Recently Carlie has been asking (well, begging) for a pet. Conveniently, because of Jeff, Carlie and Lucy's allergies the answer has to be no. Personally, I wouldn't mind a dog around the house, but that would be one more mouth to feed, and one more thing to worry about when we go out of town. Today while cleaning up the flower beds, raking leaves and getting things ready for Old Man Winter, we had to dig up Carlie's beloved tomato plant. I didn't really give it much thought and gave her two chores = clean up the sand box toys and dig up the tomato plant and throw it away. After a couple of rounds on the lawn mower sweeping up leaves, I notice Carlie is crying..not just small tears, but small sobs! I stop the mower and run over to her to find out what happened. Well, she is distraught because we have to dig up her tomato plant. She goes on to say how wonderful it has been all summer ("remember the salsa we made?" "remember the wonderful salads we had?"). I tried to explain to her that it was dead, and it won't grow back next summer...and promising her we would buy more next summer. That didn't do it...tears continued to come. At this point, I am trying not to laugh, because I remember the end of each summer working on the Harvester digging through old tomatoes, and wondering how Carlie ever would have survived on the farm. And then I think...what if this was a live pet? How would Carlie survive the death of a cat, or a dog, or even a fish???
Well, we ended up digging up the plant, saying a prayer of good-byes and making cookies and watching Tinkerbell. Everything seems to be fine again. Whew...the drama!
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