(Part three of a three part series. If you haven’t read part one yet, click here. If you haven’t read part two yet, click here)
When you become a boy mom, along with a filled out birth certificate and carseat, you are required to bring home the “how to cultivate a life obsessed with sports manual” from the hospital. Mine must have gotten lost somewhere between my hospital bed and car. The pressure starts shockingly early. I looked around at the three year olds chasing soccer balls and their parents cheering for them, red faced from yelling, and then back at my own child, content to dig in a pile of sand for an hour straight, and felt the urge to prod him to conform. I resisted for as long as I could, but I felt the pull inside me to introduce him to the game of soccer because it was my first athletic passion. We walked into our first indoor soccer class and observed the turf filled with carefully placed colorful dots, hula hoops and pool noodles and a group of children hopping around and chasing balls like grasshoppers. I reassured Pascal as he ran away and took his place in the group. At four years old I already felt like he was behind, and it didn’t take long for him to realize it himself. Mid way through most practices he would run over to me, nervous and crying and I would have to coax him to join back in on the current game they were playing, usually something soccer adjacent and simple. By the end of that class, I knew soccer was not going to be this boys sport, no matter how much I wanted it to be.
Every summer following that class I asked him the same thing, “Hey buddy, do you want to sign up for soccer?”, and as he got older “Do you want to play soccer with your friends? You know a lot of them play, you could spend more time with them that way”, and every time the answer was a resounding “NO!”.
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When you notice bulb foliage popping up in the garden bed, you can be sure that there are other creatures that notice it as well. You must be vigilant about protecting the newly emerging plants at all costs. Being proactive is best, so apply deterrents as soon as possible. You must keep spraying the deterrent every week and after it rains. If you skip a week, you may be sorry and see the leaves, and even worse, the flower buds, snipped off and laying on the ground. Fencing can also be an option, but it isn’t very attractive and rabbits can jump high and dig. Planting bulbs is always a risk, and you can’t stay up 24 hrs a day keeping watch. There have been many springs when I have woken up in the morning and walked into my garden bed to find just barely open crocus flowers snipped off and littering the ground. I mourn their loss and get out the spray in hopes of averting another attack. At the end of the day, just do your best to protect all the tender shoots in your flower bed, and whatever blooms survive are the ones that you were meant to enjoy.
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On the way home from school every day, I ask the boys what they did at recess. Often the answer is soccer because that is what 75% of what the boys in our area play. As Pascal moved from second to third to fourth grade the answer of “soccer” started to be accompanied with “and they all made fun of me and told me I sucked and shouldn’t be playing”. In the rear view mirror, I watched his tears fall, and knew I was powerless to make those words sting any less. I wanted to turn my car around and give the child who slung out the unkind words a piece of my mind, but the Holy Spirit reminded me, not a moment too late, that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God”. I swallowed my spit fire and kept driving home, allowing the burning embers in my gut to cool.
I reminded him that those kids have been playing for years and encouraged him to let it roll off his back. I remind him that he can always choose to do a different activity, and that when kids are mean it’s usually because there is something going on in their own heart. Mostly, though, I just said I’m sorry, and I love you.
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Bulbs can withstand almost any amount of rain as long as they are planted in well drained soil. A cool rainy spring is the perfect setup for a gorgeous floral display. If it gets too hot, too quickly, the bulbs become anemic and the flower blooms aren’t nearly as full of life. A hot spring means a short blooming season as the sun bakes the moisture from the earth. Too much water, for too long though, with no break in the clouds for light to shine through, will leave the flowers stunted and delayed. It is up to God to strike the balance and give us the gift of the floriferous bounty that we crave.
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Every day at school drop off before they get out of the car I say, "What's the truest thing about you?”, to which they reply “I'm precious, honored and loved by God!”. Lately I don't even ask the question, I just put the car in park and they start to yell, “I’m precious, honored and loved by God!”, as they kiss me on the cheek and jump out the door.
