Yellow Roses

Last weekend, Mr. W. made a grocery store run while I stayed home with the girls. While he was gone, I decided it was past time to trim Miss L.'s fingernails and went to town on them. She fussed and fought with more than her usual crankiness during the procedure, and I managed to nip the end of her sucking thumb. She screamed, I cried and the poor little thumb bled for well over an hour.

Right around the same time L. and I settled enough to put her to bed, Mr. W. came home with his grocery haul. Tucked within the fruits, vegetables, meats and baby food was a dozen yellow roses, my absolute favorite. Mr. W. on a whim decided to surprise me with flowers. He had no idea I had spent a solid hour consoling a screaming baby, but he could not have picked a better time to show up with flowers for no reason.

I'm beginning to wonder about these roses, though. When he brought them home, they looked kind of pitiful, the buds were very, very tightly closed and the leaves were mostly blackened from being crushed. I stripped the leaves, trimmed the stems (under water) and added the packed of whatsit that came with the flowers in their water. These roses opened up into the most glorious blooms. As buds, they were a deep yellow, but now that they are open, I can see that the outer petals are deep yellow, and the center petals are almost white with tiny bits of pink showing in the centermost petals. Not only that, but 6 of the stems have started sprouting leaves of all things. I have never, ever seen cut roses sprout new leaves. I am thinking once the blooms have faded, I will snip them and see if roots grow.

We had gorgeous rose bushes at our last house, and I miss them. Wouldn't it be wondrous if these out-of-the-blue-when-I-really-needed-consoling grocery store roses became bushes in our backyard? Even if they do no more than put out the few leaves I have seen already, it is still exciting to me.

M.W.