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Gardening with children

One more post, since it is more interesting than folding clothes or cleaning the kitchen...

We got pansies, as I mentioned earlier, and we decided to try to get them in the ground before they perished. Because of a misunderstanding about the size of the flowers, instead of 36 pansies, we actually got 54, a few more than I wanted to plant (I am just glad we didn't end up with 72, which was possible).

We went out to the triangle with our shovels and the flowers and started to dig holes. One of the shovels is lost in our car somewhere, so I actually ended up digging most of the holes with my hands. Fortunately, I was just digging in dirt placed over the lawn, so it wasn't too hard to dig.

Eleanor picked a pansy, named it, planted it, then picked another one to be the child of the one she planted first. Amanda dug huge swaths out of the mulch, putting the mulch and dirt on our lawn. She planted two pansies. Luke, contrary to expectations, did not want to help me dig holes. He really wanted to take pansies out of their containers. This turned out to be difficult, and he ended up ripping the top 1/3 of the roots out while leaving most in the container. Then I tried to get him to put the flowers in holes I had dug. He put the first few in, but then he started running away from me while holding the poor flower and laughing. He also liked to walk among the pansies I had already planted, stepping on a few. Somehow Hopper the stuffed frog made it out there, and Luke really wanted to plant him, too.

I managed to get all but 12 in the ground. Then we had to water them. Eleanor couldn't find our watering can, but she thought it would be a good idea to take one of our big round tupperwares and shake the water out while standing near the pansies. Only a few got nearly drowned, the rest didn't really get watered. We got out the hose with the watering attachment, and everyone took turns watering. Eleanor didn't like walking in the mulch with no shoes, so she went inside to find shoes. She found a flip flop and a rollerskate. I made her take them off to water... We all ended up slightly wet, with the exception of Luke (thank goodness!).

I think the saying goes, "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." If so, our pansies should be really strong this year. Either that or dead.
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