The Little Flower Garden

here is a little story about the truths you find in Yittleness 101.

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The Little Flower Garden –

Piper’s mouth dropped open at the sight of what she thought would be some sort of makeshift nursery, a quick throw-together her Daddy had conjured up at this lake house for the weekend.  But looking into that room now, she suddenly understood what he meant when he called the place a magical, special lake house.

Her eyes were automatically drawn to the crib, larger than the one she slept in in the other bedroom.  Even from across the room, she could make out the detailed carvings in the side railings.  It was white and pulled attention from everything around it – the soft pink walls with the baby borders at the top and bottom, the light brown rug that felt super-soft and fluffy between her toes, the matching white dresser that her Daddy was currently looking through, the wooden changing table with loaded shelves beneath it, the rocking chair in the corner.  It all seemed larger than life and made her feel smaller than ever.

But her eyes went back to that crib, mesmerized by it as if she would never look away again.  Her Daddy saw her fixation and sprung to actions, giving her the experience she couldn’t find words to ask for.

“That’s a mighty big crib, isn’t it?” he asked, seeing her nodded slowly through her drop-jawed gaze at it.  “I bet it’s a very special place to be … inside that crib.”

Piper took one crinkly baby step into the room, incapable of making her legs work as they were supposed to.

“Here,” her Daddy said, walking over to her and picking her up into his arms.  “Now, you can see better.”

But still she stared at it, wanting to know more.  So her Daddy walked her over to it and she reached down to touch the carved wooden railing.

“Would you like Daddy to put you inside it?”

She nodded slowly and shyly.

“It’s okay if you want to,” her Daddy whispered, helping her to keep her want a secret as he placed the rubber nipple of her pacifier between her lips.

She opened her mouth and took the nipple in, nursing on it slowly as her shoulders shrunk up.

“That’s a good girl,” he praised her, kissing her right temple as he patted her diapered bottom.  “It’s okay that you want to be in that crib.  Cribs are for babies, aren’t they?”

She nodded, still looking at the crib as he lowered the side railing down part-way.

“And you are a baby, aren’t you?” he asked as her eyes glazed over, her head swooning with yittleness.  “Yes, you are.  Are you Daddy’s little princess?  Hmm?  Is that who you are?”

A playful grin formed behind her pacifier as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.  He hugged her back, patting her diapered bottom again – an action that always started or restarted the waltz of the tummy flies inside her.  He walked up to the nursery and set her down inside it.

“There ya go,” he whispered with a gentle tone as he knelt down to her eye level.  “The best seat in the house … all for you, baby.”

She watched him stand up and walk over to the far wall that was completely consumed by the largest closet she had ever seen.  There was a line of yittle girl dresses in every conceivable color hanging in that closet.  He took down the pink one and turned back to her, showing its tapered sides and cute ribboned hems.  It had short, puffy sleeves with the same ribboned edge and the color came to a V.  It looked really cute and she adored it, excitedly kneeling up to get a better look at it.

“How about this one?” he asked, twirling in a silly manner and pretending to model it for her.

She giggled behind her pacifier at how silly he was, kneeling back down and folding her hands before placing them on her thighs and shaking her head no at the dress choice.  He turned back to the closet and hung the pink dress, taking down a light green one that looked just as cute but she immediately shook her head no at its color.  So he hung the dress back up, searching through the other choices with a keener eye than before.  Thinking ahead, Piper’s past successes with making decisions had led to endless amounts of time needed for her to make the simplest decisions, and because of this, he decided to start presenting two options at a time.

So he took down a lavender shaded dress and an a light auburn colored one, each with intricate details that Piper took noticed to and therefore more time to decide over.  Feeling déjà vu, her Daddy stood there and grinned, realizing that there was no way to shorten her decision-making process.  And, in all honesty, he really didn’t want to hurry her up.  She was kneeling in a crib in just her diaper, nursing her pacifier when she wasn’t scrunching her lips up and scratching her head as she made a decision.  No Daddy in the world could possibly want such a priceless moment to end.

But the lavender dress and the light auburn one weren’t to her liking, at least not enough for her to nod about.  So, he hung both of them back up and his eyes were immediately drawn to a tan dress with little flowers in the design.  It was perfect – complete with a pocket on the front of the skirt, or at least it seemed perfect, given what he was about to take her outside to do.  So, instead of turning around and auditioning the dress, he simply turned around and smiled his own approval.  Seeing that he liked the dress, she lowered her chin and smiled brightly behind her pacifier as she nodded shyly.

