Sierra V. Fedorko

The May Garden, 2023

In April, the garden wakes up. But in May, the garden stretches its arms and legs and gets out of bed. In late May and all of June it will have gulped down it’s first cup of coffee and be fully awake, but it takes a little while to pad down the stairs, turn on the kitchen light, and say good morning. But what a beautiful sound the roses make when they say their first words of spring.

The garden is magnificent in May.

But there was a time in the late winter, I could hardly imagine the garden be anything but bare, brittle…sparse. At some point it gets hard to tell myself that hope is still underground, hard to believe the garden could be any kind of magical place at all.

But our struggling with hope never makes it any less true, less real, less there.

Hope is alive and well.

As always.

And though spring felt “late” this year, it was so full.

Full of wildflowers and seeds sprouting, gardens bursting and fresh sunflower stalks laughing beneath the birds. It dripped with joy in my toddler’s young exclamations of spring and it found this mother smiling at his expressions.

My son has experienced spring before, but in some ways, this feels like the first time. And so I compiled a toddler’s dictionary of spring–how he saw it, tried to pronounce it, played in it.

Toddler’s Dictionary of Spring🌼

Green Beans –

1. the weeds Mom pulls that you feed the garden flowers. Yes, I would pull weeds and he would dump them in the flower bed. Health and nutrition! Eat your greens, flowers! Heheheeeee😉😅
2. when spring grass grows so fast, shooting out of the ground string-like & green. Imagine a little boy pointing at spring grass from the car window exclaiming, “Green beans!”

Honeycups –

1. the yellow buttercups which are Mom’s favorite wildflower. A flower to be pointed out any chance you get.
2. absolutely any yellow wildflower spotted during springtime.

Honeycup Variation –

simply known as The Honey. (ex: “Hey Mom, it’s your flower--The Honey!!”)

They’re Popping! –

when you see zinnias sprouting and you’ve heard mom and dad say, “they are popping up!” ( note: exclamation point always included with this phrase)

Lion Flower –

a better pronunciation of a dandelion.

As the years go, I’ll add to this Spring Dictionary and what fun that will be!

However, my spring vocabulary is considerably less endearing and enchanting. But it is quite funny. So this spring, you may have found me saying,

“DON’T PUT THE FLOWER IN THE SHOVEL BED!!”🙈

So, here we are…😊

The roses are in their Grand Parade. Heidi’s flowerbed has burst gently and quietly into a kind of firework show, and the living room sunflowers turn with the sun. We’ve already eaten fresh snow peas. I’ve put together a small spring garden bouquet for a dear friend, and we’ve hung a second swing, because our baby swing is no longer enough. Sometimes, not enough and too much don’t always hold negative connotations.

And isn’t that something? Isn’t it wonderful that kids grow? That they grow out of things, and we grow up, and life grows everywhere around us? Too fast. Too much. So good. And sometimes all this growing up and growing out feels bittersweet. Other times, it feels all sweet. But never only bitter.

Isn’t that something too?❤

A happy spring, indeed.