Welcome to our new friends

Butterflies. They are beautiful, majestic and wondrous to behold. That is why when I was given the chance to host them in my own backyard I jumped at the opportunity.

Let's start with a little background if you please. I am now at a point where I consider myself a gardener. It is part of who I am and something that I love to do. This love that I have was a gift that was given to me by Coach. Let's get side tracked for a moment. Because to me blogging is a therapeutic experience. Much like journaling it allows me to tap into my mind a figure things out and that is just what happened. So back to it. This love of gardening that I now I have is a gift given by my amazing husband. What I just realized is that this is a truly precious thing that he has given me. He does not give me expensive jewelry, we do not dine at fancy restaurants and there are no random bouquets of expensive flowers being delivered to me but in my mind those things cannot compare to the priceless gifts of a passion. The two most important passions he has given to me are a love and interest in cooking (which we will talk about another day) and gardening. So a shout out to my husband. You are amazing....Thank you.

Okay, enough with the mushy and back to the subject at hand. I am a gardener. I am not saying I am a Master Gardener. I do not know the in's and out of soil pH and acidity balances. I sometimes take short cuts when planting but that is ok. I am not looking for perfection in this area of my life. I am looking to always be learning and growing. I want it always to be exciting. Coach got his interest in gardening from his mom. She is an avid gardener and passed that love on to him. Though he may have resented it as a teenager it is now something he cherishes. And so, he passes his love for this on to me. It is a way we have bonded. Discovering plants, planting gardens, watching things grow and flourish. It is a magical experience.

There are many gardens that I have always wanted to try, one of them being a Butterfly Garden. This is something I did not have the privilege of trying at our old house. The sunny areas were few and so I had to settle with shade loving plants for the most part. In our current home I am in paradise. I have every light requirement on the scale and therefore can dapple in a full shade garden all the way through to an intense sun garden. This makes the process so much more exciting.

I started digging around and making planting beds and went back and forth on what to fill them with. I wanted a large garden, lots of flowering plants, lots of textures and layers. The problem....I am frugal. I have to be since we are a one income family so finding the frugal ways is always a must. At times it is much more fun and rewarding too! So, since we are frugal it was becoming clear that it would be difficult to fill these beds with what I needed so I was putting off the gardening for a bit. Then...a miracle, a wonderful gift fell into my lap. A fellow co-worker of mine approached me one day out of the blue and asked me if I liked plants, if I like to garden. Well of course I do! So he went on to tell me that he was in the process of dividing some plants and asked if I would like some. Well of course I do! I did not even ask him what he had. I knew I would create a loving home with any plant that was passed my way. As we started talking it came to be that he has a recognized Monarch Butterfly Garden! The plants he would be dividing are those used to create habitats for butterflies! What? Are you kidding me? This is wonderful! I would love a few free plants. Then I can get started on creating a beautiful environment for butterflies and hummingbirds. I can tell you that this all began 2 months ago. In that time I have not been given a few plants. I have been given approximately 20 plants! 20 plants and he still surprises me every few days with a couple of new plants. It has been incredibly exciting. And so, I went to town. I began building beds and filling them and nurturing them. I have cut out 4 beds in the backyard with 1 more to go. Mimzy has been an integral part in this creation. She is developing a love for the plants. A love for caring for them by taking on the chore of watering. I love the grime of gardening and she is learning to love it too. Getting into the dirt is relaxing for me and Mimzy is now realizing that getting dirty is fun. We enjoy watching the many bird species that grace our backyard. She is developing an eye for discovering the rascally chipmunks, finding the garden toads hopping about and a is slowly building her tolerance for bugs. (Bugs....another story all together). We have been working hard for two months to build our butterfly garden, we have talked about the butterfly families coming to make a home there. Eagerly waiting each day for any sign of them. Then on Saturday we were blessed with our first visit from our new friends. Two butterflies flew into the garden that morning while Mimzy and I were watering. They danced and flew about us checking out the plants we planted for them. This beautiful fluttering display went on for about 5 solid minutes. A wondrously long time. Mimzy stood open mouthed, with only small whispering cries of "Oh Mommy! They here! The Butterflies are here! They Bootiful!" It was a truly precious moment. A precious moment I will always cherish. To see our hard work pay off, to see the wonderment and awe in my daughter's eyes. It is something I will never forget. I hope that I have planted the gardening seed within Mimzy. I hope that I have given her that spark. A spark which will burst into a love of gardening. I hope she cherishes this gift just as I do.

Good bye old friend

It's funny how quickly we lose the things we love. How swiftly they are taken from us. Even more surprising is how the pain of letting these things go is not as great as we had anticipated. Mimzy experienced this whirlwind this past weekend. She said good-bye to her Gi Gi.

