Lemon Seeds

A few months ago, I had the bright idea of trying to make lemonade from scratch with my three girls.

This is not something we do regularly.

While we love baking, when it comes to making lemonade, I would much prefer to buy it or, at the very least, add some bottled lemon juice concentrate and sugar to a pitcher of water and call it a day.

Refereeing fights about who got to squeeze more lemon halves and trying to keep the three year old from dumping (or drinking) the meager measuring cup of juice we’d painstakingly squeezed is not my idea of a relaxing afternoon.

However, I thought it would be fun (famous last words?) and so we found ourselves covered in sticky sour juice, lifting the three year old down off the dining table a dozen times and fighting over who got to squeeze more lemon halves.

If you ask my kids, it was fun.

My eldest (who is very much a collector of all random things) was sneakily picking the seeds out of the juice and the empty lemon peels as we went.

“You know you’re not keeping those, right?”

It was almost out of my mouth. 

But I managed a question that was a little more gentle: “What are your plans for those?”

Of course, she wanted to plant them.

“Lemon trees don’t grow in Canada.”

“You know they probably won’t sprout.”

“It’s going to be really hard to keep them alive.”

“I don’t want a pot of dirt upstairs.”

What I really wanted to do was to throw them in the green bin and avoid the potential disaster of a pot of soil in the (carpeted) playroom.

But here’s what it would have sounded like to her: “I know better.”

And while I quite possibly do know better about a lot of things, I needed to let her try out her wings.

I think I successfully held back three out of four of those statements and went off in search of a pot.

(I should clarify that I am not so free and relaxed as to let them explore all their dreams. Some recent squelched dreams include oatmeal trails through the house, homemade parachute jumps off the tall furniture, bike races on the very busy walking paths in our neighbourhood, puddle jumping in the kitchen and sending the three year old down the stairs in a suitcase.)

But it’s a good thing I helped her make this one happen because a few weeks later, just as I was about to google “Are my lemon seeds going to sprout?” so that I had some justification for (finally) dumping the pot, we had seedlings.

Lemon tree seedlings. In her room. In Canada.

Since then, she has carefully moved them into the sunny spots in the room and dutifully made sure the soil stayed moist. 

And they’re growing.

And she’s so thrilled.

And she’s probably gained more confidence and learned more than with any formal lesson I could’ve provided.

I just had to be ok with a little dirt and the possibility of not knowing better.