So Excited I Could Pee

I interrupt the regularly scheduled Week of Wonder entry to bring you (drumroll):

Tomatoes!
(Ta-Da!)

Looking a bit like Chinese lanterns here, actually.

Before you eye me skeptically, before you betray how completely underimpressed you are by this merest hint of growth from my late bloomers, let me add: I bring you signs of tomatoes from the first tomato plants I have ever grown. Tomatoes from the first plants I have ever done anything more with than just water. You know? These are the first plants I could say I have nurtured. Nurtured. I have fussed over them for hours and days, removing whiteflies and their blasted larvae from leaves. I have fertilized. I have watered. I have named them and sung them happy good-morning songs. I have even, and this will shock anyone who knows me, downright prayed for spiders to come babysit my little guys while I'm away. (Uh-huh, that's right. That's how much I love them!)

All things that every other gardener in the world does without thinking any of it is the least bit remarkable. Which is perfectly true.

Except for the first time. The first is always special.