I was looking through my gardening photos the other day, and I realized that I am inlove with flower buds. Well, of course. They're pretty. But it's something more than that. It's the pure potential that those flower buds represent. At this stage of the flower's existence, it is perfect. Nothing has nibbled the petals, the sun hasn't burned or faded the bloom, and it hasn't yet begun its decline before deadheading. In a bud are all the possibilities for beauty, all the ideas of perfection that exist for that particular flower. It is, on a smaller scale, the same feeling I get everytime I see a newborn baby. Such absolute perfection; such mystery at how it will all turn out.

The hydrangea bloom you see in the photo there, in its infancy, holds all of that wonder for me, and more. This particular plant was one of those florist hydrangeas that you can buy in garden centers as gifts. After our first daughter was born, my husband bought this plant for me. Really, these aren't supposed to be able to be planted out in the garden, but I tried it anyway. I planted it up close to my house, and was thrilled when it survived its first winter. No blooms, and a tiny amount of leaves, but it lived. I babied it through another winter, mulching it heavily with leaves, and now, after its second year in the ground, I have been rewarded with its first bloom. And it's perfect, pink, delicate....just like the daughter that I was gifted with. Both daughter and hydrangea have given me their own shares of challenges, joy, worry, and peace, and I have been blessed to have been given both.