Perspective.

So yesterday The Princess and I were having a little chat about her wardrobe. She was lamenting about how she wanted to wear her humming bird dress... because she likes it sooo much. I said, "why not wear it this Saturday? Does it need to be ironed? If it does, you need to give it to me early so I have time to do it."

Her reply: "Well. Maybe the bows just need to be touched up."

People, the dress is cotton. When I finally got my hands on it, it was an unholy crinkled mess on a child-sized plastic hanger. Lucky for me that I Am Mom and I can fix anything. Okay, so I can fix wrinkly dresses because I own an iron. That's still something! Be nice.

Now we will fast forward 20 minutes to a conversation I had with the middle child. I was grumbling that the seeds wouldn't sprout... and I was vexed because some mysterious thing kept eating the vegetable plants. (We've narrowed it down to... aliens. More on that later.) He told me "be patient Mom. Remember how long it took the carrot seeds to sprout?" Yeah. Those took awhile. And now they are ready to harvest.

Now, back to those aliens. First, some background. WE HAVE A GOPHER PROBLEM. This creates issues every. single. time I attempt to grow anything. The Man and The Cubs were kind enough to help create a gopher-proof raised bed vegetable garden, complete with a fence to keep out the pooch (now sadly deceased). We will gloss over the part about how it took ten years to do a month long (at best) project. So now we have a garden, and I happily planted it.

Then, SOMETHING, not gophers, started eating the seedlings. Every night. All of them. Basil, tomatoes, arugula, radishes... peppers. Eggplant. Cucumbers. Lettuce. All of them munched to death. Needless to say I was crushed. Oh, the expectations I had for that garden! Naturally I complained about this to anyone standing still. (The Twins Maker suggested the alien hypothesis, ha.) I made the cubs look up stuff with me in all the garden references we own and I checked stuff out online. We came up with: zero.

So I cried. And I prayed. And I complained some more to The Man and The Sage. The Man merely replied like he always does: "be grateful for what you've got." Yeah, I hate it when he says that too. How about a little sympathy? Some coddling? You know a little poor Mrs. Lyons, something ate her widdle pwants. Onto The Sage... know what she suggested? Go out at night with a flashlight. Which I did... and I was scared. I can't see in the dark and I have an over active imagination. SO NOT A GOOD COMBO. But my courage was rewarded... I found a few slugs. And a little white garden spider. And earwigs...  yes. Earwigs. GAZILLIONS OF EARWIGS. We had unearthed a few nests during brush clearance... nests the size of a Borg civilization. Scary. (And by "we" I mead the middle kid. Heh.)

And you know what? THEY ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.

And the seeds!! They are sprouting!! Me, being the smarty pants that I am, sequestered this batch on the deck. Away from the aliens. (We'll see how long the universe lets me get away with being smug.)