When Gardens Teach Your Kids About Failure

Text: When Gardens Teach Your Kids About Failure; Photo: White woman frowning standing next to a straggly garden
Our garden this year is a testament to my kids that even when you work really hard, you don’t always get what you want.
My cherry tomatoes are usually the pride and joy of my garden. They’re a ridiculous, messy, borderline “haunted garden” disaster area that gives the weeds a run for their money; they also produce a zillion amazing tomatoes. My late, beloved neighbor once told me that she had a bet with our other neighbor that I wouldn’t be able to grow tomatoes – and then was proud of me when she lost her bet. I’m that person who brings in cherry tomatoes to work because we can’t possibly eat all of them. My older son is constantly raiding the garden.
But not this year. And not just because I’m working from home. But because we have stumps sitting in our garden that have produced exactly zero tomatoes so far. At this point, we’ll be extremely lucky if we get any tomatoes at all this year.

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Seeing Clearly Despite It All

The end of summer sun filters through the needles of the big pine tree, throwing shadows on the green weeds in front of me. The cicadas trill out, calling to each other in their waning days. The clear sky spreads overhead, stretching out to the autumn season so close that you can taste it in the cooling air.

“I just farted! I just farted!” My younger son’s voice rings out over the neighborhood from the blow up pool in our front yard.

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Practicing Consent in Everyday Life

Text: "Practicing Consent in Everyday Life." Two white kids in a small inflatable pool on a lawn with a bush in the background.

“Did you ask if you could splash him? You need to ask first,” I insisted.

“Do you want to be splashed?” my older son – who is seven – asked my younger son, who is four.
“Yes!” my younger son responded, with an enthusiasm I certainly wouldn’t have about getting smacked in the face with water.
“Well, as long as he’s okay with it,” I said. After a second, I added, “And you’re not hurting each other.”

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Moving Past Blame for my Kids’ Sake

Title: Moving Past Blame for my Kids' Sake; Photo: Cartoon of a white, blond woman in a kitchen with a broken, spilled coffee cup at her feet (credit: Brene Brown video)

“It doesn’t really matter whose fault it actually is, we need to clean it up together,” I said to my kids, talking about some mess or another. I heard those words come out of my mouth as if I actually believed them. But I did really want to believe them.

I am a blame monster. If there’s blame to put on someone – even myself – I am on the case. I used to think that if you could blame someone for a problem, they would learn their lesson and not do it again.

Problem solved, right? Uh, no.

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Celebrating the Launch of a Book and the Birth of a Child

Title: Celebrating the Launch of a Book and the Birth of a Child; Picture: Cover of Growing Sustainable Together, which has people of various ethnicities doing "green" activities

Writing a book is a lot like birthing a baby. Both require huge amounts of work to bring into the world. Both have unending unpredictabilities and surprises. Both are deep works of love.

And today, I’m celebrating both. It’s my book release day for Growing Sustainable Together: Practical Resources for Raising Kind, Engaged Resilient Children and the anniversary of my older son’s birth.

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Exploring Memories of First Grade

Text: Exploring Memories of First Grade; Photo: Young white boy on monkey bars

“How was school today?” I asked my older son as we sat at the dinner table. He just looked at me. Trying a different tactic, I reframed the question, “What was the funniest thing that happened at school?” He just shrugged. Well, then.

While I’m always interested in what’s going on with my kids, this year is particularly intriguing to me. First grade is the first year that I have a lot of clear memories of my own childhood.

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