Anyway, lawn bags are enormous brown bags (so big that my seven year old can still play hide & seek and hide inside a bag) which are meant to be filled with all the recycling (leaves, branches, and not much else really) from one's back (and front) yard.
In my neighborhood, you then lug these 50 lb bags to the curb and a garbage-type truck drives around on random days and picks them up - which means that the bags might be gone before I finish dropping the kids at school or they might be sitting at the curb a week later. Either way, once they're full, I no longer have to worry about them. They are someone else's problem, namely the leaf-guy.
The other day, it occurred to me that growing up, I had never seen one of these leaf bags, which led me to several conclusions, one of which is that I must have grown up in a very wealthy in a neighborhood where everyone had gardeners. Am I right? Daddy? Is that it?
Anyway, why I am sharing this? Only because we stopped at Home Depot and the little one fell in love with a little purple petunia plant. And because I'm a big spender (I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood, y'know), I shelled out the 88 cents for the plant. Mother of the Year award, here I come!
She carried that plant around the store and I was just so relieved when we made it to the car with the plant intact. Imagine having to pay for two of those!
She carried the plant into the house and then to the backyard where she gazed lovingly at it while I bagged the leaves.
And now it sits on the front steps and she sits next to it, asking it if it's okay, if it's having a nice day and if it's thirsty. (At least someone will remember to water it).
I even found her at the porch window this morning, looking at her plant. And then she started hollering out the window, not at the plant but at the leaf guy who had just pulled up with his truck, No! No! Not your leaf bags! Mommy's! Give those back!
So we had a talk about things that are garbage and things that we don't need anymore, and then I redirected her attention to her plant - ooh, maybe it's thirsty!
Had I known what a great activity one little plant could be for one little girl, I would have started one from seeds weeks ago.