Now, I’ve never raised a baby (and I’m not going to start any time soon, no matter what Child Protective Service says, dammit!) but growing vegetables from seed is a crude but cromulent enough comparison.

About a month ago, I started basil from seed in a plastic egg carton I Macgyvered into a seed tray by cutting off the top and melting holes in the egg cups. The egg cups rest on the carton top which serves as a watering tray. Neat, huh?

Crowning!

I germinated the seeds by putting them in a ziplock bag to maintain moisture and warmth. As soon as I saw some green a few days later, I took them out so they wouldn’t develop a fungus. And then the worrying began.

A perfect fit!

I’d been searching on the internet for all kinds of information, a lot of it neurotically technical and some of it contradictory.  You can learn a lot from cannabis growers, who are so exacting that it kind of rubs off. I want my guys to be huge monsters:

I give them about 20 hours of fluorescent light a day.

Things to worry about:  water, light, temperature, and nutrients. It was still winter and I’d have to provide a steady source of light while keeping them warm. I worry about too little or too much of everything.

Is it too hot? Too cold? Is there too much water? Too little?

Then after a while, I started to relax a little bit more and let them go without water as much or put them outside naked to the elements whenever the weather was right to toughen them up. Raising seedlings is an exercise in being comfortable with healthy doses of neglect. Maybe that’s what it’s like to be a parent. I won’t say I totally get it, but sometimes I see my elementary school students walking around town and using the bus unsupervised and I wonder what it took for their parents to just become cool with that. Or maybe I’ve bought into the hysteria that there are child predators just around the corner or under manholes or even in the trees!

Speaking of child predators in the trees, another thing I worry about is birds preying on my seedlings. I’ve never seen birds prey on a plant, but whenever I put the seedlings outside, I have this fear that a Hitchcockian swarm of birds will swoop down and peck the shit out of them.

Birds: the child predators of the plant world.

I don't trust you!

And then I worry about their development. Some seedlings are clear winners while others “just ain’t right.” The winners are just so robust, with their first true leaves so big. They even smell like basil! The losers have stems that are long and lanky with leaves that are too small. Their poor genetics aren’t completely to blame.

Sometimes I forget what a “healthy” dose of neglect is.

Two weeks ago, I went drinking with a bunch of other teachers right after work. I didn’t stop home to check up on them and when I finally got home around midnight this is what I found:

This is what happens when daddy drinks!

One of the shrimps who never was too good at life passed out at Death’s doorstep; the cotyledons were shriveled, the stem limp. I soaked the seedlings and waited. An hour later, the shrimp perked up, but I know after that traumatic incident that it’s never going to be the same.

In the end, I’m kind of sick of them being in the apartment all the time. I just want the weather to warm up enough that I can get them out of the house. On the roof they can get big and strong enough to exploit.

After all, isn’t that what parenting is all about?