Birth Day Flowers

I had been trying to decide what the perfect activity would be for our family on WV’s birthday. I thought I’d like to take flowers to the hospital for other mothers whose babies were born on that day. But on the 22nd, we were occupied to the hilt with packing up the house, dealing with a variety of setbacks and speedbumps, and my parents were in town, so his birthday passed without time to do that. I kept the idea on the back burner. We’ll be leaving our garden behind, and I want to make as much use of it as possible before we go, so on Monday I cut almost all our zinnias and a ton of mint. Sidenote: never plant mint in your garden. I made 10 flower arrangements, using up glass jars I’d saved. Win-win-win. WV loved smelling the mint and “re-arranging,” i.e. pulling zinnias back out of the jars. Then on a trip into town, WV and I dropped off the box load of flowers at the nurses station at the maternity unit to give to all the new moms.

I’m not sure what I expected when I got to the maternity unit – I’m not a fan of hospitals in general. It reminded me that I need to finish WV’s birth story. I hope the women who got the fleurs – some of whom may have had a rough night or day – saw them as a symbol of hope and love and a spot of color in the bleak taupe palate of the hospital. For me it was celebratory, in honor of my fantastic one-year old’s birthday. On the way out WV and I checked out the sprinklers (fun, fun) and skipped back to the car. I felt lighter.