Life in the Cheerios Garden

Jackson is my son, and therefore he is brilliant.    This is the assumption of many if not most parents about their own children, and like many others, I regularly seek proof of this truth.

He is a scientist at heart.  Clearly he takes after his father, my scientifically-minded husband Andrew whom I cloned inadvertently.  Oh, sure, there are hints of my own aspect in Jackson, but these appear only fleetingly and usually only when he's being somewhat unphotogenic.  (At such times, Andrew claims Jackson looks like Tom Jones; I have photographic proof that he is actually close to the mark on that one.)  However, most of the time, my darling son spends his days experimenting with whatever he finds.

Jackson is quite mechanically minded.  He loves to take things apart and look inside them to see how they work.  Thankfully he has shown more interest in zoology than in biology so far.  Electronic devices are his greatest joy.  The only thing that comes close is his burgeoning love of what I can only assume is botany.

You see, Jackson is 12 months old, and he is trying to grow a garden.  Indoors.  On the carpet.  So far, his experiments in gardening are not particularly fruitful--other than spurring me to finally break out the vacuum.  He works very hard to make sure that a decent scattering of Cheerios (a.k.a. seeds) are distributed throughout the carpet in the combined living room/dining room area.  Any that fail to pass muster he collects and ingests.  Others he spreads around and later waters by shaking his sippy cup exuberantly.

His plan is a good one, really, because we do make use of a great deal of natural light through our sliding glass doors.  Sadly, however, I am still having to go to the grocery store to purchase Cheerios as our garden has not borne any sprouts.  Perhaps they need fertilizer.  Jackson's 2 large stuffed dogs, Rufus (German shepherd) and Petey (mixed breed) are not producing much other than random tufts of faux fur.

Still, not all experiments are successful.  Even renowned physicist Richard Feynman has failed to produce results or complete all of his attempted experiments.  And Einstein was always doubting himself.  So there is still plenty of hope for Jackson.  In the meantime, I suppose I have to stop making excuses for not vacuuming often enough.