Her Daddy winked and her and took the dress off its hanger as he walked over to her.  She knelt up and reached out to him with gimme,gimme hands as he gathered the dress up.

“Here it comes,” he said playfully as he guided the dress down over her hands, greeting her with a silly face when her head popped out through the neck hole.

She giggled herself silly as he wiggled nose tips with her while lowering the dress down her frame.  Sitting back as she giggled some more, rubbing the tip of her nose at the funny feeling he gave her.  And then she stood up in the crib and threw her arms out at her sides, twirling around in the dress and modeling it for him as he stood back and gushed over his yittle girl.

“You look very pretty, princess,” he said with a syrupy tone.

Shyness took her over again as her chin lowered and her shoulders shrunk up.  That always seemed to be her reaction whenever her Daddy paid her a compliment.

“But there’s one tiny little thing missing from your pretty outfit,” he said, folding his arms and tapping his finger on his bottom lip as he tried to figure out what was missing.  “Hmm.  What do you think it could be?”

She felt her hair to make sure that she still had her pigtails.  She wiggled all ten fingers and all ten toes.  And then she lifted up the front of her dress to make sure her diaper hadn’t fallen off.  With a wrinkled brow of confusion, she looked back up at him, nursed on her pacifier, tilted her head and shrugged her shoulders.  Nothing seemed to be missing to her.

“Wait a minute,” her Daddy said with a glow in his eyes as he reached into his right pants pocket and pulled out a pacifier clip on a string.  “This is what’s missing!”

She lowered her arms and crossed her eyes at him.  He crossed his eyes back at her and walked up to her, attaching the clip to the collar of her dress and tying the other around the handle of her pacifier.  Standing back, he looked at her.  She placed her hands on her sides and tossed a diapered hip to the side in playful sass.

“Well, aren’t you just a playful little thing,” he said, picking her up and setting her to the rug.

She jumped up and down, crinkling with each jump.  This day had already been more than just a promise kept and she couldn’t wait to see where her Daddy was taking her.

“You ready?” he asked with a playfulness that only made her more excited.

She looked up at him and smiled brightly behind her pacifier with a glow to her face that was the stuff gushing was made for.

“Let’s go,” he said, patting her diapered bottom as he headed for the nursery door.

She sprinted her crinkly waddle after him, but only got a few steps before she came to a screeching halt.  Beneath her feet, in the middle of the nursery was a small circular throw rug that spun around on top of the room rug with every color of the rainbow.  She wiggled her toes and shuffled across it, only to stop in her tracks again as she saw her reflection in the mirror that stood alongside the dresser.

Her hair, held up in high pigtails, were prepared to flop about as she bounced along her way.  Her sun dress, gathering gently at her sternum and held up with little spaghetti straps, tapered down her sides and flounced outward at her hips – right where her crinkliness began.  The little flowers on the dress’s design wrapped around her as if all attached to the same vine.  She put both of her hands into the little pocket on the front.  Her pacifier and the string-attached clip stood out on her face, second only to the electric gaze of her eyes.  Oh, she felt little inside, but she also felt pretty – a complimenting thought to the fact that her Daddy had called her pretty.  But what he next said to her had an even more profound effect on her little heart.

“Baby,” he said from the nursery doorway, extending his hand to her.  “Come with Daddy.”

She began waddling over to him, helpless to resist him and not wanting to resist at all.  He led her down the hallway, towards the front door, passing through the kitchen to pick up that pitcher of lemonade he had made earlier along with a glass and her sippy cup.  Watching him, she relived the sounds of everything he had said to her and how being called a Baby by him was instant relief from stress that she never really broke free from, even when completely relaxed.

Out the front door they went, Piper holding his hand and skipping alongside him.  Walking around to the left side of the house, he led her to a tiny little flower garden that sat up against the house, separated from the yard grass with a border of stones the size of softballs.  The flowers growing inside the little garden were nourished in their seat black mulch, so fresh it seemed it was laid there yesterday.  They walked down to the far end of the flower garden, where it began, setting the lemonade pitcher and cups on the edge of the back porch.  And then, following her Daddy’s example, Piper knelt next to him – in front of the flower garden.  Sitting back on her legs, she folded her hands patiently and awaited her Daddy’s instructions.  She knew her patience wouldn’t last very long, but her Daddy knew this as well.  So, he kept the instructions short.

