Strawberry Picking at Butler's Orchard

We discovered, recently, that there are apparently two "good" weekends for strawberry picking in our area. One was this past weekend, so we scrambled and made plans to go out Saturday morning(...ish) to pick strawberries with the kids.


Butler's Orchard welcome... truck  :)

Peanut, in particular, is a huuuuuuuge strawberry aficionado, so we thought this activity would be fun for her. And Little Man is always up for seeing/playing on tractors, which this farm had, so we figured it'd be a good bet for him, too. They did enjoy picking strawberries, but oddly enough it was Sylvia who really had a blast. Who knew?!

We rode a wagon (pulled by a tractor) out to the strawberry field, got our row assignment, and were off to the races, each of us trying to find the biggest, ripest strawberries to be had.

Peanut and Mama

Little Man (whose head is
not really that big!)

It was HOT out there, but they did a great job finding lots of yummy strawberries. We got to sample a few (with permission, of course), and there is something truly delectable about biting into a strawberry that is warm from the sun. They practically melt in your mouth.

contemplating their next moves

I definitely think we'll do this again next year-- it was a lot of fun. (And just in case I forget in between now and then: yes, dress the kids in bleach-able shirts. That was a very good call.)

showing off their haul -- 4 pounds of fresh strawberries!  :)

This, That, and The Other

This:
The kids and I are back from a six-day vacation to see my parents, two of my brothers, my Awesome sister-in-law (not that the others aren't great, but this one is as close as I've ever been to having a sister), and my twin nephews (about a year older than our kiddos). It was awesome. Three years old turned out to be a great age for this kind of a trip-- it was SO much easier to handle them by myself than it was when they were younger, and they're at a good, engaging age such that the other adults around seemed to enjoy their company. The first few days of naptimes and bedtimes were an unmitigated disaster, though. Definitely something to work on before my next solo venture.

That:
Summer has arrived! I love the longer days (even if the kids are still confused about why they have to go to bed before it gets dark) and warmer weather. I also love dressing them in shorts and short-sleeve shirts. It reminds me how little they still are. Somehow under the bulky clothes of winter they look like Big Kids to me, but when I see their skinny little arms and legs, I get all mushy because they really are still Little Kids. They're growing up awfully fast, though. I'm taking pictures like a madwoman, trying to hold on to every minute.

The Other:
The Other is the elephant in the room, the 500-pound gorilla sitting on my chest: the possibility of a third child. I want another child. Desperately, one might say. At various times, Sylvia does, too. But her desire to have another child is offset by her fear (of financial stress, of parenting stress, of her age), and so we wait. We are working through some parenting differences with our (new, but so far relatively helpful) couples counselor, and after a rough week decided to table the conversation about having a third child for now.

But that doesn't make the ache go away.

A few weeks back I posted this on a local message board:

How do you tell your biological clock to hush for a bit? Our TTC plans are on hold as we work through some parenting issues in couples counseling and figure out the financial aspects of having a third kid, and as much as I know I need to be fine with that all, some days I just want to yell "I'm dyin' here!!" I am finding it extremely hard to backburner my desire for another kid. And the fact that the kids are already three and that I'll be 36 in June isn't helping.

Today I came across some videos of the kids from when they were two, and I just broke down and bawled. The tears were for how precious they were (and are), but also for my deep sadness at the possibility that I might not have an opportunity to parent another child through those tender years again.

Some days I genuinely don't know if I could come out the other side of all this discussion and be okay if the answer to the question of another kid is no. I can see being very hurt and even bitter for a long time, and I know that wouldn't be healthy for me or my marriage.

I definitely wouldn't ever push Sylvia to be okay with trying for another kid, but in the back of my mind I can't help but think that if everyone waited for circumstances to be Perfect (with a capital P!), very few people would ever have kids! Having a kid takes a leap of faith, and while obviously you should plan and save and try to make sure everything is in order, ultimately you can't plan for every possibility.

So there we have it. Nothing to do but keep on keepin' on.

Easter

So here are our kiddos' FIRST EVER Easter baskets. The trucks were supposed to be for their birthday, but we never gave the kids their birthday presents (long story), so the trucks became part of their baskets.



My favorite part of watching them explore their baskets (on our bedroom floor-- we are still finding pieces of that paper grass stuff!) was seeing Peanut offer her brother and/or me her goodies. Any time she came across two of anything (like the pretzel sticks in her hand here), she gave one to her brother. Awww!



