Garden Enthusiast

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When Jenna was three she discovered some blue gravel that had been dumped by the shed.  Biff had left it there after cleaning out a fish tank.  Jenna thought that they were beautiful seeds and wanted to plant them.  I tried to explain that they weren’t seeds – but she was insistent that we bury them so that they would grow into a beautiful flower.

Everyday she would check the spot where the “seeds” had been planted – impatient that the flowers had not bloomed overnight.  Again, I tried to explain to her that even if the seeds had been real seeds – flowers do not spring up overnight.  It takes time.  Especially in our family, it seems.

Jenna did not stop checking.  She was determined that her flower would grow.  She watered the area.  She talked to it.  She was certain that a flower would grow.  I really did not want her to be crushed and so devastated that she would not want to try real seeds later on. 

I went out and purchased two pinwheel type garden decorations and put them in the ground above where the gravel had been “planted” – real as the seeds.  Jenna was thrilled.  And so when the time came for the preschool students to grow their own seeds she was not at all reluctant.  Her bean would grow just as her flowers had.  It was very exciting.

Jenna also liked snails.  They were very fascinating creatures.  She would watch them and talk to them.  One day she found a whole family of snails.

“Look mom!” she pointed with sheer excitement, “A mommy, a daddy, two teenagers, and a little bitty baby.”

She stopped to talk to them.  I gave her about ten minutes before I reminded her that we had barely just left the house and had to continue on our way to school.

“Bye snails,” she waved and continued on her way.  She was so disappointed that they weren’t there as we walked back from school – nor were they there the next day. 

Perhaps a week or two had gone by before she found three snails out on the sidewalk near our house.

“Do you think these are the same ones?” she asked.  “I wonder what happened to the parent and the other teenager.  Maybe they’re out looking for food.”

It was a year and a half later when Amber’s mom asked if she could leave Amber with me as she a mandatory class for her work.  I told her that I had planned on going to Midvale to pass out invites for my mom’s surprise birthday party but I could take Amber just as well – and that was fine.  Amber came with car seat and I strapped both girls into the car.

It was nice having them with me as I could just hand each of them invitations and give them direction to take it to this house or that and then I didn’t have to keep stopping the car and turn the motor off to do it myself.

When we got to Ruby’s house, I had only five invitations left.  The girls found a haven in Ruby’s yard, and I asked Ruby if it would be okay if I left the girls with her while I went and got the last five.  

Ruby was working in the garden and her yard was lovely.  She was digging holes and making remarks about “all the snails” Both Jenna and Amber perked up and assisted Ruby by picking up snails and each started her own collection.

When I returned, the girls had lined their snails up on the table and were eagerly watching them “race” as they’d speak words of encouragement hoping that one of her snails would win.  Jenna announced that we’d be taking them home.

“Snails don’t belong in the car!” I said firmly.  “Not my car anyway.  Even if they’re in containers.  We are not taking the snails home.  Sorry”

I think Ruby distracted them with something else.  I believe we threw the snails away.  Ruby and I told both girls that snails are bad for the garden.  I don’t think Jenna believed me.

She wasn’t reading when I purchased a kid’s gardening book at a thrift store. We looked at it.  I pointed out that snails were in the “pest” category.  But then so were caterpillars – her absolute favorites creature.  A book against snails and caterpillars certainly was not a book that she was interested in.  I put the book away and forgot about it.

 Recently, while searching for something else, I came across the Kid’s Gardening book.  She has been reading it and telling us everything that we’ve been doing wrong in our home garden and how to improve it.  She still loves snails and caterpillars but has accepted that they do damage to gardens. But they are fascinating creatures and she loves them.

Some of us are gardeners that plant and sow seeds.  Some of us plant actual seeds.  Some of us bury gravel or “magic beans” in the ground and leave it at that.  Some of us work like lady bugs or bees and help the garden.  Some of us are like snails and caterpillars that crawl through life expecting free handouts without working for it.  And it doesn’t matter our capacity.  God loves each of us.  He doesn’t attempt to throw any of us away.  His love for us is perfect. Even more than Jenna loves snails.

Happy Memories

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When Jenna was younger, we would go for walks ALL of the time.  I would point things out as we passed different yards.  “Oh, look at the flowers”  “See that pretty pin wheel” 

 The thing that she seemed to overlook with each yard I pointed out was the well.  I never understood why she couldn’t see them.  Several yards contained some form of a wishing well.  I don’t know how many walks we took before I realized she was looking for a “whale”

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Jenna was three the first time we had taken her to Arizona.  We were actually in the city part when Jenna asked, “Are we in a dessert?” 

I turned around in disbelief.  How did she know that Arizona is a desert state? 

“Yes we are.” I proudly beamed.

