Wednesday 24 July 2013

Summer Bucket List - Picking Strawberries

Strawberries were late to ripen this year due to a long cold spring followed by weeks of rain. When I first added strawberry picking to our Summer Bucket List I thought is was something we could do the end of June but each time I would check the website for an update the opening date was pushed farther and farther back. As we moved into into July our days and especially our weekends became busy with birthday parties and inset days for preschool and the idea moved out of the my mind. A friend mentioned it on Monday and I quickly asked my mother in law if she would join us on Tuesday. We woke to violent thunderstorms early in the morning that continued until lunch time on and off. As I was afraid it was a two adult activity and mother in law was back to work today and then on holiday and our weekend planned I decided to write it off for the year.


When I woke this morning with no set plans and a dry sunny but cool day forecast I quickly decided that if I could get everything to fall into place I would give it a go. Jasper settled well for a long early morning nap allowing me to organise everything quickly to set off right after he woke and nursed.

I am slowly learning to have no set expectations on how activities "should" turn out and just roll with it and it seems to be much better at the moment than setting unrealistic expectations. I am also learning to find a balance between telling Joss what our plans for the day are so she can feel secure in our routine and being a bit vauge so not to have to deal with her disappointment. So once Jasper was awake and fed I only told her we were going bye bye so we could start the routine of getting out the door.
The drive was long enough to for Jasper to fall asleep in the car and then be tranfered into his push chair. This allowed me to focus on Joss and pointing out which strawberries were ready for her to pick.

Her attention span was short, I had hoped to get more than two punnets but as mentioned above I am trying to realign my expectations and learn not to push an issue to melt down point. In the end it worked out well as it meant we had been out a short enough period I didn't have to try and entertain her while nursing Jasper in public which can sometimes become a hurculean feat.

Now if I can just manage to keep her from eating them all before Daddy and Grandma Kay get home from work! 

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