Mother’s Day is such a strange holiday. Everyone has different ideas about the “right” way to spend it. It has always made me think of flowers. My gramma loved flowers and I spent a couple of very special Mother’s Days planting flowers with my mom. Because of that I tend to equate the holiday with planting flowers.

I have never attempted this activity with Monkeyboy. This year, I decided, would be the year to try it out. He’s four, I told myself, and capable of tasks that require a little longer attention span. I told him we were going to plant flowers, and he was psyched.

Saturday morning, I got some flowers and a big Hibiscus bush/plant/thing (I didn’t inherit the knowledge of this stuff from Gramma). The plan was to clear out this big round, bricked-in place in the middle of my front yard and plant the Hibiscus there. There were some ugly bushes in it. So I tried to explain the process to Monkeyboy, but he was mostly interested in hitting stuff with the little shovel, playing with worms, and driving his toy police car through the dirt. It was freezing, and the going was slow. Finally, we got the whole thing cleared out. Now we were going to have the exciting part, planting the Hibiscus. I got the big shovel and dug into the ground in the center of the circle…and hit a giant tree stump about a foot deep. I gave up for the day.

Sunday, I moved on and planted the rest of the flowers in a different flowerbed. Monkeyboy played with worms, found spiders and centipedes and tortured what he insists on calling “Poly Rollies.” He also rode his bike, rode a scooter and played in the van.  He touched one flower in the two hours we were outside.

Somehow, I had pictured this as a much more tender and touching experience. Maybe if I had a girl?