The Last Seeds

This morning Bee and I went out to water her planter. We've had lots of rain over the past two days but it's important to keep building Bee's confidence with the outdoors and the new textures she's been exposed to. I wrapped her in her raincoat, filled her little pink watering can and we headed outside. Bee loves water so it was very easy for her to get enthusiastic about it.

 

She quickly emptied the first lot, mostly over one plant, and asked for more. I was happy to let her carry on as long as she wanted to. It was raining a little and Bee is usually a little worried about rain so while she was concentrating on watering her little garden she wasn't thinking about the raindrops falling on her head.

 After numerous refills I had to end the fun, I was worried the poor plants were going to drown! I'm not convinced any of them are going to grow but I've got my fingers crossed, I would really enjoy helping Bee pick her first vegtables.

This afternoon we finally got round to planting the last of the seeds for indoor sowing. We had some tomato and sunflower seeds ready to go in pots with some pre-packaged compost. This came in dried pellets which needed soaking in water before we could use it. Bee had lots of fun dropping them in the jug of water I'd prepared and made a fine mess!

 

I gave her a pot at a time to fill with compost, she focuses much better doing just one at a time. I began filling the first one by using my hands to put small amounts of compost in, showing Bee how to do it. She started to tenatively used her thumb and forefinger to pick at small bits of compost and drop it into the pot. I've noticed that Bee is becoming more comfortable touching new textures as long as it's with her fingers, she's much more sensitive about the palm of her hand.

 

After filling a couple of pots using our hands I could feel Bee starting to overload a little on the texture front. She was becoming more reluctant to touch the compost and less willing to join in. I helped her wash her hands and we moved on to using a teaspoon instead, her little trowel was too big for this exercise! After picking up the spoon Bee was much happier to continue and we filled the rest of the pots with compost before moving on to the seeds. For this I placed the seeds for each pot in Bee's hand and let her tip them in, an activity she very much enjoyed. After each pot she'd ask "mo mama".

When it was all finished I placed the pots on a tray and filled Bee's watering can for her to water them. Overall we managed to get compost and water everywhere but had lots and lots of fun! I'm hoping our seeds sprout so we can have another outdoor planting session in the garden!