Maya loves to be outside. She whiles away a lot of time picking up rocks and sticks and assorted lawn detritus and relocating them to other parts of the yard.

Maya planting flowers

I love to plant and grow things, but time has become a pretty precious commodity and that was one of the things that’s fallen by the wayside in recent years. Given Maya’s love of the outdoors (and dirt in general), we decided to buy a few plants that we could plant together and try to keep alive through the brutal summer months.

We’ve had some really nice weather lately. However, when we decided to undertake this project, it was a little cooler and awfully windy. That didn’t stop us though. We got some soil and old pots together and slowly but certainly, Maya helped me load ‘em up.

You can see in these photos that she moved the soil one tiny nugget at a time, and often she found it much more enjoyable to wander off with her soil nuggets. Maya also didn’t entirely understand why should couldn’t just grab a handful of plant-life and yank. (Some plants were maimed, but so far all have survived.)

The garden!

Most of the rest of the yard still looks like a weedy hell of shameful neglect, but Maya’s little garden looks pretty good.

(And yes, some of you will notice that we got our grabby toddler a cactus. Frankly, I think it’s the perfect plant for her: it can protect itself and it thrives on neglect.)

I know last time we posted, we shared that Maya wasn’t interested in walking. Since then, her attitude has changed. She walks everywhere now, and even tries to run. We let her get into as much trouble as we can while still avoiding brain injury. Her little shins and knees are looking pretty rough at this point.