Peter loves helping us in the garden, particularly watering. At times I wonder if it's sensible to remove so much of our lawn... after all, shouldn't a child have an open space run around? But I'm not overly protective of the garden - I'm happy to let him trample beds and pick my nasturtiums. I love watching him go inspect the strawberry plants and pick all the half-ripe one he sees. And I'm planning to incorporate some kid-friendly features, like a sandbox and so on.

So although a couple of people have told that we'll likely "rip it all up" in a couple of years when he's bigger and looking for a place to toss a ball, I'm hoping that he can toss the ball at the park across the street, and spend his time in the garden exploring, digging, tramping around, and picking flowers and food. I don't think a garden needs to be a wide open space to be kid-friendly. Who knows, maybe he'll even want his own little plot somewhere inside, and we'll plant kid-friendly things like sunflowers and beans.