Mary, Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

“I love lettuce!” my daughter exclaimed, eyes wide in surprise. She was surprising herself. She neatly snapped another leaf from the stem and continued to munch busily, wandering over to the chives and radishes, nibbling lightly here and pointing little fingers there. “And look, Mom, look — the carrots are really big now!”

This is a child who refuses all vegetables of every kind unless it is a peeled cucumber. The picky eater.

As a parent, I have felt shame around my daughter’s picky eating habits. My husband and I have spent endless conversations on strategies for getting her to try new foods, and used a variety of tactics from threats and force, to bribes and the simple yet excruciating “eat this or go hungry” approach, but nothing has really worked. Mealtime was becoming a time I dreaded. Wanting to make nourishing home meals and understanding the importance of instilling healthy eating habits from a young age, I was spending long hours in the kitchen only to produce healthy meals that my family wouldn’t touch. There is no worse feeling than making the effort to cook and then sitting down to realize no one wants to eat your food. It’s a simple slide into making a dinner with far fewer dishes and less complaining: hello, chicken nuggets.

But here we were on the first day of June and my daughter was eating lettuce with gusto. The difference? She was involved in growing it.

When children are involved in growing their own food, there is a connection to the relationship of nourishment. There is an innate joy and pride that swells when food on the plate comes from your very own backyard. No cajoling. No threats or bribes. Just simple food grown with our own efforts. Children come alive.

In our garden, we grow food and medicine. This past week, I wasn’t feeling my best. Zazie and I decided to take a wander around the garden and gather medicine for tea. It’s early in the season here in Ontario, but it’s been a very warm spring and the plants are coming along nicely. For our medicinal tea, we decided to gather raspberry, strawberry and dandelion leaves, and add soft, sweet clover blossoms.

Art by Claudia Trembly

We went inside with fists full of leaves and Zazie set to work cleaning and preparing. This took awhile. She was thorough and took her time, singing sweetly to each leaf and speaking kind words of gratitude and encouragement. “Thank you leaf for making us feel better,” she whispered softly. I could have hurried her but instead, I shifted back and observed. I observed her fingers careful to not tear the leaves, gently holding them up to the sun streaming through the kitchen window to notice the little fractals and growth patterns that make each leaf unique.

When the water was boiled, we selected a large glass jar and filled it with all our medicinal leaves, before slowly pouring the hot water over it. She observed with excitement how quickly the colour of the water changed from clear to deep green.

While the leaves steeped, we cleared the table and prepared ourselves to sit down together. I got out the “good china” and Zazie arranged each place setting with intention and care. Once everything was prepared, we sat down and I poured us both little tea cups. Once cooled, she took a sip and again, her eyes flew open with surprise.

“Good?” I asked.

“Delicious!” she agreed.

I could feel my stomach cramps receding. “And my tummy is feeling better!” I added. She grinned ear to ear and showed me how she can drink tea with her pinky up. We were seated at the table laughing and chatting. Sometimes that same table can feel like a battlefield, where my husband and I face off against our “picky eater”, but today it felt like the safest and most connected place in our home.

Tea time is a tradition from my own childhood. When I was around my daughter’s age, six or seven, and I would come home from school, my mother would be waiting for me, and she and my brother and I would sit down together and drink “pink tea” from “the good china” and laugh and laugh. It was from this tradition that my mother, ever the entertainer, developed a playtime character called “Mrs. Piddle Poddle”.

Mrs. Piddle Poddle came from TimbukTu and would show up at our house just in time for tea. She was a character dreamed up by my mother who was home alone for long stretches as my father worked away. This character belonged in a Monty Python sketch, some skewed combination of Amelia Bedelia and Mrs. Doubt Fire.

Once the tea was ready, my mother would sneak out the side door where all the hats and mittens and scarves were hanging, drape herself in a ridiculous costume of layered winter things, and walk around to the front door to ring the bell. I would gleefully run to open it and in would come a whooping and wailing Mrs. Piddle Poddle. “Oh Hellloooo!” Mrs. Piddle Poddle would boom, putting on a strong British accent and pushing her way busily through the front door, covering me with piles of winter clothes as she lamented the long plane ride it took to arrive on time for tea from Timbuktu.

I remember knowing it was my mother but also at times being unsure.

Mrs. Piddle Poddle had a hand that had a mind of its own. You could be innocently chatting about Timbuktu and suddenly, that wild hand would sneak out and tickle you! We would howl with laughter. Mrs. Piddle Poddle was wild and loud and uncouth and had terrible table manners and we loved her. She was our special secret tea guest.

She came for a year or so until my second little brother arrived. When Baby Jesse met Mrs. Piddle Poddle for the first time, it was endless tears and sobs. Her antics were too much for our sweet baby brother, and so slowly, despite our begging and pleading, Mrs. Piddle Poddle went into retirement.

She made a few guest appearances after we moved from the city north, but our life was more solitary and even more complicated after that move. My mom’s capacity for silly fun was less and less as my brother Tim’s health declined more and more. There was a big renovation required on our house and eventually, mom had to go to work. I don’t really remember Mrs. Piddle Poddle coming around after that.

As my daughter and I sip tea, I silently raise a cup of cheers to my mom for all her work to bring joy into our home when she was probably quite lonely and needing a break. I can empathize deeply with those feelings now, being on my own with my child most days, the deep ache for a break or the need to burn off steam in a healthy way naturally arises. Being silly and laughing hysterically may not be the first instinct a parent has, but getting out of your own “parenting brain” and into someone else’s, even if they are a crazy lady from Timbuktu, is medicine as good as growing tea in your own back garden.

Art by Sofie Swetter