug and raked and piled rocks and got it all ready for a sprinking of colors and vegetables to come in good time.   We ended our weekend with hot dogs on the grill and “real” potato chips (as my mom likes to call them) sore legs, and the satisfaction of dirt under our fingernails.  She spoiled me silly, this Mama of mine, with her strong hands, her penchant for a nursery rhyme, and just the right mix of philosophies to make this garden grow.  She did name me Mary, after all.

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