Structure

Over the weekend, we had a visit from Number One Godson and Only Goddaughter. Only Goddaughter and I spent quite a bit of time in the garden together, planting seeds, watering starts, and building structures. I'm particularly proud of the bean structure we built together, which once populated with bean vines will serve as a lovely privacy screen for the garden. Only Goddaughter helped out quite a bit with the building of said bean structure, holding string and handing me zip ties to bind the poles together. I must say, it was very nice to have an extra pair of hands, be they tiny, sticky hands at that.

Speaking of structure, boy do kids need a lot of it. I suppose it's a choice to provide kids with structure, just as it's a choice to provide structure to plants. I've certainly experimented a great deal with structure in the garden ; I've spent little to no time with my plants, let them become wild and bushy and tangled, and I've also pinned them so tightly to their cages and poles that they've choked. The balance, as with most things, lies somewhere between. I try to provide enough structure that things can take a happy, healthy, natural course, but not so much that there are no options if I'm not around. The same seems to work pretty well with kids.

Man O' Mine and I talk a lot these days about having kids (well, actually, just kid -- we plan to outnumber our offspring, as we're certain that DNA will play a dirty trick and give the child both the combined sum of our intelligence and a genius for rotten and devious behaviours that will be horrible in a truly suprising manner). But man, kids are exhausting! I know that Mom and Dad of Duo Godsons and Only Goddaughter are probably reading this right now and laughing, but seriously, two kids collectively managed to wipe me out! Godson Number One is ten and moves with such energy and frenetic joy that it tires me just to watch him. And Only Goddaughter is in her "Why-No" phase right now, and has perfected a certain tactic of repeatedly questioning the "whys" of the world that would break a hardened criminal. And what's with not wanting to go to sleep? And waking up with the first songbirds? Man, I can't wait to go to sleep, and once I am asleep, I like to stay that way a good long while. I think that's a marked sign of adulthood actually -- you start to enjoy sleep almost as much as you enjoy being awake.

Still, shagged out or no, it was absolutely delightful to share the weekend with the kids. And getting up at dawn wasn't that bad --- it gave me a lovely excuse to walk out to the garden just as the sun was rising to pick and eat strawberries with an adorable little girl.