Carrots and positive attribution

I think I've said how useless my garden is this year.  Still occasionally I bring something in that makes me happy.

These carrots are really big and fat.  I've almost given up growing carrots altogether.  Its not that much effort to plant a row or two of them, and if they happen to germinate, and I pay attention, thin them.  The things is, they are usually so small and weird that it seems like the effort to peel them hardly is worth the amount of carrot you get to eat.  These carrots that I just harvested are worth it.  Does that mean I need terrible conditions for the rest of my garden to get good carrots?

Here's the rest of the harvest:

You see there are a few small heads of broccolli, some green onions, a little parlsey, and in addition to the big orange carrots, some of the usual and a few yellow ones.  The yellow ones seem really weak, and I had to dig them out.

Well, at least the carrot size was impressive.

In other news...
Another parenting class (we are being trained to use Conscious Discipline) we learned about using the "skill" of "positive attribution"- that is you attribute positive motives to people's (your child) actions.  I've tried to do that quite a lot as as I get older, but somehow I missed out on a key aspect of this proposition.   The point is, not that you judge people in a good way- as I thought I was doing.  The point is that YOU STOP judging.  By giving them a positive motive, it allows YOU to treat them well, and doesn't matter at all what their actual motive was in the first place.  I never thought of it like that.  Its very powerful.

So, the food they served us for dinner at these classes is well, you know, institutional.  It's usually OK if you are not expecting vegetarian or gourmet.  This week,  however, it was pretty terrible- even the cake.  They had this chilli- like how can you mess up chilli?- but it just wasn't any good.  My son apparently ate mashed potatoes- he woke up so late from his nap that I didn't get a chance to give him a snack.  He didn't eat anything else, but it was nice to know he actually ate mashed potatoes.  In any case, he said he was hungry so we decided to feed him (and ourselves) when we got home, so he didn't get to bed very reasonably.

He was in this great mood the next morning after sleeping until 8 am!  When I picked him up from playcare I found him kind of in a crazy state.  He had not napped, and had not apparently eaten lunch (not liking the food, presumably), filled up on animal crackers at snack and not touched the apple (apparently he likes it peeled as I do at home.  I know how pesticide laden apple orchards are).  I don't think the animal crackers really agreed with him for he kept saying his tummy hurt until what finally came out of him almost clogged our toilet this afternoon.  I don't know why they serve animal crackers for snack, or why they would let him have as much as he wants without eating real food, but  anyway, I like his teacher and all.