Strawberry Pickin'

One thing that I look forward to every spring is picking fresh strawberries. Nathanael is my big fruit eater. He pretty much loves every fruit and would live off of fruit alone if he could. And since I discovered a few years ago how much better fresh from the vine strawberries truly are, it has become a treasured tradition. So, last week, the boys and I loaded up with our friends and headed down to our local pick-your-own farm. This year, the boys really got into it. They each had their own bucket and dashed off straight for the fields as soon as we stopped the car.

They were so quick, running up and down the rows looking for perfect berries, that I could hardly keep up with them! I told Sam right away that he could eat as many berries as he wanted. He looked at me very seriously and said, "but....I'm not going to eat any." I knew this. But I figured it was worth a shot to reassure him that, if indeed he felt the desire, he could give a strawberry a chance. As much as Nathanael loves fruit, Sam does not. He has been coming around over the last couple years. He'll eat grapes, apples, and dried mango or bananas. And miracle of miracles! When we got home with our berries and I was sorting them out, he actually asked if he could try one!!! Over the next few days, he had a couple with each lunch or dinner. Small steps folks, small steps. Nathanael, meanwhile, didn't hesitate to sample the fruit of the vine.

I was amazed at how the boys stuck with filling their baskets. Nathanael wanted to carry his all by himself, even after it was clearly way too heavy for him. Which, unfortunately, did result in him dumping his nearly-full bucket onto the ground. Nevertheless, we walked away with two very full buckets of very delicious, perfectly-ripe strawberries. Picking berries is very hard work; the kids needed a little break.

There's no telling just how many strawberries this little face consumed before we left the field:

But it didn't stop him from enjoying many more of them over the next few days. We ate them hole, in the ever delicious strawberry jello pretzel dessert, and as a strawberry sauce for the waffles we've been eating an awful lot of as of late. We even have a couple baggies in the freezer to use later in smoothies or more strawberry sauce. We had a great afternoon gathering those little red jewels and, of course, enjoying the company of friends.