Preparing for my granddaughter’s first solo sleepover at my apartment bore a certain resemblance to welcoming a head of state or some other V.I.P.
At the supermarket, I laid in provisions: the breakfast cereal she liked, cocoa for hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, ingredients for baking projects. I’d been buying secondhand books and toys for a while, but now I ordered additional art supplies and a simple board game.
What else could help occupy a 4-year-old over 24 hours? Bulbs! We could plant daffodils in the still-soft dirt outside the front door and watch them produce flowers next spring. I drove to a garden center.