The Vegetable Thief

My vegetables are constantly running low.  I can leave the refrigerator stocked with two containers of cherry tomatoes and the next time I return there is only one container left, if I'm lucky.  I can slice up two cucumber for dinner and before we can all sit down to the table half of them are missing.  Baby carrots disappear at an alarming rate. I can't say that I mind having this problem.

The thief:

I have caught him sitting in front of the TV munching away on baby carrots and tomatoes.  He will hide in the pantry eating his stolen vegetables.  This time I found him sitting outside on the swing enjoying a moment to himself enjoying a cool breeze along with the vegetables.

As we planned our garden this year we let the kids decide what they would plant.  Nathan did not even hesitate.  He wanted an apple tree and a tomato tree.  The apple trees are yet to be planted but we did get his tomato "tree".  I knew that the chance of me eating any tomatoes off of Nathan's plant was extremely slim so I picked up a second one.  Hyrum has claimed it as his.  I still might not get any tomatoes this summer.

Nathan was so excited to pick and eat his first tomatoes!  He checks several times a day to see if there are any that have changed to the perfect red.

The wind has knocked the plants over a couple of times and while I was standing them back up and showing the boys how to water them I caught myself talking to the plants.  Nathan and Hyrum giggled and asked me why I was talking to a plant and I explained that plants grow better if they have sunshine, water, and love; that it has been proven in experiments that plants who have good music played for them grow better than plants that have hard, bad music played for them.  Later that afternoon Hyrum informed me that he sang two nice songs to his tomato plant and he didn't even say "guns" in his songs.  Nathan always remembers his watering days and he also talks to his plant, especially the little green tomatoes, encouraging them to grow so he can eat them.

This is not a new thing with Nathan.  He has been eating fruits and vegetables from the time he was 4 months old.  His first fruit was a plum that my dad gave him at a family reunion and at 5 months he started gnawing on carrot and celery sticks to comfort his teething gums.  When he was 16 months old he walked to the back of our half acre lot and plucked a zucchini from the garden, dragged it back up to the house, and proceeded to eat a vegetable that was nearly as tall as he was.