Dead flowers and a pink peony – days of Elliot’s flower cutting

Every morning before getting into the car for preschool, Elliot asks if he can cut me a flower. Even in winter. So he takes the clippers and cuts one. Last fall he was cutting tiny little flowers for me, but ever since then he cuts dead ones because that’s all we’ve had. He brings me the flower. I thank him profusely, kiss him, buckle him into his car seat, and put the flower on my dashboard. There they collect for weeks or months.

Today he cut a giant, beautiful, pink peony. We’ve been smelling them and admiring them and their white neighbors for the last week or so. He’s been observing and commenting about them, smelling them with me. We call them “friends” like we do all plants. And Elliot became very surprised by how some were buds one morning and then had bloomed by that evening. He also saw how they close up at night or in the rain, and asked me why. I could not answer.

Well, Elliot cut one of these beautiful peonies before I could tell him to stop and to cut a dead flower instead. But it’s ok since we’re getting a strange snow storm (May 20, 2022) that will kill them. I practiced patience and did not say anything except my usual “thank you! i love you, thank you so much!” And put it on the dashboard.