Each day, twice a day, I walk through our garden, turning over leaves to check for evidence of insects eating away at our vegetables and berries and picking weeds here and there. Little L. E. Fant has accompanied me a number of times and is turning into a fine gardener.
When I go out, I set her down beside the large garden where we used to feed the birds. It now contains only a bush and a small tree...along with a seemingly infinite supply of sunflowers which sprouted from the bird seed. She used to sit with the shovel and push the mulch around. But she has been watching mom.
Now she crawls along the outside border, carefully bending each sunflower over to look at the underside of its leaves just before picking it and tossing it behind her. She is so proud of her work, and turns to beam at me after every successful pluck.
It serves to remind me how much my children learn from my silent model. The one where I'm not telling them how to behave or correcting them when they fall short. They learn most about how to live their lives by watching how I live mine. That is quite a burden to take on because not only must I instruct them faithfully...I have to become more faithful myself. And that is the most difficult part of parenting.
When I go out, I set her down beside the large garden where we used to feed the birds. It now contains only a bush and a small tree...along with a seemingly infinite supply of sunflowers which sprouted from the bird seed. She used to sit with the shovel and push the mulch around. But she has been watching mom.
Now she crawls along the outside border, carefully bending each sunflower over to look at the underside of its leaves just before picking it and tossing it behind her. She is so proud of her work, and turns to beam at me after every successful pluck.
It serves to remind me how much my children learn from my silent model. The one where I'm not telling them how to behave or correcting them when they fall short. They learn most about how to live their lives by watching how I live mine. That is quite a burden to take on because not only must I instruct them faithfully...I have to become more faithful myself. And that is the most difficult part of parenting.
