Over Thanksgiving this year, my brother came down. Instead of his always-growing-out hair that he only cut for donating, my little brother was sporting a military crew almost shaved cut. Lucas loved it. Lucas spent most of the time trying to climb on Buddy, so it really was only a little surprise when I came home to Lucas without any hair.
Louis had been trimming his & Lucas said, “Dad, I want an Uncle Buddy Haircut!”
Uncle Buddy is on the far leftLucas with his smile face
Mom would have tried to talk him out of total shaved, but Daddy was like, “oh yeah!” and buzz clippers made very short work of Lucas’ hair – that he had been “growing out” the last time we did haircuts.
Lucas seems to like it. One of the afterschool friends pets his head and says “good dog” – but Lucas just barks and laughs. Louis said, “maybe I should have left a little hair,” but it grows back.
The girls and Louis called him Aang (from the Last Airbender series) and I’ve got to laugh because there is a bit of a resemblance when he’s goofing off…
At least we are facing a Florida winter! I tease him that beanies will be his best friend!
When we grow our garden, we come across some interesting plant discoveries (probably because seeds are lost by little helpers in odd places) and have found some amazing co-growing companions.
This tomato was just found in the lily patch and we potted it as it was before the last frost and we wanted the free tomatoes! – no one knew what variety it was until the fruit came about. Turns out it is a sweet cherry tomato like the ones we like to get from Curries’ Market as Lucas’ favorite snack picks.
That is one little plant that has produced nearly a hundred tomatoes (most of which Thea has eaten green) – that is a side effect of allowing a toddler to help in the garden. She sees us eating things we pull off of bushes and out of the ground so why can’t she? Instead of puckering her face and wanting to know why the tomato is sour, Thea licks her lips and says “yum!” to little green tomatoes.
Another hidden plant is this one. He is protected by this huge wild plant in the tobacco family.
It isn’t a proper tobacco plant like those cultivated for cigars and such, but is a weed from the same family. It has stood guard in the same spot for three years . We trim it back to a 1′ stalk as the foliage dies in the late winter, but it grows back up to 6′ in a thick bush of shade. (Right now, the very tops are easily 8′ up!) This pairs excellently with tomatoes around because of two things: #1 tomato worms that can decimate a tomato plant almost overnight prefer this wild tobacco! So all the bugs get on these fine fat leaves for easy seek, squish, and destroy missions (Lucas is the bug catcher squisher most of the time). Our chickens won’t eat said worms so in order to keep them from eating away our tomatoes, we squish them. #2 It also grows tall at the same time as the tomatoes begin to fruit, providing filtered shade from the Florida sun. Awesome.
Then there are the little treasures like tiny citrus trees sprouting from the compost we lined around the garden bed!
A few carrot tops placed around make for beautiful parakeet snacks and pest repellent for tomatoes. Doubled with the onions (the root sides of green onions replanted), these pop up in “expected” locations.
Another fun thing are the wild foods that get cultivated along with our planted foods. Wild beets, those come from the undigested seeds from the Guinea Pig and Rabbit food, sprout around many of our plants. They attract the greens-eating bugs who love their leaves more than buttercrunch lettuce! The chickens eat not only the bugs but also the wild beet greens. Minuit and the Guinea Pigs love the wild beets.
Pusley, Spanish Needle, and Dollar Weed are excellent rabbit and Guinea Pig treats. They are all edible for humans too (along with our pansies and bougainvillea) and make a yummy greens mix for stews (Shhhh!). Pop in Rattlesnake Weed tubers and try that (chickens love them). We discovered bougainvillea is edible for the mammals in our house and safe for our avian pets. Although it is like a potato, as only part is edible. For a potato, it is only the root which is edible. For a bougainvillea, the leaves and flowers are edible. The thorns and stems contain a mildly toxic sap that causes upset stomachs and can cause dermatitis in birds.
Florida pusley
Pennywort (dollar weed)
bougainvillea
Kimberly said I can’t forget the Sweet Potato – that was one vine in the pot now it’s on the ground too & we’ve been harvesting greens from it (they are super sweet like a spinach-beet)
I love learning about and passing on this fun knowledge to my children. Once Jillian remarked, “cool, there’s so much food I’m stepping on all day!” I am a little concerned that Thea will be like her Uncle Buddy and try to shock people with “what a beautiful flower!” as she chomps on a pansy, rose, or bougainvillea flower. But that hasn’t happened… yet.
Our gym has an after-school program where our comfy vans pick up from several area schools and bring little athletes back to gym. They do gymnastics, crafts, eat snacks, and do homework. Thea and her other gym baby friend sometimes hang out there. Thea loves it and thinks she’s a big kid! Just like at home, she tries to do school with them!
Especially when someone wants to play teacher! Ellie loves to play teacher and Thea loves to “learn” and she likes the chalkboard.
At home, Thea knows not to eat coloring tools like pencils, crayons, markers, and even paints! At Aunt Becca’s she got introduced to big sidewalk chalk and tasted it. Sister-cousin Anastasia laughed and said, “eww, gross Baby Thea, you color with it like me!”
Once Thea saw that, it was like “aha! this is an outside coloring tool!”
Sitting with Becky one day, she pulls up a pencil and paper and says “yeah!” and starts babbling in her own way, giving us serious glances as she explains what her work is. Jillian said, “Thea thinks she’s doing school!”
Thea and Becky are quite alike. Becky understood before her first year that coloring tools were not to be eaten too. Baby Becky never ate Legos (except for the black squishy tires, she called them gum and we had to remove them temporarily – I think she still secretly stashes them somewhere and chews them). Baby Becky was my earliest potty trainer (at 14 months telling us when she had to go & by 18 months in regular underwear – I have no clue how!) and Thea is already potty training herself. She got super excited when I bought a baby potty for her tiny self – and knows exactly what it’s for (showed us by pulling at her diaper so we took it off & she used the potty, I teased Becky that she may lose the designation of youngest potty trained).
I love watching my little love get more independent. Each one of them unique and special. Each has different strengths and weaknesses. Each helps the other in various tasks to make us a cohesive team – we build on each others’ strengths.
This is how we all should be. Learning, assisting, encouraging; each doing what we do best and helping when and where we can. It isn’t just for siblings or families. This understanding of the learning and growing and maturing process is an important life skill.
And Thea is playing in the grass without eating it – amazing! She is totally a little Becky… until Uncle Buddy came along and taught 2-year-old Becky she could eat dollar weed (and then she wouldn’t quit eating them!).
