The Tiniest Blueberry

In the gardening class I am teaching at Lily's school we have been making a book on gardening to put in our gardening "shed" for the other children in the school to look through. The book, still a work in progress, is a hilarious study in personality, a reflection of eight extremely different growing minds and aesthetics. One child makes sunflower pages, over and over again. Sometimes she chooses a red crayon instead of a yellow one and says to me, head cocked, "Today, I think I will draw roses instead." And then, at the very last minute, she changes her mind. Another child draws increasingly elaborate scenes featuring a sibling that are so tangentially related to gardening even the other children pipe in. "How about if you guys are watering a plant on that aircraft carrier," one will suggest, kindly, if a bit exasperated.

I try to sit back and let the artists go where they will. If pressed for advice I will demur; if really pressed, I will try to ask open-ended questions to spur the artist on without putting ideas in her head that stem from me. Sometimes, when I am tired, or the children are really wild and trying my patience, I slip up.

Last week, a girl was drawing a page from a seed catalogue. She made boxes, as in the real seed catalogues we had looked at, then colored one fruit in each box, from watermelon to blueberries. I happened to be sitting next to her, watching, waiting for her to ask me to "write her words," as most of the children prefer to dictate their text. She had drawn a big pile of blueberries on one side of a box. Then, on the other side, with the tip of a marker, she had made tiny blue dots, also in a cluster. We had spent the whole first part of the class talking about seeds, and seeds and fruit, and seed catalogues. The child nodded, indicating she was ready for me to start writing. "Blueberries," she said, tapping the large blue dots. I obliged and wrote the word. Then she tapped the tiny specks.

"Blueberry seeds," I said, actually starting to write. She grabbed my marker. She looked appalled.

"No!" she said. "Those are extremely tiny blueberries!"

One of the many things I love about working with small children. They don't let you get away with a thing.