After nap, we had our first royal icing experience. I thought it would be a complete mess, but they actually did very well pouring the icing into the shape (which I'd piped earlier) with a spoon, and then spreading it around with a toothpick. I bought a 14-pack of gel colors to let them color the icing any color they wanted, but they picked the predictable pink/green/blue set of colors. DD made lots of pink bunnies and flowers and DS made green bunnies (he decided they were actually frogs) and blue butterflies.

Commuting Treasures

Mama: Look at the sky! What a beautiful sunset!

Peanut: God painted the sky, and He did a GOOD job!!

Too-Long Trip

Sylvia took the kiddos to visit Grandma to celebrate both Grandma's recent birthday and the kids' upcoming birthday (3... what?!?!). They left on Friday. Here's how it's been since then:

Friday (post-airport run): Margaritas (two) and a meal that was all my own. Delicious. Hours wandering around the outlet mall; errands run.

Saturday: Slept in till 8. Lovely. Woke up to an empty house (save the dog) and no one to make breakfast for. Mood down a notch. In the evening, called Sylvia just in time to hear her family sing the kids happy birthday, and to hear the kids blow out candles on their birthday cakes. I missed seeing my kids blow out candles for the first time ever. Tears.

Sunday: Woke up at 5:30 wondering why I didn't have two tiny feet planted in my back like I usually do. Realized kiddos were still at Grandma's. Tried to go back to sleep. Gave up and went to mope downstairs. Went to church and sat all by myself in a row that normally wouldn't have been long enough to fit my family. Ate hummus and Reese's Pieces (both banned in our house due to the kiddos' allergies), which failed to cheer me up.

Monday: Showered by myself in a warm bathroom without having to ask a million times for various wee ones to please shut the door to keep the heat in. Loved the warmth, but missed the sound of my little boy sitting outside the shower reading Hugless Douglas to me. Stayed at work until midnight because there was no one to go home to. Got dissed by the dog who turned around and went right back outside once she realized I didn't bring any of her little friends home with me.

Tuesday: Heard from S that they are staying at Grandma's an extra day because of the snow storm we're anticipating here tomorrow. 8:21 PM and I'm still at work.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm enjoying having all this time to myself. Hmmph.

A Post From The Outskirts

It's hard, you know, to know quite what to say in the days and weeks after a loss. Particularly of someone so central to a community that you yourself sit on the outskirts of. I struggled about whether to even write this post, as I feel it's not really my place to talk about a loss so distant. And yet... It's hard to come to a blog space and not acknowledge what's been going on in the broader blogging community.

I feel a little guilty, honestly, about following Reproducing Genius and then C is for Crocodile and commenting so very rarely. I feel like I took but did not give. I hate that feeling. And yet... As bloggers we come to a public space to put our thoughts out there, frequently without expectation of receiving something in exchange for our words. At least that's how it is for me. Clicks and pageviews are a mechanism of communication, albeit silent. They say "there are people out here who care about what you say." Small consolation, though, when I feel I've done so very little.

New Year, New Look, New... Energy?

Hard to believe it's 2013 and our little kiddos are cruising quickly toward 3 years old. So very, very much has happened in the past 3 years, and I've only shared a fraction of it here. Already memories are slipping away... Things I thought I'd never forget. I miss not having a record of it here (or anywhere, truly), so I think I'm going to start blogging again.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll say that there were many dark days in the time I've been silent. Dark days for me personally, and especially for my marriage. Now that I (and we) are mostly on the other side of the darkness, I feel a little more free to share. Well, that and now that darkness isn't sapping every.single.ounce of my available energy, I might have enough energy to write again.

I hope I find the energy, because even though I've never really had a following here, I do feel loosely connected to "the blogging community" when I write. I miss that connection. I also miss feeling free to be as verbose as I (typically) am. Chat boards and other means of keeping up with the folks I care about and who care about me are great, but I always feel a little stifled, like I have to break my life up into tiny soundbites for fear of boring people. But here? Here I can wax nostalgic, poetic, or just plain crazy for as many words as I please. Ahhhhh, sweet freedom.

In a feeble effort to bring my blog out of the stone age, I've updated the look and moved some things around. Please do pop into any comment space and let me know if anything looks strange or is inaccessible.

And since it's been a while since I've posted a picture to this blog, here's my current favorite picture of the kiddos (taken last October):