A little faith

A couple of weeks ago Madeleine came home from her Sparks meeting excitedly clutching two little plastic cups of dirt.  Personally, I was somewhat less excited about the dirt part.  She explained that her leader Kelly had tasked them with planting and caring for seeds that would grow into plants. 

With the exception of the dirt-in-the-house situation, I loved this project.  When I was in grade school, every year my dad would come to my classroom armed with a tray full of Black Spruce seedlings and a lesson about tree planting and the environment.  At the end of the lesson, each of my classmates took home a baby tree in a little plastic cube, with instructions to plant it in a wide open space.  I like to imagine that some of these trees are still standing today in backyards and fields throughout Sault Ste. Marie. 

Madeleine has taken her task very seriously, and every day she waters her dirt and checks for signs of life.  After a week went by with no action, I started to worry that the seeds might not grow.  I wasn’t there when the seeds were planted, so I had to take her word for it that her seeds actually made it INTO the cup.  Madeleine reassured me, and said that Kelly told the Sparks it would probably take about two weeks for the seeds to sprout.  "Trust me, Mom, Kelly said so." 

One day the unthinkable happened: when Madeleine was watering her plants, she accidentally knocked one of the cups onto the floor, spilling dirt everywhere (the horror!).  She immediately looked at her father and I with big eyes and devastation moving across her face.  We quickly assured her that the seed was probably fine, that sometimes it’s okay to shake things up a bit.  She put the cups back on the counter near the window, putting faith in the fact that we were right. 

Another week went by and still nothing.  I was starting to feel a little devastated myself.  My experience as a parent includes a frequent struggle to balance my girls’ happiness with the occasional need for them to learn a “life lesson”.  (To be fair, there aren’t a lot of life lessons happening for Stella yet, but you just wait little girl!)  I will admit that I had a moment of desperation where I considered shoving a couple of little seeds into the dirt to fudge the results (with apologies to my scientist father), but in the end I decided this kind of life lesson was manageable for a six-year old. 

I got out of bed this morning and went to check on the cups and was surprised and delighted to see the tiniest little bud opening up above the dirt in one of the cups!  I gently moved both cups away from the cat’s perch on the window ledge (there is an elaborate backstory about Monty and his fondness for houseplants which I will leave to your imagination) and went to wake up Madeleine. 

When I shared the good news with Madeleine, she burst out of bed and ran to the window to check on her little seed.  “See?”, she said, “See?  I told you it would grow!”.  Oh ye (me) of little faith. 

What type of seeds they are remains unclear, but I suspect we will have our answer in a few weeks.  You can bet we’re going to plant this little seedling, whatever it is. 

Life lesson averted.  Well, altered, actually.   

http://youtu.be/8UkKTlzyLhQ
A little John Hiatt for good measure.