Strawberries are a summer favorite around here.
We have an entire garden bed devoted to them.
And this is OUR year for strawberries.
Apparently the strawberry plant is one that has its
best crop after a couple years of good growing.
The last few years have been...
"Who wants a bite of THE strawberry?"
As all 8 of us crave a homegrown strawberry, that ONE cherished bite gets awfully small! Even so, the excitement it
brings is contagious and that ONE tiny bite is
savored and giggled over.
So THIS year, the strawberry garden is huge, lush and towering with plants. Then, suddenly, the knee high bushes bust forth with what feels like hundreds of gorgeous white flowers! Talk about EXCITEMENT! The girls have been screaming in delight about the state of the strawberry bushes. Of course in our excitement, we counted blooms and have estimated about 400 strawberries. Just think, no more piddly little minuscule bites, but most likely a bowl full each!
The beautiful blooms quickly turn to actual strawberries, and at the first sign of "Red" the WAR is on. Yes, this is WAR!
We have much invested in these precious berries and we ALL want to eat them!
The war is against the bugs and birds! The plan is to place berry shaped rocks to deter the predators.
So we send our Little P to collect berry sized rocks
while I hunt down red paint.
Now we have a family activity!
Yes, even the babies get to paint rocks, why not?
Last night I was watching my older daughter as she finished going potty. I was just waiting to see if she would think to flush. Then I started to wonder..."WHAT is she doing?" She had one had on her right ear and the other on her left ear. Then she reached for the handle...Yes, victory! ...Wait, no...She slowly puts her hand back to her ear and then again, reaching slowly to the handle and again back to her ear. She then proceeds to lean down with both hands on her ears and tries to flush with her elbow. Awww...How sad. Even though she is not diagnosed with sensory processing issues, I know that she has a hard time with noises, but I never quite correlated it to why she "couldn't" remember to flush. Of course, it now makes perfect sense! I would have a hard time doing something that was painful or overwhelming when it happened. Now my other "non-flusher" does have sensory processing issues. When she does flush, she does the "Flush and Run". 
Does the Tooth Fairy always make it to your house the very night your kid looses a tooth? I have found that she is often overwhelmed with teeth and can take a day or two to get there. With 6+ kids, and a steady rotation of kids at the age of loosing their teeth, you would think that the Tooth Fairy would be well seasoned and quite on top of it!
I just calmly said to her, "Oh honey, you know the Tooth Fairy was very busy last night." Little G was quite disturbed and I realized she had something else to say. She finally got out that the Tooth Fairy had come...but had not taken her tooth, but had instead left her someone else's tooth too!! I looked and noticed that her tooth had dried out and split in two. I tried to explain this to her, but she was convinced that it was someone else's tooth. Since we hold onto teeth for days at a time I, of course, already knew that as teeth dry out, they crack.
What We Know: Over the past 5 years, we have had over 16 children through our home. Not one has come to us on medications and we have never requested medication for any of them. I don't say this to claim that medicating is innately wrong, but Jennifer and I see it as a very last resort. We have had, and still 