February 18, 2015
The birth of children and raising them, such as my boys, is like planting little seedlings that will eventually grow into vigorous, rooted, grown-up plants. Do I need a green thumb to raise my children?
Only if raising them was as simple as adding water to their little souls, which are embedded beneath the soil of a flowerpot. Allow photosynthesis to occur for their developing efflorescence. Provide them with light and minerals for solid growth, and wallah! My boys are all grown up as quickly as plants.
And with some care, nurturing, sunshine, water, and food, they have shot up over these past few years. So much so that Nico is already towering his little head above the dining room table. What a growth spurt these two have had over the last few years.
"Ho, ho, ho, Green Giant!"
A throwback to that old commercial about Green Giant frozen vegetables, but I'm not ready to proclaim my son's giants yet. However, looking at my son Nico now, who is as skinny as a green bean, I wonder where that little baby went that I used to rest on my 12-inch, long forearm.
And baby Christopher, who I used to hold up by his little arms so he could practice walking by taking baby steps (pun intended) so that one day he could stand tall like the Jolly Green Giant. And it is working because that kid is growing so quickly.
Both these little guys are growing so fast. At first, when they were born, I was wiping their butt, then wiping their nose. As my boys got older, I wiped their eyes and dusted them off when they crawled, or I would become out of breath while I chased them around (that hasn't changed).
Then, as they learned to walk, I had to clean the mud off their messy arms, hands, legs, feet, and faces. I was stuck searching for band-aids for their broken skin so the Sponge Bob adhesive could stop the bleeding (sponge bleeding, ha!). All that work has succeeded because now here I am watching their first baseball practice, t-ball, and coaches pitch) while I fantasize about a major league career for both of them (eye on the ball, Christopher! Gotta get down on that ball, Nico!) What the hell? Too much photosynthesis occurs as their growth is just spurting out of nowhere!
Like a garden that grows into a sprawling field of food and nutrients, so do our children. The pride of a healthy, vibrant garden is a joy for anyone with a green thumb to marvel at. The same goes with my boys. I see their pictures and progression from infants to toddlers and now little boys, and I gleam with pride as I marvel at the beginning of their lives.
Watching them grow can be difficult because I don't want them to be teenagers yet. Just be little guys that sit with Daddy all the time. But they're forming minds of their own. For instance, I went from picking out their clothes for school or restaurants to now hearing their little voices strain to tell me, "No, Dad, I'm not wearing that."
When the heck did my sons become so picky about clothes? I realize that clothes are a form of expression. But for them to be choosy about their clothes, at their current ages of 5 and 6, is a little overboard, isn't it? Not that they have to like all their clothing like they don't like some of their vegetables.
Cultivating my little boys is the best kind of farming for someone with no farming skills I can accomplish in my lifetime. I just need an early wake-up, a strong back, and a good work ethic to grow them into respectable men that any parent will be proud of. And I don't need a green thumb to grow Nico and Christopher into that.
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