French la Vie

                        

 

 

When my children were young we had a magical, organic vegetable garden. We had tomatoes until December, green beans that made Jack-in-the-bean-stalk, look like any Tom-Dick-or-Harry and spinach that made Popeye green with envy.

Our garden was the talk of the neighborhood.

 The neighbor to the right of our home, asked the neighbor to the left, "How does that American  produce such a beautiful vegetable garden?" The neighbor to the left said, "I heard she doesn't use pesticides."

The neighbor across the street threw in, "I heard she uses manure?"

Mr. Porte, my elderly neighbor my vegetable gardener-mentor swelled with pride at his student. I loved that our organic, vegetable garden gave him an extra sparkle in his eye. Mr. Porte gave me wise gardening tips: He told me to put a piece of copper wire in the base of my tomato plants as to prevent the tomatoes from having a grayish, brown bottom, to water the garden only three times a week, and to pick the tiny white shelled snails off the plants.

Bugs give me the creeps.

Luckily, I had little helpers. I told Chelsea (who was 6 at the time) and Sacha (4) to pick off the snails and put them in a bucket.

 

 

                        

 

and they did.

A few days later the snail picking reality dawned on Sacha that this was not a happy little game, that these snails were doomed. That his Mother had failed him. With tears in his lollipop eyes, he asked me, "Mommy, what are you gonna do with these escargots (snails)?"

There comes a point in every child's life when they realize that their Mother is not perfect unfortunately for me, it happened when Sacha was four.

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to lie through my teeth. I wanted to make up a story. I wanted to say something to reassure him. In my long silence, with a look of extreme guilt, and all the while biting my lip, he started to cry. "YOU are gonna KILL 'em!?"

 

 

                

 

I thought to myself, "Great, I have psychologically,

damaged my child. He is going to have nightmares. He is not going to trust me, what can I say, what can I do? Why didn't I use bug spray?"

Just then, to the rescue, Chelsea stood up wiped her brow, looked at me like I was the child, shook her head and said,

"Sacha, either they eat or we eat?!"

Sacha looked at her, then bent down and continued picking the snails off the tomato plants.

 

Children can handle the truth better than we think.