It all happened so fast, without preparation, without a true plan in place.
It started on Thursday night when for some reason Coach and I had a few brief comments regarding the Gi Gi and how it was time for Mimzy to let it go. I quickly joked that the Gi Gi Fairy would be coming to take it away and we both laughed. I had tried to have this conversation with Mimzy before. I told her that the Gi Gi Fairy would come and take the Gi Gi's and give them to the little babies that did not have any. She was less than thrilled with this idea and frankly did not give a damn about the little babies with no Gi Gi's. If I remember correctly she even told me that they needed to get their own. Those babies could not have her Gi Gi's! Well, I lightly brought the subject up again and to my astonishment Mimzy was thrilled with this idea. She wanted to do it right then and there. I had to slow her down a bit. I knew she needed more preparation. Especially because at that moment she was simply excited that the Gi Gi Fairy would bring her a present if she gave up her Gi Gi's. But I promised her that we would do it the next day.

So the next morning Mimzy reminded me of her present so she and I ventured to our beloved Target. We looked at the toys for an hour and decided that she would get a special gift from Mommy and Daddy for being brave. Tonight was going to be a big night for her, she was going to say good-bye to her friend forever.

Mimzy chose a fun water table and a few toys to accompany it. We rushed home and set it up. She was absolutely excited.

She played with it for awhile but the time came when she started feeling a little tired and so the time came when the "withdrawal" began to creep in. She began whimpering for her friend and asking if she could have it. I gently told her that if we gave it her then we would need to take her table back to the store. There was some whimpering for about 15 more minutes but she eventually moved past it and became excited about the Gi Gi Fairy's planned visit for that evening.

We went on about our day. Going to watch Chase play in his first soccer tournament and having dinner with Grammy. It was late when we finally ventured home. Mimzy was definitely exhausted. I knew it could be a tough night for her and tried to decide how to best handle it. I made a comfy bed for her on the floor in our bedroom and had her lay down. She inevitably began requesting to have her trusty friend back. Rather then trying to reason with her or go over the Gi Gi Fairy visit I simply remained quiet but stayed with her. She comically but quietly chanted "Gi Gi? Gi Gi? Gi Gi?" for about 15 minutes until she finally passed out.

At about 5:00 the trauma set in. She woke up and to put it simply she FREAKED OUT! She started screaming and crying "Where is my Gi Gi? I want my Gi Gi". I coaxed her into our bed and again said nothing about the Gi Gi. I just held her hand until she fell back to sleep.

I awoke at 7:00 and realized that I needed to do something in order for her to be okay with this thief that came in the night to take away her best friend. I snuck out of bed while everyone else was sleeping and jetted off to the closest open store. I found myself wandering bleary eyed through Wal-mart hoping to find something that would suffice. I decided upon a new "cozy" (aka...I really soft and fluffy blanket), a card and a package of princess stickers. I wrote a message from the fairy in the card and arranged everything on the table for her to find. I jumped in the shower and then heard the bathroom door open with a bang and heard Mimzy cry out for her old friend. I gently told her that I would be out in a minute to help her. I was barely out and able to dress before she was furiously demanding her Gi Gi. I walked downstairs with her and we discovered the gift together. We opened the card and read it and I explained that her Gi Gi was gone. The Fairy had come in the night and taken it to the babies just as we discussed. She was surprisingly excited about this. About her card and her new cozy. She could not wait to tell Coach. She even woke up The Creep. She carried her cozy, card and stickers to Grammy's to show everyone. Happy ending right? Not quite. We had one more massive challenge ahead.

Saturday night was by far the worse. We were again out late due to the tournament. Mimzy was exhausted and crying for her Gi Gi on the way home. I settled her into bed with me, I could tell this was going to be a rough night. She cried, she begged, she pleaded. She told me to take her special toy back to the store. She told me she did not want her cozy. She wanted her Gi Gi back!!!!!! I knew she was not to be reasoned with so I simply waited out the screams and tears and rubbed her back to calm her down. She finally did and again held my hand until she fell asleep.

The next morning....it was over. We were done. She had finally let go. Let go of her faithful and trusty friend and embraced her new found freedom.

I was expecting much worse. I wondered why I had not done this sooner. Why had I let it go on so long. The truth is that I was not ready. I was not ready to let go of the innocence and baby like quality the Gi Gi brought to both of us. The comfort it brought to both of us. We both needed to be ready. She needed to be ready and willing to let go of her friend. I needed to be ready to let go of my baby and embrace my little girl.