How Does Your Garden Grow? (or: Children of the Corn)

Pfffft ...... That's the sound of my deflation.

I am just flat-out tired, and I have nothing to write about. How that makes this post different from any other post I've written, I don't know, but I thought I'd make that disclaimer right away. I feel better now that I've warned you.

Allergies have got three fourths of the children against the wall, and a nice juicy cold has gotten a hold of the last one. We are doling out Zyrtec and Infant's Tylenol like we are running a pharmacy, and it still is not making them sleep. What good is that?

We have a kindergarten readiness meeting next week with Fiver's principal and teachers, and I have been trying to get all of the doctor/therapy information together, but the nice weather has been stressing me out. I know - I'm a crackpot.

It's just that when the weather is pleasant, I feel like I should be working outside in the garden. Or the dirt plot that I dream is a garden. And then, when I am outside, I start to stress about all of the things that are not being done inside the house. Add to that the fact that I have approximately 7.8 minutes per day to get out to the garden before someone starts crying that they are hungry. I'm getting itchy just thinking about.

I've bribed the children to help me with the garden, but that has quickly spiraled out of control. I offered to let the children make the side garden their own, and I also told them they could earn a modest sum for helping me with weed and rock removal.

I should have known better than to mention the project to Fiver unless I was prepared to begin immediately. His poor concept of time combined with his obsessive personality traits make him sound like the Verizon guy of gardening: Are we going out now? How about now? Are you ready now? (Is that the Verizon commercial? Did I get the brand identification correct? I am an ad exec's worst nightmare because I always put the product with the wrong commercial.)

There have also been the interminable, and often heated, dinner table discussions regarding what we will put in the garden once it is ready (How about now?). Here are a few of the children's suggestions, and this is by no means an exhaustive list: sunflowers, roses, cabbage, watermelons, ones like the purple flowers near therapy (lilacs), an oak tree, tomatoes, some like the yellow flowers growing on the side of the highway (weeds), grass, and corn. Especially the corn. They are really gung-ho on growing themselves a bumper corn crop this summer.

I broke down the several reasons why I felt confident in saying that we would not be harvesting any golden ears this year:

• Your mother is a novice gardener. And that's on her really good days.
• The only thing I know about planting corn is that Squanto told the Pilgrims to plant their corn with a dead fish for fertilizer. I'm not sure how far that would get us.
• I'm pretty sure that the four feet of weed and rock riddled dirt next to the air conditioning unit are not enough room for a corn crop.
• I'm also pretty sure that corn does not thrive in the nine hours of shade and three hours of late afternoon sunlight that falls on that side of the house. Every corn field I've ever seen is right out there in broad daylight.
• I like to support the local economy by buying some super sweet Silver Queen from the farm stand on the way to the Target.
• Seriously. See #1.

I think I have managed to talk them out of the corn crop by promising them that they can buy a few ornaments to decorate their garden. I don't need to be psychic to know that that promise will eventually come down to a nail-biting decision between a flock of plastic flamingos or the wooden trompe l'oeil cut-out of the fat lady bending over the garden so that you can see her bloomers.

Maybe I should just let them plant the corn.