Garden Update: Coming up green!!
Just a day or so after I mourned the effort, it looks as though all the seeds I sowed about two weeks ago are starting to sprout! First up were the daikon and then the Thai basil. Today I peeked outside to see a lovely row of green coming up on our cilantro patch and the snow pea patch. HOORAY!!! I also checked the seeds I am starting in the garage and I’ve got a sprout! Hooray!!
I am so stupidly excited. 
You have to understand, I thought I had a black thumb! Maybe my dreams of a freshly picked summer salad aren’t so far off. I’m debating sowing some lettuce seeds in the space I still have in the planter.
Garden – Summer 2010
After quite a few stops and starts, I was finally able to start my very first garden earlier this month! And of course, I neglected to post the few photos I took. While I originally wanted to do a no-till lasagna garden and also considered a square foot garden, I ended up just getting a 4′ x 4′ resin raised bed kit and filling it with bagged organic garden soil. Not as frugal as I originally wanted it to be but I’ve made peace with this fact of life.
In my 4′ x 4′ garden bed, I’ve planted a cantaloupe plant and a cucumber plant. I’ve also sewn the seeds for Thai basil, cilantro, daikon radish and snow peas. I also have a tomato plant and cucumber plant in separate pots. (No real reason for this other other than plain laziness.)
Garden - Day 0 (5/18/2010)
About a week and a half after planting, my daikon sprouts are thriving (YAY!) while my cantaloupe and cucumber aren’t looking so hot.
Daikon sprouts
The Kindness of Strangers
TLE's outdoor dining room
TLE's new summer palace
I have to say that aside from The Little Empress doing so well in her new school, the month of April has sucked mightily thus far. How mightily? We had to take one car in for major repairsand then, the very next day, for The Hubs to get into an accident on his way home from work. Thank God he wasn’t hurt and we do have insurance but the two incidents cost us pretty much every penny we had. As could be imagined, getting new toys for The Little Empress or much needed vacuum parts wasn’t exactly high on our priority list as keeping the roof over our head, food on the table and gas in the vehicles took precedence.
Enter Freecycle. I have a love-hate relationship with Freecycle; I love the concept of it but sometimes, people can be really annoying when they are picky about what they’re asking for. I mean, I can understand asking for a dresser for your child’s room because they have nowhere to put their clothes but specifying how many drawers, how large and what color it has to be is a bit much, you know?
The Little Empress is a messy little thing. How messy? Well, she has, um, taken to watering the furniture with her drinks. Despite having paid extra for fabric protectors on our couch and chair, everything is sticky and disgusting. Unfortunately our family room and kitchen are adjoining and if TLE gets even an inkling that her drink may be taken away from her, she’ll upend it and splash around in it. This is about as gross as it sounds. Imagine my relief when someone posted their steam vac for grabs on Freecycle. Thirty minutes later, I was the proud new owner of both a steam vac and three bottles of cleaner. My furniture is saved without having to resort to an expensive cleaner!!
Two things that I’ve been wanting for TLE but just couldn’t find the money to get were a child’s stepstool and a little plastic picnic table for her to use outside. There are definite “wants” vs. needs but would be truly appreciated by our family. I’ve asked for them on Freecycle before with no luck. I decided to try again and was very happy to wake up to a message from someone saying she could give us her children’s picnic table that her kids outgrew. Even better, she would throw in their old play house!! I was ecstatic but said that I couldn’t pick up the playhouse (since our truck done got crunched) but would be over for the picnic table.
She shot me an email back offering to deliver it. SCORE!!
After such a crappy few weeks, it was so nice to have such a nice gesture out of nowhere. She had very kindly cleaned the playhouse as well. Sure it isn’t brand new but it is new to The Little Empress and she is absolutely ecstatic to have a little house her size.
Garden Update
Almost two weeks after planting my first seedlings, I saw that most of my labor had been for naught. But only most. One particularly strong willed pot had successfully sprouted some green!
I was so excited that I made a mental note to take a picture of my horticultural triumph.
And then I forgot.
And then a strong gust of wind blew the little seedlings away later that afternoon.
Bummer.
All is not lost. There’s still plenty of Jiffy pots to plant with more seeds to start. Tomorrow is a new day and next week, we shall start anew! And maybe this time I’ll follow the directions. Maybe.
