On Holy Week, Gardening and Good Literature.

Although not quite appropriate for the Episcopal Church tradition (Holy Week is NOT a time for rejoicing), I have been making an effort to sing the two Easter hymns I can remember for the children, because they seem to enjoy it when they know the hymns and can sing along in the service.  (We sang a lot of Thanksgiving and Christmas songs, and they had so much fun)  Anyway, today, I caught David singing, "Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la."  Very funny and I don't want to forget.

We also started 24 tomato plants--I restrained myself until now--I am hoping that they will not be slamming for the whole time we are away.  Not that we didn't get plenty last year, but we did miss a good two weeks of the harvest when we were up north for our wonderful family reunion.  Elsa wrote the initials for the different kinds we planted (I am going to try a few hybrids this year--sacrilege, I know, but blight was so bad last year I am curious to see how they do) and David filled up the pots with soil and watered them, all the while declaring happily how he loved to help me, and it was his job to fill up the pots with soil.  Delightful.

Pretty soon we are going to go plant the potatoes.  Right now, they are outside playing Swallows and Amazons (I am reading it aloud to Elsa, and it is a great read, even though I am completely flummoxed by all the sailing references.  We are both enjoying the story of four children camping out on an island and sailing all over the place having mock battles with other children sailing, although the descriptions of them swimming alone and sailing at night with no life jackets does make me uncomfortable, and I find myself resisting commenting on how they really ought to be wearing life jackets....)  I packed them a picnic of bread, butter, and our last jar of pear butter which they are pretending is marmalade, and they are using the tarp for a tent. David came rowing in and asked for a bucket of milk, and has been delighting in saying, "Aye-aye, Sir!"  I am really enjoying this part of child-rearing--finding and reading good books to them, and watching it come out in their play.  I find myself a little tense about it-I don't want them to miss out on any of the great children's books.  I even find myself buying and squirreling away classics for later--I just bought and re-read Little Women, which was sicky sweet but still wonderful.  I just want to have a lot of good books on the shelves for them to read, as a defense against the truly terrible literature that is available for children.