Mom’s Plants

This story takes place in Dallas, TX in the spring when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I wasn’t the greatest child around this time, I constantly got myself in trouble for breaking things or getting myself hurt for stupid things. Now obviously I didn’t know any better since I was so young when I was in this destructive phase. So before you get all upset with me for what I’m about to tell you in this story, remember I was still a baby. Anyways, this story takes place at my parents’ old apartment in Dallas. I don’t remember too much from our old apartment or how our furniture was arranged nor do I remember the layout of the house. But the 2 things I remember from the apartment were a balcony and that we lived on the 4th floor.

My mom, who we will call Kerrie, always had a green thumb , she was an advocate for “The more the merrier” when it came to plants. Kerrie got these plants not too long ago, she had them for right around a week when this incident took place. Kerrie kept all of her plants on the balcony. She had a variety of plants too. Her collection went from hanging plants, Tall plants that sat on the floor of the balcony, and potted plants on the ledge of the balcony. I always had someone watching me at home. Kerrie worked through the day whilst my Father, who we will call Jared, would work through the night. When my dad got home he would be exhausted, Jared usually worked 13-16 hour shifts so understandably, when he got home he would fall asleep. Which would leave little old me unattended and unsupervised. So on this day. I waddled my baby legs onto the balcony. And pushed all the ledge plants off of the 4th story of our apartment. Fortunately enough, Jared was still somewhat aware of his surroundings and heard me open the sliding glass door to the balcony. Jared caught me in the act of pushing the plants off the balcony. But I still pushed a few off by the time he caught me doing it.

Jared has always had a short temper. So understandably, he was pretty upset with me. After the incident, he told Kerrie about what happened. And she was also upset, but I was a little surprised when she got home. About an hour passes after Kerrie finds out. She was almost home at this point, Now I thought the worst of it would come from Kerrie since they were her plants and she only had them for about a week. But once she got home, she sat me down and talked to me in a soft manner. She didn’t sound upset, she sounded even minded and calm. Her words were “I know you’re young and you’re going to make mistakes, I want you to know I’m not mad at you for what you did, Please don’t do it again. I love you”. This bewildered me, because I knew what I did was wrong. But she wasn’t mad at me for it. I asked her “Mommy, why aren’t you mad at me?” She then said “Because yelling at you will only make you more mad at yourself, I know you are going to make mistakes.” We ended up hugging each other and going out to eat as a family.

“Plants vs Balconies” by Minchioletta is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.