Ikebana

Well, not quite Ikebana, but it is the principle of the thing that counts :)

Ana's latest interest, something I secretly initiated her into, happens to be flower arrangement.

And, much to my satisfaction, she gets to do it in her Montessori school as well. Each week, parents take turns and send in some flowers either from their own garden if the season permits it, or from local farms, or just from the neighborhood store, and the kids get to trim and arrange them as they like, within reason. The teacher guides them initially, of course, pointing out how to handle the flowers gently, how to trim away the leaves and how to use the shears carefully to cut the stems *if needed*.

D has allowed Ana to pick certain flowers, and only those, from our garden. I was in heaven a few weekends ago when she declared, "Here are some flowers for you, Amma!", as she handed me a bunch of dandelions, rhododendrons and hyacinth plucked fresh from the garden. Not much of a bouquet, if one tries to be objective... but who said mommies need to be objective when it comes to impromptu show of affection from their kids?!


Now, D doesn't buy flowers much, and I don't expect him to, so it all works out. Anyway, for Mother's Day, he couldn't get Oggie to do anything sweet - except be himself, of course, which would have more than sufficed for me, well, maybe a handprint card or a cutesy tee would have been good too... hmmm... where was I? Oh, yeah, so, he had Oggie hand me this store-bought bouquet, and somehow managed to keep the tiny busybee distracted enough so the flowers still had all the petals when I received them :)

Ana promptly offered to arrange them in a vase for me.

From Ikebana