Prelude to School
Whew! I haven’t been to this much school since I graduated! I had to bring TLE’s immunization records and fill out some paperwork before she officially starts school next week. The director suggested bringing TLE along to let her get a better feel for her future classmates.
As soon as we walked up to the center, TLE jumped around excitedly to see the playground. There are two playgrounds at the center, each with different apparatus to help the kids with their motor function. Luckily, we were asked to come around playtime so TLE was able to join abunch of the kids on the playground. Then we moved inside and I worked on filling out paperwork while TLE had the very important task of trying out all the toys they have to offer.
The director filled me more on the program and gave me the breakdown of the class schedule as I filled out paperwork. There is a lot of free play as well as structured play to help the kids develop whatever skills they may be behind on. She also informed me of the open door policy — basically, I can sit in on the class whenever I want. This may just ease my Mommy-guilt.
We stayed for about an hour. TLE was allowed to roam the classroom, playing with whatever struck her fancy. And just about everything struck her fancy. She zipped from activity to activity, playing with blocks, the play kitchen, toy cars, balls, etc. I liked seeing how the teachers played with her, how they really got down to her level and explained things to her. The class is very small, maybe 8 kids to 2 teachers as well as additional volunteer aides and specialized therapists.
Later in the day, we attended an open house at the co-op preschool that I want to send her to when she turns three. Cooperative preschools are almost entirely parent run, with one paid teacher. I love this model since it is a perfect bridge between homeschooling and traditional schooling. There’s only one co-op preschool in the area so I want to be sure to get her name down as soon as possible. She loved the classroom and while she’s still too young to sign up for the upcoming school year, I’ll definitely have her name down for 2011.
I had a few concerns about preschool, especially since there’s no telling if she’ll still be delayed by the time she turns three. One of the parents that I talked to eased my fears. Apparently, this co-op is where the school district recommends for children who have aged out of the county early intervention program. Lucky! So either way, TLE would likely end up going to this co-op which makes me happy.
What doesn’t make me happy is the fact that I don’t know what we’ll be doing for elementary school. There’s an elementary school just a half mile walk from our home but I refuse to send TLE there. Unless TLE settles down a lot in the next few years (doubtful), I think that putting her in an overcrowded classroom will kill any chance she has academically. I remember being in a crowded classroom in elementary school and being frustrated that I wasn’t being called upon. (Yes, I was the annoying kid that always had her hand up.) Teachers said that I was disruptive or uninterested. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was frustrated and bored out of my skull because I wasn’t getting the attention I needed. If possible, I don’t want to put TLE in a similar situation.
There are two very popular charter academies in our school district but there’s a waiting list a mile long. It is all lottery and the idea that there’s nothing I can do to ensure that my daughter gets a good education makes me sick. All I can do is put her name down and pray really hard that she gets in. Otherwise, homeschooling becomes our other option. Luckily, there’s homeschooling through the district, which provides curriculum as well as teacher guidance once a month, which ensures that TLE would be following the same curriculum as her public schooled peers. Still, I’d rather that she was in the charter but I guess we’ll deal with that when it is time.
Spring Gardening
The Little Gardener
Like most toddlers, TLE loves to be outdoors. So much so that she’s spent the last month or so looking longingly outside, pointing outdoors and indicating that she wanted out. But alas, the weather has been horrific for the past month or so, raining steadily since about the beginning of February.
Happily for her, it looks like the last vestiges of what passes for winter around here. The sun has been out for a few days now and today it has warmed to the high 70s. We bought her a sandbox as an early birthday present and she absolutely loves it. She’s so happy to be able to run around in her backyard and play in her sand box.
It is beautiful enough to coax an avowed indoor geek like me to try my hand at gardening. So far, I’ve got the tools and materials for what I hope could eventually be a nice little garden. However, I know absolutely jack about what I am doing. (Garden n00blet FTL!) I decided to try to start some plants from seed. For one, it is cheaper than buying plants and two, I haven’t yet laid out my lasagna bed. Ooops. The plan is to start the seedlings and then transfer the plants once the bed is ready.
Grandiose plans and delusions of adequacy aside, I’ve been rediscovering what fun it is to pack dirt away in little cups. I bought a kit of herb garden seeds to start in little cups. Here they are at Day 0, just after I planted them.
Basil, dill, oregano
Chives, sage, parsley
Not much to look at, I know. It is Day 2 now and I don’t see anything yet. Hrm. Patience is NOT one of my virtues. I am just fervently hoping that I haven’t killed them yet!