“Okay, the owner of this special lake house asked us to pull out all the weeds in this little flower garden,” her Daddy said with a tone that almost made it sound like the beginning of one of his bed time stories.

But looking down the length of the flower garden and seeing how it stretched the side of the house, from the back porch to the front one, she could hardly imagine why the owner of this house called the flower garden little.

“Now, the owner would be very happy if we pulled all the weeds,” her Daddy said, speaking to her very slowly and with a exactness to his syllables that reached in a touched the yittlest parts of her heart.  “So we have a chance to make someone else very happy.”

Piper smiled slightly behind her pacifier at the thought that her actions might be able to put a smile on someone’s face.  And as that thought grew in her little mind, she nursed on her pacifier as her own smile grew and brightened her face.

“Should we make the owner of this special lake house happy?” her Daddy asked, leaving the decision up to her.

She looked down the length of the flower garden again and then scrunched up her lips behind her pacifier in decision before nodding yes.  Leaning in towards her, he kissed her forehead.

“You’re such a kind yittle angel,” her Daddy whispered to her, sending a warm feeling into her heart as her tummyflies made her shiver at their waltz inside her.

It was more of that praise from him, from this nice man who not only took care of heart but took care of the parts of her that she felt most vulnerable in sharing with anyone.  He never shouted.  He never yelled.  In fact, he often spoke to her with a soft whisper that she had to remain pretty quiet, just to hear him.  Following his example, she leaned forward on her hands and listened.

“Now,” he began, looking down at the flower garden.  “Most weeds are green.  Not all of them are green, but the ones we’re going to pull are green.”

He pointed to one particular wee in front of him.

“That’s a dandelion.  And dandelions actually sprout pretty yellow flowers.  But their roots take up all the water in the soil and they don’t share any of it with other flowers.  So those flowers get sad because the dandelions won’t share water with them and those flower turn brown with sadness,” her Daddy explained in full-blown story teller tone.

Piper looked at the flowers and whimpered her sadness for them behind her pacifier.  It didn’t seem right that the mean dandelions wouldn’t share with them.  And for as much as she wanted to see the pretty flowers that dandelions would sprout, she didn’t want to see them at the expense of every other flower turning brown.

It was simple Yittleness 101:  If you don’t share with others, don’t expect them to share with you.  And if the dandelions weren’t going to share the water, then they would need a timeout.

She watched her Daddy place the thumb, pointer and middle fingers of his right hand at the base of the dandelion’s stem.  Then she watched him dig his fingertips down into the mulch around the dandelion, still holding firmly to its stem.  And with a sudden pinch and pull upwards, the root of the dandelion came out.  Piper’s mouth dropped open and her pacifier fell from her lips as she saw the length of that dandelion root – probably a foot long, if not more.  Luckily, her pacifier was attached to that clip and string.  And her Daddy returned the pacifier to her mouth as she made a discovery.

Well, no wonder dandelions hog all the water!  Their roots are way too long!  She began to feel determined to remove all the dandelions.  If they were going to hog all the root space, they would need to go.

This was a bit more of simple Yittleness 101:  If you take up so much room in the sandbox that no one else has room to have fun around you, then you need to be removed from the sandbox.  Or in this case, the little flower garden bed.

Piper put her tiny fingers around the base of the dandelion stem in front of her, digging her fingertips down into the mulch around the dandelion, just like her Daddy had shown her.  She pinched the stem and pulled upward, but the roots she pulled out weren’t any longer than three inches and at the bottom of it was a clean break.

She looked at the bottom of the dandelion root and then tilted her head to the side, trying to figure out what happened to the rest of the root.  Setting the dandelion down, she placed her hands on either side of the hole the root just came out of.  Leaning down to it, she closed one eye and looked inside the hole with other before sitting back up and shrugging her shoulders.  Her Daddy smiled at her with a simple statement.

“We’ll look for the rest of that root next time,” he said with a grin before drawing attention to a funny-looking weed that seemed to grow outward, not upward.  “This is called a Virginia Creeper.  Do you know why it’s called that?”

Piper shook her head no, looking down at the weed.

“It’s because it creeps outward and is actually a lot bigger than what you think it is,” her Daddy explained with more story teller intonation.

