One of my favorite things about summer is putting in my garden. It has been a great way to connect my kids to how food ends up on our table. My son Josh loves eating fresh tomatoes and cucumbers he picks himself although he had to be convinced it wasn’t wrong to eat what at first he was sure was Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales. I’m so glad he loves to eat vegetables, but this year he did ask if we could plant ice-cream and chocolate sandwich cookies. Honestly, I think I’d like that, too.
So this year I planted three different pepper plants. At the store they had tags that told me one was a banana pepper, one was a yellow pepper and one was a green pepper. We don’t do many spicy foods around here, so they seemed like good, mild selections. That was until I chopped up the first of what I thought was a green pepper and after eating it realized I was growing some kind of plant obviously intended to burn tastebuds and clear sinuses. And now the plant that was labelled “yellow pepper” is starting to have a distinctly jalapeno shape to it. I am getting the feeling some tags may have gotten switched around at the store.
Oddly enough, this made me think about my kids and the expectations I have for them. I feel like a blessing of parenting adopted kids is that they come without much in the way of identifying labels. Parenting them is similar to opening a Christmas gift- I just don’t know what’s inside waiting to come out. I can’t look at them and think, “Well, I loved that activity, so they will too.” They are little mysteries to me and I have loved learning what they are passionate about. This point was brought home to me when we took the kids to see the air show and my two year-old was totally entranced while his big brother and little sister were only mildly interested. I never would have guessed he’d have that reaction because this little pepper did not come with a tag that told me what to expect about who he would become. I’m glad that I’ve had to learn this lesson before the arrival of our first biological child so I don’t put expectations on him that just may not fit. I think it’s great for all of us to give our kids the freedom to be whatever God created them to be. And if anybody has any recipes for my super hot peppers, feel free to pass them along.