Baby Makes a Run for Strawberry Heaven

I have no idea how a person can eat a strawberry with their eyebrows– but my daughter is a master.  Give her one strawberry– just one– and her face is covered.  Every time.  It’s a skill, clearly.

Berries for all you lovelies out there.  This is our third huge harvest.  Not to mention the oodles still growing in our garden bed, the handfuls I eat everyday, and the rummaging friends who pass through our yard.  Right now our garden is full of berry loveliness.  Remind me to tell you sometime about the year I managed to destroy a whole strawberry crop in about 15 seconds.  That was not so fun.  I’ve got my own skills, clearly.

This year my daughter is not really allowed in the garden.  She’s just a bit too young to know the difference between items we are picking for food and ones we leave for growing.  Or worse yet, weeds and food.  Also, last year our son developed an allergy to strawberries from eating so many.  The itching that ensued kept us up for endless nights until we discovered the culprit.  Thankfully he’s outgrown it now, but needless to say we keep a close eye on how many berries our children are eating because of that experience.

Although my daughter doesn’t know of it, it’s probably also indirectly what caused her to make a run for it last week.

I was standing at the garden gate.  I had just encouraged my son to lead the way out, so he was already outside the garden.  My daughter was a few feet inside of it and Xylus and I were both calling her name to get her to follow us out.  As I was watching her face I saw decision flicker across it.  I thought she was deciding whether or not she would follow us willingly.  But it turns out, probably more accurately, she was calculating whether or not she could make it to the strawberry bed before I reached her.  I blinked and she turned and took off running– her little foot-long legs carrying her away from me and toward the strawberries.  By the time I caught up with her she had one hand locked around a fat round luscious bit of red goodness and had just about shoveled into her mouth!

I laughed at her cunning and let her enjoy her gulps as I carried her out and closed the gate behind us.  You can imagine what it did to her face.