On Gardening and Growing Big Little Things...

Although I am a much more present and patient mother for Isabella than I was over a decade ago for Joe and Mads when they were babies, I will fully admit that I am still not a mother who was made to mother babies.

I know what some people are going to say - that no one is ever really prepared for motherhood, that mostly all of us do the best we can, and all that kind of stuff we say with the best of intentions to comfort and assuage those others of us who just aren't quite as gifted or inclined toward caring for the littlest ones.

fresh thyme

But I am TOTALLY ok with the fact that that I am much more naturally amenable, capable, and competent a mother for slightly older children.

That's not to say that I am not very much enjoying and learning to appreciate what it is to be a new mother again at 40, but learning is the key word here. I have talent for some things, and that talent has certainly bumped the learning curve on the things at which I'm gifted, but this mothering babies thing - well, I am always trying and learning. Specially the whole how to stay at home full time while mothering a little baby. That staying successfully, happily and fulfilled-ly at home full time with a baby thing - that is taking a lot of trying and learning.

And one of the things it's teaching me this time around, because I'm so much more ready to learn it, is a sense of wonderment and accomplishment from the "little" things (that we know are much bigger but are probably so named because we can miss them in the blink of an eye if we're not paying attention...).

as yet unidentified white bulb flower

Watching Izzy conquer her baby milestones, being here to witness the glee and pride in her big two-toofed, squirrel-cheeked, ear-to-ear grin, and realizing how blessed I am to have the chance to do it better this time than I did the last - that's a big little thing for me.

Being able to remind myself in a moment of utterly sleep-deprived and exhausted frustration when I think she's being a little nutjob baby how fortunate we are that she is healthy enough to be a nutjob baby - another big little thing.

And finding other ways, while I am however temporarily away from the paid in money work force, to derive a sense of fulfillment, achievement, evolution, purpose and productivity, to feed the pieces of me that don't answer when called "Mom," "Mommy," "Mother," or "Mama" - a truly big, essential, and sanity-saving little thing.

But the mind can only handle so much of the active and sometimes taxing - albeit rewarding- cerebral engagement it takes to write and photograph a recipe worth cooking or a blog post worth reading. And that whole domestic maintenance thing, while necessary, gets old from time to time...

Enter gardening.

resuscitated blueberry bush

A thing I never imagined in my much more impatient younger life that I would ever care to explore.

And yet it seems such a natural progression in my life at this juncture when I've finally learned to slow down, smell the roses, and be ok with doing my best and letting the rest unfold, not trying to control the uncontrollable, predict the unpredictable, or know the unknowable.

Better understanding both my abilities and limitations than I would have ten years ago, I've started out small. Just a few plants in the ground and a few more in pots.

the Christmas cactus that keeps on giving

And when I see new leaves sprouting on a blueberry bush I thought I'd killed, new little nodes on my Christmas cactus, a whole blanket of tiny thyme leaves coming in where I'd cut it back completely, new spearmint leaves growing like weeds just days after I've picked and eaten all the existing ones, and two new blossoms opening on some white bulb flower I transplanted from the side yard to the front, a big, huge, ear-to-ear, two-toofed, squirrel-cheeked grin wells up in the heart of my once black thumb.

That I get to share these big little milestones with y'all makes it all the sweeter.

Next up, it's four little garden beds for veg.

We're growing more big little things, a little at a time. :)

shinae