Jenna appeared to be highly disappointed.  And here is why:

“I have looked and looked and I have not seen a camel anywhere.”

Oops.  Wrong desert.

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My Grandma and I had gone to a Ferrell’s ice cream parlor in Hawaii.  The Hawaiian menu offered a variety of dishes that were different from the Utah menu.  I thought  it would be fun to take a few menus home and trade them for a couple of Utah menus and watch as people would order these foreign creations which might fluster the waitress as it was obviously a Farrell’s menu – but wasn’t familiar with most of the items listed.

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Farrell’s had advertised soda water for  two cents a glass.  Patrick and two of his friends decided that they wanted to “splurge”  They got soda waters for each of them – that’s it.  I don’t think they fully understood what they were ordering.

One friend managed to drink it all.  I believe Patrick said he had swallowed down half of his.  But Mark could not get past the first taste.  After having gagged down the first swallow, he refused to drink any more of his two cent purchase. The entire bill came to six cents.  They left a fifty cent tip.


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Jenna loved fire hats and fire engines and fire fighter equipment.  I really thought that she would want to grow up to be a fire fighter.  But when asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" she had it narrowed down to two: either a pirate or a ballerina.

That's My Jenna

Her hair always seems to be disheveled at best

Doesn’t wish to hold barrettes or bows or curls

Usually she has hair hanging in her face

She is far from being one of those prissy girls

She’ll wear shoes just in order to climbs trees

Clothes don’t stay clean or well kept for long

She loves the outdoors, she loves to explore

She’s always been free-spirited and head-strong

Her favorite Princess is Brave’s Merida

Who is concerned with things more important than looks

She discovers as much as she can first handedly

And has many adventures through her books

I would like to say that she is one of a kind

But I see in her my own mirror to the past

When I was the one with the mussed up hair

Climbing trees and making adventures last

                                                                                                                           kfralc

I Have to Have a Ten Page Report About Sir Isaac Newton Turned In by Monday

It is nearing the end of the school year and Jenna tells me she has to do some research on Sir Isaac Newton for an upcoming report.  She tells me that it has to be ten pages and has to be turned in by Monday.  Funny how I didn’t question the report itself – though the amount of pages and deadline threw me somewhat.

Generally her teachers have sent out an outline of the things that the class will be learning during the course of the year.  Usually they have worked an entire month on any given project.  And ten pages is a lot for high school students – let alone third graders.  She must have heard wrong.

I asked her what teacher had given the assignment and type up an e-mail as I believe that Jenna’s understanding is not correct.  Just as I finish and am about to press send, Jenna begs me not to. 

“Why not?” I ask. 

“Because it’s not a real assignment.  I just made it up.  I’m interested in learning about Sir Isaac Newton.”

I am dumbfounded.  Not only for her interest – which might spell GEEK to some of her friends, but for her clever acting.  She said she wished she had gotten someone else, but that each child had to draw a name out of a container that her teacher had passed around.

I love that Jenna truly loves learning.  She is fascinated with non-fictional books.  Always has been.  She loves to read about Science and history and is ashamed of how different races have been treated throughout the course of history and really would like to better our world. 

Jumping: It Does her Body Good

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Jenna LOVES to jump. I believe she was jumping before she was walking – though she always had assistance.  I remember my mom watching my arms moving up and down at a rapid pace and commenting that I might be going to fast.

“It isn’t me!” I would say, “Jenna’s the one who’s jumping”

When the library did a theme on superheroes and allowed the children to make capes and personalize it with initials.  We chose JJ for Jumping Jenna.

 There was a trampoline in my mom’s yard and a trampoline in Patrick’s yard.  And Jenna thought that was one of the coolest devices that she has ever enjoyed.  She could bounce just like a ball.  And her smile was always pure joy.  Jenna loved the trampoline.

  The trampoline that was in my mom’s yard had been purchased by mom and dad and Patrick.  It was a gift to all of us – even though Patrick had paid I think half.  The frame has seen many tarps and sets of springs over the years, as each of us spent countless hours as kids and then Patrick’s kids and then my own.  I think the trampoline that was in Patrick’s yard had been purchased by all four of his kids – or at least the two oldest.

I would have loved to get Jenna her own trampoline after we moved.  The closest we came was a mini trampoline that was given to us by a neighbor who had cleaned out her garage.  It soooo wasn’t the same.  She could jump on the ground higher than she could on the mini tramp.  It was a ploy – and not satisfying at all – though she did attempt to gratify her desires.  The older she got, the less gratifying it became.

I would have loved putting that joyful smile on her face and set up a trampoline for her, but we couldn’t afford it.  We had just lost our house.  Heck, we couldn’t even afford a used pogo stick. She couldn’t enjoy the trampoline at my mom’s house because even though the frame still stood, the tarp had been removed. And we usually didn’t have the appropriate strength for setting it up ourselves.

