Jimmy

a few weeks ago we came back from Cadillac with Jimmy, a young red maple that tried to make it in the forest in ben's parents' back yard. We had low expectations, we've never heard of anyone growing a maple tree in an apartment, but thought it could be a nice project. Some day, we'll have a house of our own, and when Jimmy grows out of his pot (and possibly hit the ceiling... :S) we can plant him in our back yard and enjoy its changing leaves in the fall, and its bloom in the spring.
Jimmy didn't do much for a long time. Most of his leaves were damaged because it was hammered by hail (like this?) at some point this winter (in his old home), and were ripped and had holes in them. we kept waiting for new leaves to grow at the end of the existing branches, but it didn't seem like he wanted to do that.

One day, about two weeks ago, we noticed that it's sprouting two new branches!
We follow him closely, and notice how much his new branches grow each day.

The following images show how well he's grown. the ones on the left are from Sep. 19th, and the ones on the right are from today -- less than 10 days later! i'm sorry the images are not from the same angle, the branches have grown so much that they can't fit in the image if i take it from the same angle.
it may be hard for you guys to spot the new branches 'cause they grew so much... the new leaves look a little pink (they slowly turn green though), that will give you a hint to where to look.