*Heavy sigh*

Awhile back, I talked about how some research has shown that kids tend to go through disequilibrium around the half-year mark. Sam will be 3 1/2 next month, and the terrible 3's have officially hit our house.

 

On Thursday of last week, I got the first glimpse of what was about to come.  It was just general naughtiness, nothing I could really put my finger on, but in a general way the behavior was very out of character for Sam.  I have been wanting to paint the bathroom for awhile, and I did have this feeling like - "Hmm, maybe I shouldn't try to do this now, because it probably won't turn out well".  You know how you've heard you should always trust your instincts?  You really should.

 

After I'd cleaned off the yellow Sam-sized handprints from the front of my (Not Normally Yellow) bathroom cabinets, I banished Sam to his room and kept him on A Very Short Leash for the rest of the night.  Figuratively, not literally - though I have to admit, I just may have been tempted for a brief moment.

 

The weekend was like a marathon of episodes of a really bad sitcom.  Things that might be funny if you see them on the TV screen, but not so funny when you have to clean up the aftermath.  Like when I was carrying a bucket of sudsy water outside to wash my car, and Sam ran up to me and, as quick as lightning, yanked on one side of the bucket so the water spilled all over the kitchen floor, landing, and stairs.  Trust me, there was no laugh track playing at our house - although there was a deep, reverberating voice narrating the words "GET INTO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME..."

 

And this morning, I received a phone call from my husband that Sam had detached a clump of hair from Natalie's skull using brute force.  A clump.  When you hear the words "a clump" and "hair" in the same sentence, it sends a shiver down your spine.  I have not yet surveyed the damage first-hand, but it can't be pretty.  I've been informed that Sam has lost custody of one of his favorite toys for the remainder of the week (and with just cause).

 

Anyway!  Let's talk about something else more fun, because frankly, I'm getting more annoyed every minute just from typing this.

 

Like my garden!  I am doing some experimenting this year with fun, new things which I've never grown.  Red sweet corn - did you know there was such a thing?  I've only seen the small, decorative kind of red corn.  But as we speak, I have red sweet corn sprouting in my garden.  And artichokes!  I didn't even know they could grow in Minnesota, with our approximately 2-day growing season.  But the seed packet informs me that they do, by showing our grand state on the "when to plant" map.  We even have an actual color that corresponds to an actual month range on the map key!  So it must be so!  And I found some fun varieties of heirloom tomato plants at the Farmer's Market.  One that produces striped tomatoes, another called a "Black Plum" tomato, and a "Russian Persimmon".

 

Also, trees!  Now, those of you who know me well will laugh at this.  For, oh, the last 5 years or so, we've been talking about moving to a single-family house with more property.  (We live in an upper-lower duplex, and although we don't rent out the bottom half anymore, we mainly use it for storage so it's largely wasted space.  And who really needs two kitchens and two laundry rooms.)  I think, after 5 years, we're finally ready to give up the dream.  After all, moving is A LOT OF WORK.  Inertia is just easier.  So I'm planting trees.  Trees which won't fruit for 3 or more years, which basically ties me to this land.  Because after paying so much money for these trees, and all the time put into their care, I want to be around to see them pay off!

 

First, I purchased 2 apple trees from Linder's (a local chain).  I bought a Honeycrisp and a Sweet Sixten...yum.  I paid $50 each, which seemed like a steal since the independent greenhouses I'd perused charged $75 to $100 for the same trees.

 

Then, I was at Fleet Farm last week (another local chain) and found my holy grail...a Mesabi cherry tree.  I have been looking, and looking for one of these for a couple of months now.  It was marked $44.99.  Awesome!  But even more awesome, it rang up at 25% off - $33.74!!!  If I had room in my yard, I was sorely tempted to buy a pear tree and a plum tree, also.  Maybe next year, I'll find a place to squeeze them in.

 

Ah...now I'm feeling much better.  I'd so much rather think and talk about my garden than my behaviorally-challenged 3 1/2-year-old at the moment.

Finally, An Update

Phew.  As I wipe the sweat off my brow, I hardly know where to start explaining where I've been and what I've been doing.

I have been a bit busy lately, with a big project.  Not the "raising two young children" project, or the "taking care of a house" project, but a different one.  Gardening is one of my passions, something I haven't been able to do much of since having kids.  The summer after Sammy was born, we had to tear out my beautiful garden to put in an ugly septic mound.  

This used to be my garden.  Now it's basically a big pile of...well, you know.

Ever since, I haven't had the time or the ambition to start over, but this year I've decided to change all that.

This is what I have to work with:

And this:

I've spent the past couple of weeks digging out tree stumps, hauling black dirt, weeding, mulching, planting, and fencing.  And that's why I haven't been posting lately.

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I love summer.  Love, love, love it, for reasons to numerous to mention, but one of the reasons?  Messy projects can move outdoors, leaving the cleanup to Mother Nature instead of Mother Exhausted.

  

Nah, I didn't really leave the kids outside until it rained.  I mean, I let Mother Nature clean up the driveway.  The kids, I sprayed down with a garden hose.  Which they thought was great fun - almost as fun as the painting itself.

Bunny Tales

You know how there are lots and lots of stories about Santa, and the North Pole, and his reindeer?  Not so much with the Easter Bunny, which I never realized until recently when Sammy started pelting me with questions.  "How does the Easter Bunny get in our house?" he wanted to know.  "Where does the Easter Bunny live?" 