After we put mom in assisted living and were getting ready to put the house on the market, Patrick sent out a mass e-mail asking if any of us would like the trampoline.  I was so happy to get Roland to agree that it would be a good idea for us to bring it to our backyard to live.  A human friend would be much better, but a trampoline seems to be the next best thing.  I just hope Jenna doesn’t become bored with it.

Early Reader

Before Jenna started kindergarten we would read books like “The Little Red Hen” and “Frog and Toad”.  I would point to words as I read them and as words started to repeat, I would have her say them.  So before school started she was able to read words such as: hen, frog, toad, red, Not I, said and he.  She could not read the names of states on License plates – nor was she educated enough to decipher between state and country.

The rules of the license plate game (according to Tony) are rather simple.  All participants need to look for license plates from out of the state.  Whoever sees and says the most is the winner. Tony would often play the game himself but would say the names out loud. Jenna decided that she would play too.

“Arizona,” she’d say.

“I already called Arizona.”

“Idaho.”

“You didn’t see Idaho.”

I don’t think she did.  But she insisted on it.  Tony ended up giving it to her out of pity.

“Wyoming!” Tony called.

“Green Land,” said Jenna.  We both knew for a fact that she didn’t see a Green Land license plate.

After Tony stopped laughing he said, “You didn’t see Greenland.”

“Yes I did.”

“Jenna, it is highly probable that you did not see a car with a Greenland license plate,” I said.

“And besides, Greenland isn’t even a state.”

“You can’t count other countries?” I asked.  “I think you should get extra points for countries. I think it would be beyond cool if I were to see a license plate from Greenland.”

“That means I get extra points,” said Jenna.

“You didn’t see a Greenland license plate.”

After kindergarten, big words came easy to her.  She could read princess, museum, dinosaur and purple-licious without any problems.  The word that stumped her every time was the word “of”.  Missed it every time.  It wasn’t spelled correctly in her opinion.  It should have been “UV” – what a dreadful word.

She has now added Spanish words to her vocabulary – saying them – not spelling them.  Spelling is still not her thing – though she does seem to read well.  She obviously doesn’t pay attention to how words are spelled.

Still has a great vocabulary and for the most part really does know what she’s talking about.  And I don’t have to pay her to write stories anymore as I did here and here.     

Fowl Memories

When I dropped Jenna off this morning, I noticed several seagulls appeared to be basking out in the field.  The sun was just starting to peak its head over the horizon. It had rained earlier.  I’m certain that the lawn was wet.  I suppose they could have been looking for worms

I was reminded of Roland’s answer to all of his children having asked, “Can we take one home?”

And Roland would answer with, “If you can catch one, you can take it home.”

The boys would wear themselves out as they chased the birds around – never having caught one, though I would imagine Biff came close.  He’s an animal charmer, that one.  Perhaps his magnetic charisma works just on the mammal group in the animal kingdom.

I have home videos of both Jenna and Kayla approaching ducks and watching the ducks move at the same pace.  With Kayla, it was near the temple grounds in Idaho Falls.  Jenna was much younger when she sought out a particular bird at WheelerFarm

I remember hearing stories about a family picnic involving Corey, Kayla, mom and dad.  I was told they were eating blueberry pastries of some kind.  A seagull swooped down and took the remainder of somebody’s dessert and from what I understand, Kayla cried.  I don’t even think it was her dessert – the fast action of the bird had scared her.

When I was in high school, I took a psychology class.  We had learned about Pavlov’s dog.   The instructor’s wanted us to do a similar experiment using pigeons.  We were divided into groups of four or five. Each group was given a pigeon.  We were told to mark the pigeons so that we could know with certainly which group went with what pigeon.  I remember someone from my group had drawn glasses on the pigeon.

Pigeons are stupid birds.  At least the seven pigeons that became a part of our psychology class.  At first the teachers thought we were not taking the assignment seriously, that we were not putting in our best effort, that we weren’t fulfilling our part of the experiment. We kept at it for two weeks.  But as all seven birds failed to accomplish whatever we were trying to get them to do (it wasn’t ringing a bell and salivating) the instructor’s finally agreed that they were stupid birds.

Button Bracelets and Broken Earrings

          Ellen found my mom passed out.  (This was last month - when mom was still in her house and not in assisted living) Her jewelry holder was on top of her.  Not good memories for Ellen – who doesn’t wear jewelry anyway.  I don’t wear much (jewelry) – certainly not enough for the wonderful piece of furniture I remember mom purchasing many years ago.  I don’t think I would have even thought about it one way or the other, but it had been moved into the same room where most of the photographs were.  I made a request to have it.