My oldest had a special weekend away with his dad recently, and during one of their discussions my husband asked Pascal if he was struggling with anything lately. He replied, “being made fun of at school”. At the end of their study on peer pressure and the story of Daniel from the Bible, Pascal was asked the question “what can you go to your mom and dad for when you are struggling?”, and Pascal wrote “to remind me of where I get my identity”.
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Once the parade of bulb varieties push up their flowers and open them to the sky, your only job as a gardener is to enjoy them. Make time in your day to walk out into your garden, preferably when the sun is sinking low and casting that delicious glow across the earth, and drink in everything you observe. Count the bees visiting each stamen, catch the contrast of the bright pinks and yellows against the dull brown and emerging green landscape, note the way the demure grape hyacinth draws you in and begs you to crouch closer to see it’s tiny drooping fluted cups of purple petals. Breathe in deep the aroma around you, close your eyes and feel the warm air that initiated all this waking up. Revel, and give thanks.
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For at least the past six Septembers, I train my eyes on the prices of bulbs for sale in the center aisle as the days bleed into October. Once they reach half off, it’s my signal to bring the boys along with me to pick out what we want to plant for the year. We usually get a variety of tulips, daffodils and then a few smaller bulbs like crocus. We wait patiently for the days to get colder, watching the forecast to anticipate the first frost’s arrival. We clean out the flower beds, cutting back dead foliage and raking out leaves. When we happen upon a particularly sunny day, sometime near halloween, I gather my trowels and their garden gloves and we pull the clearance bulbs out from their bags. We sift through the bulbs, removing any particularly dry or rotten ones, and we lay the bounty before us. I hold up a bulb and place it in their hands and say “ok, go pick where you want to plant it!”. The entire garden bed is free game, the only instruction being not to dig up another plant in the process. When they were small, their attempts at digging were pitiful, so I did most of the work, allowing them to pop the bulb in the hole and then giving them all the credit for planting. I would sometimes encourage or discourage them from planting some in certain areas, and often had to finish the planting because after only a few bulbs, they were tired and over it. At the end of our gardening session, the bed would be dotted with random holes, with no rhyme or reason, and certainly a bulb or two would be barely planted a centimeter below the soil’s surface.
After the first couple of springs, the joy and excitement of seeing their bulbs bloom secured this yearly process as tradition. They would crouch down low, and sniff each flower, or select one to rip out of the ground, handing it to me like a prize. On raining days, they would peek out the living room windows at them, cheering excitedly every time they spotted a new flower beginning to open. There was no going back now, this was an annual event.
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In 2020 I ran the virtual Tulip Time 10 K and injured my leg. I continued to struggle into the fall and when it came time to plant the bulbs, I couldn’t stand long enough to help. I sat on a chair with my leg raised on an upturned bucket and was tasked to stay put and shout out the instructions. My husband and sons scurried about planting the bulbs and I just sat there and observed. I watched my boys blossom into whole people who don’t need me nearly as much as they did before.
These days I have even less input. Typically they are hounding me to buy the bulbs, then peppering me with questions every single sunny fall day “is it time yet!? When can we plant them!?”. I lay the bags out and they get to work, fighting over who gets more and who gets what area. They are planted in less than 30 mins, this time in groupings and with more thought about how deeply they should dig the holes.
Perhaps this year we will even order our bulbs from one of those fancy catalogs— we will go all out and pay full price. I’ll let them pick out a few new and unique things to try— I’ll give them more to anticipate and keep the excitement alive.
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Having taught my boys for years about how to plant bulbs, I am now completely surprised every spring seeing the flowers pop up where they must have planted them. Sometimes, I just stand outside in the brilliant May light and inhale the goodness of it all as I observe the speckled technicolor display. I’ll continue planting in hope with my boys for as long as they're willing. Each year, carefully selecting what should be planted in the soil of the garden and in the soil of their hearts. Trusting that letting go and waiting yields the most beautiful blooms, even and especially when there is rain.