Random Items

• On Friday we went strawberry picking with our playgroup. Strawberry picking actually goes really fast, even with two kids in tow, so we went on to the playground. All the kids started climbing on a picnic table, sat around it, and "chatted" like the adults. Suddenly I heard another mom say "no that's too hard" as a kid grabbed S. in a bear hug. The next thing I know she'd face planted on the concrete below the table. Since it was concrete it frightened me, but she recovered pretty fast and just had a big bruise on her forehead. When I told my mom about it she said "yes, that's parenthood. Long stretches of the same old thing interrupted by moments of total panic."

• In a frenzy of domesticity, I made strawberry ice cream, strawberry sorbet, strawberry freezer jam, and chocolate dipped strawberries.

• We caught a mouse the day we set a Havahart trap. Was it the only mouse? Signs say no. Fortunately the signs are in the garage, not the house. Another trap has been set. And for the record: the Tomcat Live Catch trap doesn't work. For reasons that escape me they say not to bait it. In the end we set two Havahart traps, baiting one with cheese and one with peanut butter. We had a classic mouse who preferred cheese.