          Roland brought it in the house and started to put it our room. 

          “I got that for Jenna,” I said.

          He’s ordered her to take really good care of it because it’s an heirloom.  That cracked me up.  I had never thought of it in that way before.  An heirloom is something that has been handed down for several generations.  And I suppose if Jenna takes care of it, it could become an heirloom – but I don’t think of it that way now.

          Of course the unit itself is probably a lot nicer than most of the jewelry it houses – if not all of it.  Jenna has always loved to make and wear jewelry.  We made button bracelets with the residents (well some) where my mom lives. Jenna made one for herself and I made one for mom.

          She did end up with maybe half to a quarter of jewelry that was left behind by either my mom or either grandmother.  Ellen brought another huge box into the room.  Fortunately Jenna didn’t notice or I’m certain we would have walked away with more.

          The jewelry reminds me of those worn by children when playing dress-ups.  Or something to be collected and ripped apart for making something else – which is maybe what they all were at one time. 

          Some of it is ugly.  I guess it could have been considered stylish for its time – what time?  Long before I existed, I would think.  Jenna feels so grown up with her dangling earrings – disappointed that the really cute ones are all twist-ons that pinch her ears.  But she can wear the clips.  She wore a pair to church and has taken a pair to school today.  Jenna’s enthusiasm makes it all worth it really. 

          I wish mom’s jewelry was worth something.  Most of the pieces seem to be plastic or falling apart.  Jenna broke one of the earrings yesterday – I’m certain it was due to years of decay more than on her part.  But there were tears in her eyes.

          “Oh, it’s okay, honey.  We can try and fix it.  Or we can break the other one and make barrettes out of them.”

          Tears dried up.  All the sudden the pair of earrings had become quite valuable.  

“We could make barrettes with just this part,” she said as she pointed to the fan part that clipped over the ear.  Pointing to the imitation pearl teardrop she continued, “And I can use this part to make a necklace!”

Okay.

For me the jewelry does not represent mom.  The only pieces I truly remember came from one of my grandma’s.  I don’t recall mom ever wearing most of it.  Maybe two or three pieces out of – how many?  I might be able to ask Jenna.  She probably counted them when she initially had her eye on them.

If I can find any joy or peace of mind with all the devastation and turmoil that has been felt these past four months or so, this would be it.  Jenna’s joy and gratitude.  It means a lot to find that pot at the end of the rainbow . . . or even just the rainbow itself.

An Act of Service for both parents and children

         Children call her the animal balloon lady as she has brought her pump and balloons to various activities providing the children with a sweet gift to take home (provided it doesn’t pop first)

Noel announced a service that she would be providing for parents to drop off their children for four hours and she would provide snacks for them and a play a holiday movie and provide other activities.  Sounded like a great bargain to me.

          I signed up for Jenna’s sake more than my own.  I figured she’d enjoy the activities and association with whatever fellow classmates might have showed up.

          Noel offered two shifts: 8-12 and 1-5.  I chose the earlier of the two – figuring there would be less children and it wouldn’t be so overwhelming for Noel to have a huge amount of children in her apartment. 

          As it turned out, it was Jenna by herself – which actually worked out to her own benefit as she really does enjoy the one on one.  And when Noel was preoccupied with putting cookies in the oven or cleaning or what have you, Jenna would play with the dogs.  She loves that.  Our own high-maintenance dog doesn’t interact the way some neighboring dogs do.

           How awesome it is to have people like Noel who are willing to provide a service for both the children and the parents who are involved.  Thank you, Noel.  And thank you also to your roommates who allow the children to come into their home also.

“Just What I’ve Always Wanted”

          Jenna rarely ever produces a long list of desired gifts for Christmas.  Usually she has her heart set on just one thing – and nothing else seems to matter.

          When Jenna was three the one and only thing she wanted was a Caillou doll.  Caillou is a cartoon character she really seemed into at the time.  I didn’t even know if any toy company made Caillou dolls.  I was guessing probably not.

          I researched but came up empty-handed, but didn’t want to disappoint her.  It was the ONLY thing she had asked for. As a last resort I made two paper dolls and included three sets of clothes for each doll hoping that it would satisfy her.

          Oh, I am so grateful to have captured as many memories on my camcorder (the old kind that took cassette tapes that probably isn’t even made anymore) of her as she opened each gift and would exclaim as she opened each gift,

“Candyland! (or whatever the gift happened to be) Just what I’ve always wanted!” 

It was so joyous for me to see her pleasant gratitude and happiness for each gift.  And she loved every one of them just as much as the two paper dolls.

This year it was an alarm clock. I can’t imagine why an eight year old believes she needs an alarm clock.  Santa will deliver it to her via Las Vegas.