Slow Day

Today has been a slow day. Not a planned slow day, but a forced slow day. And sometimes those forced slow days are exactly what we need, even if we don't want to admit it. Last night I came down with a healthy case of mastitis - a breast infection for those non-breastfeeding folk who may read this. Nasty things, breast infections. Fever, aches, shivers, flu-like symptoms along with swelling, redness and pain at the site of the infection. And all of this after one of those off-days that I have talked about before - this one including, but not limited to, dinner that I had worked on all day burning. But sometimes an infection is our body's way of telling us to slow down. I have been working overtime lately with this year's garden. I'm expanding it about three fold, which means tons of digging, planting, planning... I do get a lot of help from my little digger, though.

He earned his own little-man sized shovel after working so hard with this regular one. I do love this springtime activity. Planting rows of seeds in peat.

Anticipating, watching, until that first little sprout raises its frail self out of the soil and toward the sun.

Watching my little cucumbers turn from this, just days after they sprouted...

to this, just 9 days later (pardon the flashiness of these pictures - I despise flash, but wanted you to see how they have grown!).

Look at their little cucumber leaves popping out between their sproutling ones. My babies are growing up...

But as much as I love all the work that goes into my gardening, I have been a little obsessive about it. So even though I really wanted to be out there digging today, putting my peas, strawberry spinach, and the rest of my onions in the ground, I couldn't. And I think that's just what I needed.

Today, then, was spent hanging out inside, reading library books, watching a big truck and a cat documentary, and setting Maxwell up with his new bed. He is making an early move into the mattress-on-the-floor stage, just like his brother did. When Kane was about 18 months, I tore down his crib one afternoon in a fit of frustration, after my third attempt at getting him to sleep only to have him pop up the second I tried to lie him down in his crib. After I got the crib torn apart, I put the crib mattress on the floor, laid down beside him, and nursed him right to sleep. Max is to the same point. If I put him in his crib, he wakes up every half hour to an hour. He has been in his new bed for two hours now, happily sleeping away on a double mattress on the floor. We spent some time this evening, with the soft light pouring through the window, sitting on the edge of his bed looking for birds. Looking for birds is his favorite past-time, and once he sees one, he doesn't let it out of his sight. My big boy, sitting on his bed watching for birds out his window. Sticking his sweet little toes up on the unpainted sill, telling me all about the "BIR!" that he saw - his first blue jay. Is it a little soon to start his birding Life List? And while he slumbers on his new bed, and his brother and sister do the same on Bella's bed, having fallen asleep to Max Lucado's wonderful book You Are Special on CD (I love the library!), I am going to do a little bit of knitting while relaxing in my bed with a cup of Echinacea tea and a hot compress on my nursey. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel well enough to plant the peas, onions, and strawberry spinach. Only a good night's sleep will tell me if this infection is going to budge yet. Happy April Fool's day - I've never been any good at the fooling thing. I always feel too bad for fooling someone, because I don't like to get fooled :-). Hope your April is full of SPRING!!!