I Want My Own Pete Souza

Pete Souza, the Chief Official White House Photographer for Presidents Reagan and Obama.  The one who shadowed and recorded the precious moments, able to bring you back in one glance to a moment in time, a moment worth remembering.  I wanted someone to do that for me, today.

I spent two hours having those moments and they were all camera-ready.  Unfortunately, I travel alone and am rarely able to take anything but a posed picture; I wasn't about to leave three 5 year olds with a pointed metal trowel while I stood back to capture the scene. 

So, you'll just have to imagine thirty or forty little faces peering over the low fence, trying as hard as they could to keep their feet on the ground and not on the lower railing.  They're trying to get a look at Grandma's hands, the ones holding the roots up for inspection, standing in the garden they so desperately wanted to stand in, too. 

But rules are rules and the garden rules have yet to be codified.  It's enough for me to know that the Playground Aide does not want the kids in that space, no way, no how. Until we can figure out a way to keep little feet out of the planting beds, stepping into the garden will be a privilege, not a right.

And so there I stood, choosing some to dig the tiny hole, and some to shake the rooting hormone onto the roots, and some to fill the tiny bucket with water, and one to gently water our Truffula Tree.  He moved the little blue bucket slowly around the outer edges of the hole, never letting the water puddle up too much in any one spot. 

The kids and I watched in awe. 

Pete Souza would have had a field day.