The Pickle Tree

It began all so innocently.  One afternoon, about 2 or 3 months ago, Max asked if he could have a pickle.  I was only to happy to oblige.  As he sat and ate his pickle, I heard him excitedly yell..."I found a pickle seed."  And then, reverantly under his breath he exclaimed..."Now I'm going to plant a pickle tree."

 

It was, quite frankly....adorable.  I had a good chuckle. I took a picture and left it at that.

So, imagine my surprise, when a few weeks later, he was eating yet another pickle spear, and this time, there was apparently a bumper crop of seeds.  The motherload, if you will.

Again, he yelped with excitement.  "Mommy, look how many pickle seeds I have."  "I have 12 seeds."  "Now I REALLY can plant a pickle tree."  I smiled and nodded, as all good Moms do, right?  "knowing" that he would for sure drop this idea as soon as a speck of dust floated past his eyes and he became distracted.

But nooooo. 'Twas not to be.

He finished his bagel and then promptly informed me he was ready to plant his tree.  Let's get this tree planting done.  Where should we do it.

As I'm usually a crusher of all dreams, I decided that today, TODAY I would play the sweet, builder of dreams and let him plant his revered tree.

The great pickle seed haul.

We carefully carried the paper towell and it's precious content out to the front planter.

I improvised, I found him a spoon worthy of the digging.

He happily dug until he had a hole "deep" enough to plant some seeds in. (I have no idea why the pictures are looking squashed)

Then it was time:

Max carefully, and quite lovingly I might add, flicked those sticky seeds into their allotted space in our dry and barren planter box.

Next came the magical moment....the moment we covered it over and prepared to water.

We marked the spot where the seeds were with some dry petals from my flowers.  He carefully watered that area.  And as SOON as he finished watering, he said: "Ok Mom, can we watch it grow?"  "How long will this take?"  I told him it could take a VERY long time to grow.  He asked how long? I told him LONG.  Then he asked if we could just maybe sit out there and wait for it.  After some clever and convincing wording, I got him to go inside, realizing that it would be far to long to wait for it to grow.  But "surely something would sprout in time."  That seemed to appease him, and he was so excited and couldn't wait to tell Maggie that HE got to plant a pickle tree.

It was a total win win.  He felt like he'd accomplished all he ever hoped for, and I totally won the prize for good Mommy award.

I sure do love that kid and his bright mind, eager desires and great imagination.

Now, since I let so much time pass before posting about this, I can tell you the follow up.

About a week ago, he suddenly remembered that "hey, he planted a pickle tree."  You know what he said to me?  "You said my pickle tree would grow.  Well, it didn't, and pickles don't grow on trees, so you're a liar."  NOT EVEN KIDDING!  Totally got called a liar by my 4 year old.  All because I was trying to let his happy little heart plant his freaking pickle tree.  HMPH!  See if I ever do THAT again.  

Guess it's back to dream squasher for me.

Sour pickles and sweet boys,

Allyson