i'm that mom (and another)

You can easily see where my mind is at these days, what with the blueberries and peaches and picking and summer time love. Eva eating fruit, running around behind me as I pick and process and taste and bake. Moving around the blueberry bushes outside one day, filling up one pint and then another, I took a break to go inside for water and a quick snack. On my way back to the bushes, I reached out to grab another berry basket for picking, distracted by my ipod, searching for a different song, sure that the berry baskets were on the hood of the car, right where I had left them. And yet, no. No baskets. I looked up. The hood of the car was empty. I looked over to where I had left the already filled baskets. No empty ones there either. Hmmm.

I walked toward the blueberry bushes, looking around and checking for where I might have left the berry baskets {on my way inside}. That's when I saw them lying on the ground in the middle of the driveway. I hadn't left them there. It was slightly curious but I dismissed it as I bent down to pick them up so that I could get back to my picking.

I was suddenly struck by the pattern on the ground. There was a large rock. A pine cone. The berry baskets. An image of Eva on her scooter, zipping around the driveway, around the rock, the berry baskets, the pine cone... Ah yes. An obstacle course. Of course. My berry baskets had been incorporated into Eva's obstacle course. I smiled. And then I bent down to pick them up anyway.

And I stopped myself. Surely I could find other berry baskets. Other containers, even, to put the blueberries in. There was really no reason to disrupt the obstacle course (and with it the pleasant equilibrium we had all reached while spending time together in the front yard). Sure enough, I checked in the car and found half a dozen more berry baskets. (I'm sure there were more inside, in addition to several dozen different styles of bowls and buckets in assorted shapes and sizes. At least.) No shortage of those around here. (No shortage of anything, really, when I thought about like that.) I grabbed the new stack of empty baskets, smiled again at the obstacle course, and headed back over to continue picking blueberries, happy to be that mom who could be creative enough to allow for many different uses for berry baskets. At least.