So I had a bit of a debacle on Monday... shocking, I know! My sister called me Sunday night at 9pm (Sidenote: I was already lying in bed. Don't judge). We usually *attempt* to do fun things with the kids on Mondays. She has the bright idea to go pick strawberries and make our homemade jam the next day. I was exhausted at the time (another shocker) and there had been a torrential downpour that day so I was less than enthused to go out in a soggy field with five kids, ages ranging from almost 18 months to 5 years. I said we will see how the weather turned out in the morning. Fast-forward to the next morning, it was overcast and slightly drizzly... I was still less than enthused (it perhaps also had to do with the literal mountains of laundry that were staring at me), but my sister was still extremely determined. We go back and forth for a bit, and finally decide that if the 70% chance of rain at 9am passed, we would make the effort to go. Well, it passed. And we went. Butler's Orchard may have the most random and bizarre back roads to get to it and you really aren't quite sure that you are actually going to end up at a location... but then it springs up out of the windy roads and woods, and we follow the very specific signs to the strawberry patch to begin our adventure. We had already decided that the kids would pick whatever amount of strawberries they wanted, and we would buy the rest down at the market/store/whatever it is called. They started off excited, digging in (sidenote: don't judge the outfits. I didn't want to care if they got destroyed):
Then Layla decided to whip Tyler with a dead strawberry bush and refused to say sorry, so she had to sit alone and not pick strawberries:
Let's zoom in for effect:
She finally apologized to Tyler and was back to happy in 0.273 seconds:
So, what felt like HOURS later (but was actually barely 30 minutes), we called it a day and went down to purchase the strawberries we actually did manage to pick (and not eat) which did not seem like many:
The market/store/whatever only had two teeny baskets of strawberries left, which were like $6 each... so our jam-making was in serious jeopardy. We had an oh-so-lovely drive home with one child (who will remain nameless, but happens to belong to my sister) screaming bloody murder the entire ride home (I forgive her. It is SO not like her), which distracted me so much I missed my turn, which then caused it to be a much LONGER horrific ride home. She was crying so hard that we thought she was going to vomit strawberries all over my car... but she didn't. (It could have been good payback for last Friday when Layla peed Tyler's bed and Olivia took off her poopy diaper in my sister's pack n' play. It was bad. I offered to send Summer over to puke but she didn't take me up on it).
We got home, fed them lunch, and may or may not have had some champagne with strawberries (again, don't judge). We tried to watch one of our stupid/trashy shows (which will remain nameless because I'm pretty sure I've had enough judgement for one post) while cutting out the strawberry tops, but every four seconds a child would pop in and we would have to pause it and try to redirect them. Olivia refused to nap and we actually watched her on the video monitor jumping on her bed like a lunatic. We attempted to make the jam... but didn't buy enough of the pectin boxes, so we both ended up with two and some jars each:
Which to be honest, is so not worth the hassle that it all was... but what WAS worth it was the kids' happiness while we were there (minus the Layla/Tyler/whipping situation), the excitement when we found a robin's nest with eggs in it in the strawberry bushes, smashing the strawberries. Sometimes it is so hard to just go ahead and DO things when I know how it usually turns out. I end up thinking to myself "I don't know why I even try." But I do try. And I will keep trying. Because I want to keep making memories with my girls, and I want them to experience things despite our crazy and hectic life.
These last two pics make me die laughing because here was my attempt at all three girls smiling together, but Livi is trying to swipe more strawberries and the sun is blinding Summer:
Then Layla is clearly yelling, "NO MORE STRAWBERRIES WIVIA!!!" and poor Summer has her eyes closed:
Until the next debacle...
No comments:
Post a Comment