She crossed her eyes, thinking him silly for saying such a silly thing.  She could clearly see that this weed was about 6 inches long and 3 inches wide.  And there was no magical way it was going to be bigger than that.  She may have been his baby, but she wasn’t stupid.

“Watch,” her Daddy said as he placed his fingers on the center of the weed, squeezed it and twisted its roots.

And all around the Virginia Creeper, every flower and every other plant began to shake a little bit.  Leaning her head back and nursing on her pacifier, she looked at all the flowers that were now moving, wondering what was really going on here.  But as her Daddy clenched the center of that Virginia Creeper and pulled it out, she saw long strands of it, tentacle-like, that had grown outward and were covering all the soil under all the flowers nearby.

Her eyes grew big and wide as he lifted up the weed to show her how big it actually was, some of its vine-like edge being a full foot in length away from the center.  And she thought the dandelions were space-hoggers! Looking back down in front of her, she saw two more of the Virginia Creepers.  Placing her fingers in their center, just like her Daddy had shown her, she pinched and pulled, lifting up two weeds that were longer and larger than the one her Daddy had pulled out.

They worked their way from one end of the little flower garden to the other, freeing the flowers from their captors and giving them the ability to grow strong and bright and full.  They made a nice line of weeds behind them, throwing each out as they pulled it from the mulch.  And as her Daddy began gathering that pile of weeds, Piper reached for the final weed to pull, not knowing that in a few seconds, she would have a heart-pounding conclusion to her first task as begin her Daddy’s little gardener helper.

“No, sweetie!  That’s not a weed!”  he said with sudden tone, but it was too late, Piper had pulled the white flower out of the mulch and was sitting there, horrified at what she had just done.

But it wasn’t her fault.  It was only a mistake.  She didn’t mean to pull the flower out.  And it was another truth of simple Yittleness 101 that nobody is perfect and everybody makes mistakes.  Frantically nursing on her pacifier, she carefully placed the roots of the white flower back into the mulch and soil, patting down around it and even giving the white petals of the flower a few pacifier kisses to make it feel better and to say she was sorry.

Though, she returned the flower to the soil, her heart was still pounding.  Oh my, what a way to end the weeding of the little flower garden.  But all would be well and Piper made the decision to check in on that flower a bit later in the day to make certain it was still doing okay.  She would be truly sad if it turned brown because of her.  Helping her to her feet, her Daddy took hold of her hand and led her to the back porch.  Along the way, they both scanned the length of the flower garden to make certain they hadn’t missed pulling any dandelions, Virginia Creepers and other weeds that would steal the color from those little flowers.

On the back porch, her Daddy took a seat on the swing and filled her sippy cup with lemonade as he tapped his right thigh for her to crawl up onto the swing and place her head on his leg.  Slowly recovering from a nerve-racking experience, she flopped down on him lap, positioning the back of her neck on the middle of his right thigh.  Taking the sippy cup from him, the took the little nozzle in her mouth and drank from, holding either side of the cup with both of her tiny hands as she allowed her body to go limp and her legs to flop out.

“You are such a pretty little flower girl.  Yes you are, baby,” he said softly, petting the locks of her hair that had pulled free from the high pigtails.

Oh, what sweet words and that mentioning of the name baby, he couldn’t have stated it at a better time.  It’s was what she needed to hear and what she needed to feel in her heart.  And after she safely returned to yittleness she began to fidget, as all BabyGirls eventually do.  It wasn’t because she had ants in her pants, or rather, ants in her diaper.  And it wasn’t because she was uncomfortable.  The real reason she wiggled was yet another truth of Yittleness 101: When you are happy, it’s okay to let it show.  And Piper was definitely happy.

Reaching down between her legs, he felt her diaper as she crossed her eyes at him again.  She had drunk very much that morning yet, at least not enough to have wet herself.  But it was one of those Daddy concerns that always gave him peace of mind after he checked.  And besides, she was just a baby.  Maybe she actually had wet her diaper and didn’t know it.  But that was her Daddy’s responsibility to know and she was happy that fussed over her as such, complete with a pat to her diaper after each check.  Oh, how yittle she felt, indeed.  And the more he kept yittling her, the more she regressed in his care … to the extreme.

Taking her high pigtails out, he feathered her golden locks, running his fingers through her hair with a caressing massage of her scalp that sent a tingle down over her body.  Everything was sweet and gentle and pleasant within the moment.  In fact, everything had been just like that since she had awakened that morning.  She was free to open up complete and if she wanted to, she could twirl in the sunshine without a care in the world.

