Strawberry Rhubarb Pie!

I planted a ridiculous number of strawberry plants last year...three varieties of disease-resistant berries. The early ones (Earliglow) are at peak production right now, meaning James and Matthew pick and eat as many as they like every day and I can still follow behind and pick this many more:

 

Normally, I wouldn't use fresh homegrown berries in a cooked pie (what's the point?!), but we're swimming in berries this year and the rhubarb crowns came up with a vengeance, sooooo...strawberry rhubarb pie sounded just right. I had some very helpful helpers:

Tasting is also a very important part of cooking with fresh ingredients. Matthew's garbled and drooly words just before I snapped this photo were, "Do we have any more strawberries?"

Bobby was helping me fix the bird netting on the strawberry plants when he spied our garden toad. She's put on some weight since we first spotted her in the spring! I love a good, healthy garden toad. James dropped his whittling project and ran over gleefully to give her a good snuggle. Bobby commented that picking berries, whittling sticks with a pocket knife, and catching garden toads is James' little-boy-dream-life come true.

Another Glut of Pictures

Back in the saddle again.

The only patch of shade on our back patio. Good for plants, less good for hot little boys.

Bobby took this picture of me testing soil samples for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content. 

James trying out a new hairstyle.

Three not-so-baby robins. The fourth egg never hatched :(

A week later, it's an empty nest.

Speaking of empty nests, I've started learning about kids moving away from home. This book made me a little sad. First, because the author herself was talking about feelings I wasn't anticipating: loneliness, walking that fine line between being close to your child and squashing their independence, knowing that children want to remove themselves from you (independence) without often thinking about how that affects you and your life. She talked about "walking on eggshells" around your own kids as you navigate their adult life. I've invested my best and hardest labors on these kids. How will it feel to no longer be as involved in their lives as I am now? I always thought it would feel like a release or completion. A celebration. But this author made me reconsider. I thought about my own parents and how my efforts to prove myself as a capable adult might have appeared to them. I thought my independence and distance would be something they looked forward to. They cheer my successes and empathize with my failures, but maybe they don't care about any of that as much as they care about simply being a part of my life. Because they love me. Because they had invested their best and hardest labors on me. I had to put the book down. Those were heavy thoughts and I was already working through some pretty heavy Alice issues. Gonna think about this for a while.

Up close and personal with Hades. James loves these guys.

Alice is learning to play the accordion! We met her teacher this week and they totally clicked on sooooo many levels. She couldn't be more thrilled. I couldn't be more thrilled. Her plan is to take lessons a couple months until she knows her way pretty well around the instrument and can pick her own music to play. The clip below is something she came up with after her first lesson.

This is James sitting in a garden aisle building a stockpile of "fairy dust" (a superfine dust that floats on the air when dropped or thrown). It was hot, so he got an umbrella to keep the sun off. The boys developed a crazy game that used this fairy dust. They threw it at each other. Surprised? I banned them from actually chucking it at each other, so they modified the game a little. They threw the dust at the person's feet and any dust cloud it made was "poison" that killed a player and kicked him out of that round. Last boy standing was the winner. All three boys were maneuvering around the garden beds collecting and throwing this fairy dust at the each other for an hour. And they were having FUN! So, I didn't stop them. I didn't even stop them when the game morphed into dumping buckets of dust onto Matthew's back so he would make a dust trail when he ran. I did draw the line at pouring buckets of dust down into his clothes, though. Of course, neither Robert nor James were getting so heavily dusted. Matthew didn't seem to care. He loved the game. I don't think the bigger boys were being malicious or anything. It's just an unspoken sibling dynamic of power that the youngest guy is the guinea pig. And this guinea pig was having a RIOT. The natural consequence of bathing your little brother in dust, though, is helping him bathe it all off and washing those filthy clothes. They kinda groaned at that, but couldn't deny the logic.

Matthew snapped this picture of James enjoying his open window on a recent car ride. His long hair amplifies the effects.

Stabbing

Alice was stabbed by a professional this morning and she couldn't have been more pleased.

Thank you to NIH, CDC, FDA, Governor Pritzker, CU Public Health District, Carle Hospital, and Pfizer-BioNTech for changing this girl's life.