Not to be left out, I also bought a Sesame Street Gardening Kit for TLE which came with a bunch of plastic tools, peat pots and seeds. TLE preferred digging in the dirt than filling cups with it but I did manage to get her to not only to fill her little pots but also got her to poke a seed into each! Huzzah! So these little buggers are hers — gardening at the age of 2, isn’t that awesome?
TLE's watermelon seedlings
I will be sure to update this blog as the days progress. Am hoping that I’ll have something more to show for these efforts than just a few pots with dirt in them.
Puddles, puddles EVERYWHERE!!!
When we introduced her to drinking from a cup, we must have gone through all sorts of sippies, including the no-spill ones. While she seemed to like to teethe on the spouts, she never actually liked to drink from them.
But when we introduced her to drinking from a straw, she took to it immediately. The problem was that I found a lot of the “no spill” straw cups tended to gunk up and were very hard to clean. Even when cleaning them immediately and scrubbing them using a Q-tip didn’t get them clean enough for me to trust. Finally, I decided to use a combination of disposable straws with reusable straws (specifically these Take and Toss cups from The First Years) which has worked out well for us except for one tiny thing… they’re not spill proof.
The non-spill proof thing hasn’t been a problem until recently. The past few weeks have been pretty rainy here in the Bay Area but honestly, the puddles outside have nothing on the puddles that The Little Empress likes to create inside. I tend to give her a 2 to 3 oz of milk at a time — such a tiny amount compared to what other kids her age tend to drink! I’d happily give her more milk to drink if she’d take it but she simply won’t. She takes a few sips and as soon as she’s no longer thirsty, she’ll turn the cup upside down and begin to sprinkle it on the floor!!
At first, she only did this every now and then but lately it has been a huge problem. It seems every time we give her something to drink, most of it finds its way to the floor. What is in the cup seems to make little difference; she’ll do this with milk, juice, water. On a few particularly gross incidents, I have caught her dumping the liquid onto our hardwood floors and then attempting to lap it up like a dog! (EUW!!!)
I’m really at a loss for how to stop this. I’ve given her time outs, taken the cup away, etc. Nothing seems to work and she does need to drink. All I can do these days is to keep a stash of paper towels or cloth towels handy to mop up the mess and then take out the Swiffer to try to get rid of the stickiness. sigh I am just hoping that this is a phase she’ll hurry up and grow out of. (At this point, I am just so happy we picked out hard surface floors for our house for this very reason! I can only hope the hardwood can survive TLE’s onslaught of abuse!)
Oh sod it…
One of the major downsides of buying foreclosures is that a lot of the times, the house isn’t in the greatest shape. Pretty, staged homes were NOT what we saw. Most of the time, we toured homes that were hurriedly vacated after months of neglect. After all, if you’re going to lose your home anyway, why bother with upkeep?
We ended up buying a home we loved that needed quite a bit of TLC. And for the most part, the interior got the TLC it so desperately needed along with new floors and mostly cosmetic fixes. Though we cleared the existing trees, weeds and overgrowth when we moved in a year ago, and got the house painted, we haven’t done much with the exterior.
Frankly, The Hubster ™ and I thought very little about curb appeal until we realized that our neglected front lawn was beginning to become a dumping ground for the neighborhood kids who seemed to think it was okay to dump their trash on our property on the way home from school. Plus, as The Little Empress is getting older, and the temperatures are getting warmer, it would be a shame not to have a nice lush lawn for her to run through the sprinklers or to place a little kiddie pool on.
The Hubster ™ and I debated about lawns for awhile. For a long time, we were both firmly against having a lawn because of how much money it costs. But we also realized that not having a lawn means that we’ve got a big patch of DIRT that weeds grow in however they please and there’s not a damned thing we could do about it.
So finally, I buckled and have gotten estimates for the yard work. Geezus chrysler, is that how much lawns cost these days? Had I known how much a decent yard costs, I would have been more insistent on finding something with at least a patchwork of grass instead of thinking that a blank slate was more preferable. Lesson learned 
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My name is Michelle. I write, I shoot and I mom, not necessarily in that order. I'm aware that 'mom' isn't widely accepted as a verb but I think it should be.I'm a self-professed geek and caffeine addict. (Some may argue that the latter is a requirement of the former.) I live with my husband and our daughter in the California Delta.
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