Planting and weeding

Snapdragons in the window box.

My busy little helpers...amazing how entertaining dirt and water are.

Austin with a tomato plant before putting it in.

After 10+ years here, I finally have a little space to plant. I was hoping our backyard would be dirt, so we could have grass and a garden patch, but unfortunately it was tiled and not much chance of changing it since we rent. BUT, there is lots of outdoor space and sun, so I am trying it. I have a couple flower boxes, a row of basil, 2 tomato plants and plans to also plant red pepper and yellow squash (I have seeds but have not planted yet).

I have little experience in gardening, though maybe it is in my genes since both my dad and Nana have green thumbs. Anyway, it is worth trying and the boys LOVE helping- they did great at scooping dirt into the plant containers and love to help water. We are also learning patience in waiting for seeds to sprout.

As for weeding, well, I have been doing a different kind of weeding (I am sure the gardening kind will be needed soon enough too). Austin has been having some pretty strong attitudes and a habit of answering NO to most requests lately. When he is disciplined, he has had some pretty strong reactions to it, saying things like "I am going to die" or "you hurt my feeling when you put me in time out" or "you are going to kill me if you spank me". So the other day we had a good discussion after he had calmed down about the purpose of discipline- that discipline is for his good, because we love him and to help him grow. The gardening analogy came to me, maybe since we had just been working on it. But we talked about how discipline is like weeding a garden- we need to get the weeds out so a beautiful flower or delicious fruit can grow. We are trying to grow that good fruit in Austin's life, so some weeding and pruning is necessary to help it grow. That finally seemed to resonate with him and he seemed to accept that as a good reason, even though it isn't pleasant.

Then today, Austin came home from school telling us (which was reiterated by his teachers and Bree) that "Bree told me to bite Zhao Hao Xiang and so I did". What? You actually bit a boy at school? Yes. He did. This is my first test of my child, the aggressor, at school. He did seem pretty sorry afterwards, had a timeout at school and apologized. But we had a long discussion tonight about doing the right thing, regardless of what a friend tells you to do and so on. So, some more weeding for us tonight.

However, it has helped me a lot actually to think of discipline this way and help put it in perspective when it feels like I am not seeing much fruit. Yet. I know the harvest of discipline is often years away from seeing its true results. So, we are doing some planting outside and a lot of weeding these days...will let you know we get to harvest.