We're Very, Very Busy

"Oh, we're very very busy and we've got a lot to do, and we haven't got a minute to explain it all to you.
For on Sunday/Monday/Tuesday there are people we must see and on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday we're as busy as can be with our most important meetings and our most important calls for we have to do so many thing and post them on the walls."
Those are lyrics from "Busy, Busy Busy", a song sung by Kevin Kline in Sandra Boynton's imaginary musical "Philadelphia Chickens" which is definitely worth a listen if you have children. It's also how I' m feeling now that school and activities with four kids are in full swing. But we're not too busy to explain it all to you:
First, it's harvest time. Now that we're trying to move toward eating things in season, and eating more locally, we've noticed when harvest is. (I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer by Barbara Kingsolver, which pushed us a little further in this direction. If you haven't read it, I think you should definitely read at least the chapter on turkey mating behavior. Very suspenseful.) So in addition to berry picking, we had our peaches come on, bought more from Rob's dept. chair, got 14 bottles of juice from these grapes (or what was left after Sebi), made peach jam, and then got a bunch of tomatoes, peaches, onions and apples at the farmers market so that I could make AVM's relish, sauce and chutney all in one day. I just did the first two because I need ginger and mangoes in my chutney, but it was fun to spend the day in the kitchen watching conference and making great smells. Then I inherited 20 lbs of tomatoes, so I went ahead and tried their family recipe for tomato sauce too. A lot more work than the Ragu, as my friend Julie said here, but it did taste marvelous.
Joss loved the gym over at his cousin's house, and so we got him one too. That mouth pretty much sums it up. And that's how I feel about another 15 minutes of hands free parenting as well!
Miss Maddie Lou and I went and got haircuts. The hairstylist did such a good job helping us to choose something good for swimming, that was just right for the I-barely-know-what-conditioner-is crowd and the I-hate-brushing bunch. She loves it and we love it. Unfortunately that smile is now under wraps for a long while -- painful, metallic, jaw-stretching wraps, to be exact. Her little cheeks poke out and she's been popping ibuprofen and slurping applesauce since she got her appliance last week.
The one time she really smiled was on Saturday when she had her first swim meet and came in first place in her second event! She's a good little fishy. And probably the busy, busy, busiest of all of us with school, violin, homework, activity days, and swim team.
And finally, this was drugged out Sebi. He had a big cavity on a back tooth and so we tried sedating him. It was a bomb. The dentist said they would have bagged the whole thing except that they had a dad willing to sit on his kid. Sebi screamed and cried and kicked one poor hygenist right in the chest. When he woke up from this nap, he told me how much he hates to have his legs and arms held down. I am with you, hombre! The Slurpee lets you know how bad it was. Slurpees are Rob's parental apology of choice. They mean "I'm sorry that I sat on you/you got your wart frozen/we didn't get to go to the goshawful school carnival/I made you floss/etc." We all deserved a Slurpee after last week!

Comments

Lois said…
I'm tired just READING it! I still need to read that book. Sounds awesome.
9:10 AM
Anonymous said…
That's a great little poem. It sounds like our life over here now, too.

Your photos aren't working for me right now, waaah.

I about went crazy trying to get my fruit harvested before we left town (we still have to slice and freeze the apples, and make the plums into fruit leather, but we at least got the apples picked and into the basement and the plums all frozen before the snow fell,) and I did have the thought that I was also maybe crazy slaving so over a few dollars worth of fruit. But in the winter when we can make the best apple crisp around from our fabulous frozen apples, I'll be glad we did it.
8:27 PM
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