Raspberry Royal

Reed is a berry freak. Before we planted raspberries Reed would go around the edge of the field and pick wild berries.

We planted one row of raspberries 300 feet long a few years ago and Reed ate them all. So we planted three more rows. The next year we had enough to take raspberries to the farmers market. They are starting to fill in pretty good now and we should have lots of berries in future years. Sometimes we grow things that are our favorites, too.

Reed said he'd like to grow straberries next.  Watch this space.

Grateful

Jenna and Andrea love strawberries.

Young children are always listening to what we say but may not have the vocabulary to understand what you mean. So, like we all do, they take queues from the context of what is said and what is going on.

I was drinking a grape soda while talking to Lisa one afternoon. I told Lisa I was grateful that the weather was so nice for the farmers market (a wonderful sunny day in June with temperatures in the 70's). Jenna and Andrea were eating fresh strawberries from the farmers market and were listening to us talk. Jenna must have thought I had said I was GRAPE FULL (as in full of grape soda). Because she joined in the conversation and said, nonchalantly and to no one in particular, that she was  BERRY FULL (as in full of strawberries).

I think we could have made up a whole vocabulary with words they made up when they were little.

Shortly after this Andrea and I planted some raspberries and strawberries so they could be BERRY FULL more often. The girls made tunnels through the raspberries. A year or so later, after Reed had learned to walk, any time we needed to know where Reed was the raspberry patch was the place to look.

This story is from when the Kids were very young, June of 1998.