As a matter of fact, twirling in the sunshine sounded like a lot of fun.  And as she finished the lemonade in her sippy cup, she sat up and burped like a little girl before plunking the pacifier nipple back into her mouth and crinkling her sprint down off the back porch steps – out into the sunshine that soaked the back yard between that magical lake house and the lake’s waters.

Shaking her head back and forth to loosen her locks from any remaining pigtail bunches, she threw her arms out and closed her eyes.  Lifting her chin, she raised her face towards the sun and spun around in a circle.  Oh, what freedom.  Oh, what a glorious day.  And oh, what an incredible thing Yittlin Extreme truly was.  It wasn’t just a state of mind or the right clothing to fit the mood.  It was both of those things and a state of her soul that she knew was there all along.

She spun and spun and spun until she spun herself dizzy, collapsing to the ground with a giggle.  And when the world stopped spinning she stood back up to spin again.

“You spin me right ’round too, flower girl,” her Daddy said from the porch.

Looking down at the designs on her sun dress, she smiled knowingly behind her pacifier as to why her Daddy thought that particular dress was perfect.  She truly was the little flower girl and she had the twirling design of flowers on her little dress to prove it.

And with the same distraction as a shiny object, a little frog hopped by her, stopped t her bare and seemingly waiting for her to say hello.  Piper squatted down to look at the little frog.  It was breathing heavily, as if it had spent some time trying to get across the back yard to the lake’s edge.  She got down on her hands and knees, lowering her face to hunker down alongside the little frog.

Then the frog hopped forward and Piper perked her head up, watching it hop forward again.  Smiling brightly behind her pacifier at how much fun it looked to do, she got up onto her feet and squatted down again, placing her hands on the ground in front of her to assume the leap frog position.  The frog hopped forward a third time and then a fourth time.  And Piper smiled again as she hopped forward once.  Then the frog took off and she followed after it, leap frog along the way.

“Baby, stay where Daddy can see you,” she heard her Daddy say to her from the back porch.

Quickly she nodded to him and then returned to following after the frog, leaping up as high into the air as her diapered bottom would allow her and then returning to her squat.  The frog began to make longer leaps and she followed after him, making longer leaps, too.  It was another simple truth of Yittleness 101: Just because your yittle doesn’t mean you can’t do it.  Piper was than determined to do it, just as good as that little froggy.

And as she neared the water’s edge, she came to a rest – the same as the little frog did.  She did her best to catch her breath but truly wouldn’t have minded continuing the leap frog game.  She remembered playing that game many years ago.  And today, she discovered it was still just as fun, if not more. 

The frog turned around and looked at her, its neck puffing in and out as it ribbited at her, happily.  She puffed her cheeks in and out, smiling brightly behind her pacifier as she tried to make the same ribbiting noise – only to break out into giggling before she sat down on her diapered haunch.  The little frog hopped up to and she reached down to touch the bumpy skin on its back.  And then it turned around, hopped to the lake’s edge and dove into the water swimming away.

It was as if that little froggy had started a friendship with her.  And she would surely want to come back to this lake and magical lake house again in the future, if not for the experience – then to see that little froggy again, to see how much it had grown and to leap frog with it again.

Yittleness 101: Don’t miss out on any opportunity to make a new friend.

Her Daddy walked up to her, helping her to her feet and kneeling down beside her.  He set the mini back pack down he had gotten from the house before dusting the front of her legs off.  Piper kept her eyes on the surface of that water, watching the ripples that little froggy made as it swam deeper and deeper into the center of the lake.  She watched it until the ripple faded away.

 “Do you wanna go for a walk with me?” he asked with sudden excitement, placing the small back pack on her back.

Her eyes lit up with excitement as she nodded enthusiastically, jumping up and down with a crinkly sound as she took hold of his hand, ready to go for a walk by the lake’s edge.  But instead, he faced away from her and squatted slightly.  It took her a second to understand what he was doing, but when she did, she jumped up on him, ready for a piggy-back ride instead of the walk he had suggested.  Either way would be fun for her.  Looking back out at the center of the lake, she thought again about that little froggy.  And smiling, she reflected on all the fun she had already had and all the good she had made happen in that little flower garden.

Yittleness 101: When you are kind to others, people tend to be kind to you.

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The Rock-A-Bye Series