Sowing the Seeds of a Nature Lover

Five years ago I made a commitment to increase my Earth-friendliness and decrease my carbon footprint. It was a decision made by a pre-marriage, pre-motherhood, pre-career driven woman.

It was a decision made while I was a flower pickin', ideals driven, (still bra wearing) college liberal.

The commitment I made back then is still present today. Now it's fueled by an even stronger desire than "just because it is a good idea". My motivation comes from the realization that the biggest thing I am going to pass down to my child is this planet. I want it to be in the best shape possible when I turn it over. I want her to have a firm understanding that the choices she makes every day effect her spiritually and physically. That the actions we make have an impact on this Earth. There is no greater way to show this than to lead by example.

[Inject funny anecdote here] I have two large beautiful (if I do say so myself) planters overflowing with petunias in our front yard. Fascinated by the flowers, AG wandered over to inspect the pots one day while we were playing outside. "Perfect time for an 'all living things' moment" I thought excitedly as I rushed over to explain all about the little white specimens. I babbled on about how the plants were alive. I continuously repeated how the sun and the dirt feed the plants and they are growing big and strong because we take good care of them. She listened (faking interest) just staring at all of the beautiful buds flowing out of the pots. Then, she slowly lifted her head and smiled at me. "Oh my gosh she understands!" I thought elated, "How amazing!"

As quickly as a cobra snatching a poor unsuspecting mouse my tender-hearted little baby then reached out and snapped 3 petunia heads out of my pot in one foul swoop... the entire time still staring into my eyes with that sweet smile.

Uh huh.

I am not going to let this deter me from my mission. We continue to explore plants and flowers, take walks through the fields by our house inspecting all of the flora and fauna we find. I have tomato seedlings sitting near the kitchen window that are regularly inspected (now under my extra watchful eye). There are simple projects we have done as well that are getting her involved with the home "greening" efforts. She loves to throw the recycling over the railing into the bins and regularly participates in composting (mostly by tossing in additional wood chips). Basically any task that involves her throwing an object at something else.

I am always looking for new ideas, since most of the earth-friendly activities I find start with 3 or 4-year-olds. The more I think about it, though, there may be a reason for this. And I'm pretty sure my headless petunia plant would agree.

New Playground Enthusiast

As I am looking out of my window on this wet and soggy day, I am glad we played outside so much yesterday! Friday was our first big playground experience. Now that Addie is much more steady on her feet, I thought she would enjoy watching the older kids run around and maybe go down the slide once or twice.

We chose a great playground downtown by the riverfront that has a bunch of slides, things to climb on and a walking trail along the river. At first she did not know what to do with herself. There were only two older children there, maybe 4 and 7-years-old. She studied their movements, perplexed why they kept choosing to jump from the top of the jungle gym, then climb right back up and do it again. When the other children saw us, they ran over asking a million questions: 'Who is this baby?' 'How old is she?' 'Can she dress herself?' and my personal favorite, 'Can she come home with me?'. Ahh, I am so looking forward to the "20 questions" years that are right around the corner.

We managed to dodge the children a little while later. I got the little boy to go throw wood chips on the other side of the playground... he didn't need much convincing. The little girl was a bit harder to shake. She did not want me holding Addie's hand, she wanted me to hold her hand. Then she wanted me to carry her. I did not do either, all I needed was for her mother to reappear and see me carrying her daughter around. So I told her to go down by the river and see if she saw any ducks. Yep. Even as I type this I realize how terrible that sounds. Well her absentee mother should have been paying more attention to her... she was by the way jogging along the RiverWalk so easily half a mile away. Nice. I can't believe ya'll think I'm the bad one.

For awhile our entire playground experience was me following AG around the equipment, inspecting staircases, knocking on the giant pieces of plexiglass they use to keep kids from plummeting off the sides, picking up the occasional wood chip. She just wanted to walk around the jungle gym and view the world from different angles.

That's when she saw the slide. A towering green swirl of delight. I asked if she wanted to go down and her neck almost snapped she was nodding so emphatically. Then she just started walking towards the opening! I caught her right before she was about to step off the deep end. We sat down together and I muttered a quick prayer hoping I wouldn't look like the idiot mother whose butt got stuck on the children's slide.

326 times down the slide later I was looking for a new piece of playground equipment that might spark interest. We sat for awhile on one of the swinging park benches, then walked along the river and stopped to pet every single dog we saw. It was impossible not to, when they walked past she began screaming and pointing, "Dog - dog - dog!" All of the owners were obviously used to it and she met everyone from a giant Bull Mastif named Daisy, to a little 4-month-old Jack Russel, Max. By the time I had a chance to look at the clock two hours had already flown by.

The park has now been added to our growing list of "let's do this again". There were so many invaluable learning opportunities as well - colors, movement, shapes and sounds. I don't know why people buy all of those insanely expensive computerized toys just to explain what a red circle is. Take the kid outside and they'll learn about the circle and a whole slew of other useful kid knowledge. Like what a leaf tastes like.