Alpha Veggie

I’ve been waiting such a long time to be six!
--Naomi

Hooray for birthdays! My daughter threw off the covers this morning, requested we sing the Happy Birthday Song twice – once with the traditional lyrics and one rendition in which she smelled like a monkey – ordered the gerbil to help her make the bed, and called to wake her grandparents because the four walls of our house were not a large enough landscape to resound with personal praise and proclaim what a big kid she is. Throw down all that before 7 a.m. and you might wonder what the rest of the day holds?

Prescott School conveniently lined up McTeacher night where a portion of the receipts from McDonald’s at 3330 S.10th St between 4-8 pm tonight go to their classrooms. Last week Naomi clutched the McTeacher flyer to her breast and made an impassioned plea go McDonald’s on her birthday. It would be her birthday – it would help her school – oh, please! oh, please! oh, please! I cringed. McKibbin visibly shuddered. We looked at our feet and agreed to the birthday girl’s agenda. We’ve seen Super-Size Me, okay, and one Happy-Meal never killed anyone!

Naomi’s diet is dominated by her vegetable loving parents. Dinner at our house wouldn’t be dinner if we didn’t literally count the food groups present on her plate. I can imagine, birthday or not, a parent sanctioned trip to McDonald's must feel like a major victory.

This weekend our family project was to set up a sun-lamp in the basement. We are trying to push some seeds to germinate this month before being plopped into our backyard garden plot next month. As we put soil and water into the bedding containers Naomi was awe-struck by the process. Its a good thing we don't have a cow to have her take to market because I'm pretty sure she'd follow Jack's lead with his beanstalk business. She liked the smooth, hard feel of each seed as it lingered between her fingers. She stared at it being buried in the soil. It seems so unlikely that something so small could hold such promise.

In step with the vegetable turn I’ve taken with this blog: McKibbin and I signed up for the Community CROPS program. Before last fall I had no idea Lincoln sported a CSA program. For an annual fee the program lands a box of fresh produce from a local grower on your doorstep every week from June to September. If you are interested I encourage you to check them out.

I’m excited about the program on all sorts of levels: supporting local growers, fresh, ripe produce being on our plates more often and a smaller carbon footprint imposed by transit from the field to my table. Too cool.