Morning Cup of Beans

Parenthood, awe-inspiring as it may be, is not without its multitude of challenges. For this urban working mom, dawn's breaking light typically symbolizes my greatest of all parenting obstacles: getting up and out the door. The past five years have begun in approximately the same manner:

Child starts crying.
Alarm clock rings.
Wailing becomes louder.

Hit snooze. Roll over.
Other child begins crying.
Put pillow over head.
Pitter-patter of little feet.
Avalanche of screaming kids flailing themselves on my bed

demanding milk, waffles, or (fill in the blank).

Drag myself out of bed.

And so it begins. Again.


The following hour is a blur of clothes flying and bags being packed; cereal is served, spilled, and cleaned up; children are wrangled and teeth are brushed; kids are eventually buckled into their car seats through bribery, pleading, trickery, or [when all else fails] physical means... and after several increasingly frantic rounds of "We're late, we're late, for a very important date," I start the car and we're off--to daycare, preschool, and work, generally in that order. I feel like Alice in Wonderland, frantically being chased through a colorful, swirling oblivion, which is ironic since I'm usually the one doing most of the chasing.

And my day hasn't even really started yet, because I haven't had my first cup of coffee.

Recently, however, there has been a change in my early morning routine. Spring has officially sprung, and with it, three new raised beds in my front yard (courtesy of my handy husband). Each measures 4' x 6', giving me a not-so-grand (but still exciting) seventy-two square feet of garden. In mid-April I scoured my gardening books, cross-referenced companion plants and adversaries, sketched out a garden plan, and planted, planted, planted. A few weeks later the garden sprang to life: seeds emerged and seedlings grew exponentially.

As seed leaves and shoots covered the earth like a verdant shag rug, I found myself (to my amazement) springing out of bed each morning... even before the kids began wailing! A new morning routine took shape. I brewed a fresh pot of coffee, kicked on my slippers, and headed out to the raised beds (coffee cup in hand) to observe the changes that had occurred overnight. I'm sure the neighbors thought I was crazy, staring intently each morning at my front yard, sleepy-eyed and pajama-clad.

The amazing thing about a vegetable garden is that if you slow down, almost to a stop, and truly observe, it takes on a life of its own, and there are changes every single day. A cucumber tendril gently winds around a trellis. The first plump tomato reveals the faintest red blush on its emerald skin. A pumpkin blossom the color of sunset just begins to open. A garden breathes, and no two days of the season are ever exactly the same... if you pause and take the time to look closely enough.

A few stolen moments in the garden allow me to inhale deeply, acknowledge the cycle of life, and press "reset" before I head back into the house reenergized, a spring in my step, to wake my little ones.

My garden certainly doesn't solve all of the struggles of parenthood. The milk still spills and requires wiping up, and inevitably I must convince one or both of my children of the virtues of wearing underwear (this is a near-daily battle). But my morning "cup of beans," that is, starting my day sipping coffee in my garden, helps me handle the little challenges with infinitely more patience and perspective--and less like the monstrous Queen of Hearts.