"Momma, momma look!
I got a weed for your weedy pile.
Should I put it in the pile?
I got the roots.
Look! They're white!
Why is this weed growing here?
We don't want this weed!
Is this weed trying to hurt our plants?"
I wished for some quiet gardening time. I quickly reminded myself that I'll have lots of quiet when she goes to kindergarten. I wondered if it makes these moments easier to know that they're limited.
Then I thought of my husband's Sunday afternoon. He was in the cool of our air conditioned house watching a Formula 1 race. He wasn't fielding questions about bugs, weeds, and plants. He was doing his own thing.
By the time Julia and I went into the house, I had decided that it was a bad time out there in my garden. It wasn't peaceful. I felt like Julia would have done well to go off and play, but she wanted to be right with me no matter what I was doing. She couldn't be quiet and forced me to answer so many questions. I was jealous too. Jealous that my husband was alone and uninterrupted with his TV time.
Then Tim says to me, "you two were so cute out there. I took some pictures."
"This is the way you'll want to remember your summers," Tim said.
It is just the way I'll remember them. Perfect, just like the picture.