 

I really didn't know what to say, because there isn't a lot of lore associated with the Easter Bunny.  I've found a good way to deal with these questions is to throw them back at Sammy.  "Well, I don't know," I might say.  "I wonder if he comes in the window?"  Then Sammy will usually say something like, "No, I don't think he comes in the window.  I think he comes in the door."  "But our doors are locked; I wonder how he gets in?" I'll say.  "I think he has a key," Sammy says.  I love these little conversations because it gives me a glimpse into the mind of a 3-year-old.  He's at a really imaginative stage right now and he'll tell elaborate stories - with no point whatsoever, but I can't fault him that because he probably learned it from me.

 

During one of our Easter Bunny discussions, I told him a story about a few springs ago when I was cleaning out one of my flowerbeds and uncovered a whole nest of tiny, blind, sleeping baby bunnies.  I carefully covered them back up and left them undisturbed, in spite of knowing that in a few months I'd be battling with them over my newly sprouted peas and beans.  Sammy found the story fascinating and asked me to repeat it no less than 7 times.  Later, I heard him earnestly telling the story to Natalie. 

 

The part that I left out was that the mother abandoned her babies shortly after that.  I found them dead and smelly a few weeks later, and had to bury them in a corner of the yard.  I didn't want to scar Sammy for life by telling him the unhappy ending to the sweet baby bunny story.

Close Encounters of the Fungi Kind

Before having kids, I used to have a beautiful vegetable garden every summer. Each fall, I would can, freeze, and pressure cook vegetables until the pantry was full and I had lost half of my body weight in sweat from working in the steamy kitchen. But no more. Turns out, vegetables really don't do well when surrounded by weeds three times as high as they are. Who knew?

Luckily for me, raspberries have no such requirements. In fact, if this year's crop is any indication, they seem to thrive on neglect. I've been picking raspberries every other day, and ending up with approximately 4 cups of berries with each picking. In the coming days, I'll post some of the recipes that I've been experimenting with in my attempts to use up all these berries.
Last night, I made a fresh berry tiramisu. It turned out to be a lot of work, especially since I had two whiny children at my feet and in my hair (and it turns out, they can be both places simultaneously). At one point, I was starting to lose my temper, so I decided to step outside to get some fresh air and get away from it all for a minute. The problem is, "it all" followed me outside. Natalie wouldn't let me put her down, so she came out with me by default. And Sammy came running behind me, in his sock feet, saying, "Mommy, I want to come with! Don't leave me!" So instead of going for a short walk, like I had intended, I sat down in the grass and put my head in my hands for a brief meditation while the kids milled around.

It wasn't long before I heard Sammy say, "Natalie, don't eat that! Mom, Natalie's eating something!" Thinking she was eating a blade of grass, or a weed, I didn't react at first. When he repeated it, I finally looked up to see Natalie spitting something out, and Sammy pointing at the humongous mushroom she had just sampled.

Um. It seems that every story I've heard about amateur mushroom hunters hasn't turned out well. And even though it didn't look like she had actually swallowed any of it, I had no idea how much of that particular mushroom it would take to cause ill effects. So, I gathered the kids up and ran in the house to make my first call to Poison Control.

The man on the other end of the line was very helpful. He had me describe the mushroom, and reassured me that it didn't sound like it was an overly toxic mushroom, but to be safe, he wanted me to take a picture and email it to him. I did that, and a few minutes later, he called me back to say that the worst she would probably experience was stomach upset. And since I thought she hadn't swallowed much, that odds were she wouldn't have any symptoms whatsoever but if she did start showing symptoms, to call him back right away.

She ate supper shortly after that, and went to sleep. Of course, I checked on her all night long but she was totally fine. So, all's well that ends well.

Edited to add: The Poison Control called back this morning to follow up. I'm very impressed at their helpfulness! Although I hope I won't have to do any more "business" with them.

My fingers are crossed that the nice weather is finally here to stay. I decided to take a chance and start planting the garden yesterday. All I have done so far is two rows of peas. It's quite slow-going when you have a "helper" and a "fusser".

Natalie was ready for a nap, but Sammy was being too loud and she couldn't go to sleep, so I decided to bring her outside and hope for the best. I got her set up on her blanket with a boatload of toys, a binky, and a bottle. Then I hoed my row and showed Sammy how to plant the peas. He likes to dance to the beat of his own drummer, though, so instead of planting the peas in rows the way I showed him, he decided little piles of peas were better. Meaning, of course, that I had to follow behind him, stealthily picking up his peas without him seeing what I was doing, and replant them properly.

Since peas are one of his favorite vegetables, he then decided he wanted to eat some. I explained that they weren't good to eat yet; that we needed to plant them, wait for them to grow, and then we could eat them. He tried one anyway, and was decidedly unimpressed. He decided to go check out the woodpile instead.

While he was over there, Natalie started fussing. "I'll be right there, sweetie! I'm coming!" he called, and picked his way across the woodpile as quickly as he could. By the time I got my handful of peas planted, brushed the dirt off my hands, and got over to her, Sammy was helping her with her bottle. "Nye want her bottle," he informed me. Such a good helper. =)

After I finished covering the pea seeds with dirt, Sammy came over to inspect my work. "Peas ready to eat now?" he asked. If only it worked that way.

Next up: tomatoes and cucumbers. I think that will be as ambitious as I'm going to get this summer.