Pea leaves

Yesterday, James rediscovered the pea plants in the garden and soon remembered how delicious the leaves can be before the plant starts to flower. He plucked 2 or 3 leaves, stacked them carefully on top of each other, rolled it like an enchilada, and munch munch munch. He gave one to me and it was divine. I've gotta say: as much as I hate these late cold snaps, they really make sweet greens. The kale and collards are simply delightful. James started rolling bits of them in with his pea leaves, too. Delicious. Then he asked what else he could flavor them with. We tried garlic greens (woo!) and proved that a little goes a long way. The lettuce was a blah addition. Cilantro was a winner. Matthew got in on the fun, too, trying all sorts of combinations. I loved them all and told Matthew he was a fantastic garden chef. He really, really liked hearing that.

James, Matthew, and even Robert were grazing on the pea leaves this evening. In their game, the pea leaves were power boosts and fuel and such. I love that they were outside, playing cooperatively, eating dark green leafy vegetables. One exciting perk to eating pea leaves is it turns your spit green. As green as The Hulk. Unfortunately, I had to put a stop to that bit of fun. 

Robert spotted a baby robin in the garden. We checked the nest and it was empty. Toodle-oo, little cuties!

James helped me move mulch yesterday. He didn't ask for anything in return, he just wanted to do the work with me. He's actually big enough to help. A lot. His help and company were so nice that I didn't mind giving him (and Matthew) a few wheelbarrow rides along the way. 

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Alice helped me shop for a charity today. The state gave all the families with school-aged children a SNAP benefit card with hundreds of dollars on it to buy groceries. It was to make up for all the free school lunches kids couldn't get during online learning. We decided there were other families who could use the food more than we could, so Alice has been helping me shop every week to donate to a local anti-hunger program. Then she helps me repackage the produce for delivery.

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While walking the boys home from school today, Matthew was telling me about an art project he did and why he did it a certain way. Robert piped up and told Matthew that his method was not as historically accurate as he thought it was and he shouldn't think that it was. I pointed out to Robert that he came into the conversation halfway through and did not have all the information. Certainly not enough to "correct" his brother on how to create a historically accurate cave painting with crayons and construction paper. The conversation exploded into a detailed explanation of his side of the story, justifying and defending his actions. This happens a lot, in two flavors: #1 He does something, I suggest a different approach, he gets defensive and hurt, we talk and talk and talk about it until he gets so frustrated at me that he storms away in tears or we come to some sort of peaceful resolution to change something and do better. #2 I do something, he gets hurt, he suggests a different approach. I tell him I'm doing my best and things don't always turn out the same way every time. He gets more hurt. We talk and talk and talk about it until he storms off or we come to some sort of peaceful resolution to change something and do better. 

So much of my time with Robert is consumed with this process. Today, though, I decided I should listen more. Let him have the last word. Everything took its course as usual, but it ended with him saying that he was tired of fighting with me all the time. That almost everything I say to him lately is some sort of criticism or correction. 

I knew at that moment that he was right. 

I knew why I was constantly trying to change his behavior, too, but I didn't go there. I said what I felt, which was sorry. I said I didn't like all the fighting, either, and that I didn't realize that's how he was feeling. He stayed quiet. I don't know what he was thinking then, but I hoped he could tell I had just learned something important: In all my efforts to bring more peace, compassion, and tolerance to our family dynamic, he felt that I was shutting him down and cutting him out.

A few minutes later, we were chatting and playing around in the kitchen preparing lunch. These episodes can be agonizing, but the hurt feelings don't tend to linger. That's a blessing. 

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Alice is getting really anxious about the end of the school year. Her physical tics are pretty constant and she's even developed a couple verbal ones. We're following up with her therapist and her doctor, but so far their approach has been, "As long as the tics don't bother her or keep her from functioning normally, then they're fine." What's normal functioning?!

She's thrilled to be able to offer Kid Camp again this summer! We'll have to make some changes, of course, to lower the risk of spreading Covid, but "there is hope smiling brightly before us and we know that deliv'rence is nigh." ;)

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I ran my first triathlon of the season on Saturday. It was a good race. Something I'm proud of. Not my best time, but consistent with how much training I was able to complete beforehand :)

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It was great to see so many friends from church outside, unmasked, working for Solidarity Gardens this week. They prepped garden beds and transplanted hundreds of baby collards into the ground. In 90 minutes, they completed tasks that would have taken me at least 20 hours over the next 2 weeks to complete. Thank you!!