Raspberries

So we have these bushes. This summer they have grown these amazing, sweet, ever so tangly delicious berries, and our whole family has loved having them! We don't have a ton, so jam is probably out, but boy do we love picking and eating them! Especially little Ms. Gracie bear. Oh how I wish she was a more cautious berry picker! She has scrapes and scratches up and down her legs and on her arms from climbing into the raspberry bushes looking for the "WED" ones to pop in her mouth. Washing them? Out of the question, don't even ask. Yesterday we had quite the little adventure with our little berry picker. There were TONS of ripe ones, as we hadn't been out all weekend and she was SO excited! It reminded me a lot of the book, "Blueberries for Sal" if you've ever read it. 

Great children's story by the way, if you haven't. I am a big Robert McCloskey fan.

In the story there is a Mom trying to pick Blueberries to can and her little boy comes behind her in the beginning and keeps eating them out of her pail. There were so many ripe berries yesterday I thought i would pick a bowl full and save a bunch for Craig when he got home. (He often misses out, because Grace likes to go out first thing in the morning. lol) Anyways, I was picking away and I look behind me and a little someone was taking out HANDFULS and plopping them in her mouth as fast as I could pick them. I kept asking her to pick her own that these were for Daddy and she would say ok for a few minutes, but sure enough, she would be back behind me quietly getting what she could. SUCH A STINKER! Anyways, I picked some more and then since she was begging so politely I let her sit on the porch steps and eat some before I told her we really WERE putting the rest away for Daddy. At this point Daddy was only going to get a few mouth fulls, but still I knew he'd be happy. 

Telling me about her yummy berries.

This is about the point when I took them away and said, "Ok Grace the rest are going in the fridge for Daddy when he gets home!" She was very polite and nice about it which surprised me at the time and she said, "Ok, berries Daddy." Well now it was lunch time and so I went in to make us some sandwiches. Grace hung around for a minute and then I noticed that she had gone back outside, but that is pretty normal for her so I didn't worry too much about it until the sanwiches were finished and I was putting everything back in the fridge. I was putting in the lunch meat when it finally dawned on me. One glass bowl, containing berries was GONE! HOW did she get it out without me seeing?! I still don't know, that stinker must have been so quiet!!

Anyways, I ran outside and sure enough, there was the red faced culprit finishing off what she unabashedly reminded me were, "Daddy's berries."

Can't drop even a tiny bit of one

And she finished off the whole thing. I couldn't believe how un-guilty she was. lol Usually when Grace does something wrong she knows it. If you so much as look at her too harshly she bursts into tears and is sorry, but I decided this time we would let it slide, although I did remind her that Daddy was going to be very sad that he didn't have any berries to eat. Her response was to get up and offer to go get him some which I declined as I'd pretty much already picked the ripe ones. Unfortunately pay back that evening came in the form of a diaper rash. All together she ate at least one grocery store sized container of berries, if not more. 

She sure enjoyed every bite though!