life is but a dream

Right now all my mornings begin with me sneaking outside for a few minutes (usually after I nurse Iyla) to pick a bowl full of black raspberries for our breakfast.  Today as I was doing that I started thinking about how many memories of black raspberries are woven through our lives from the 11 years we've lived here, beginning the very first summer we were here and "discovered" them. A baby Jackson shoving fistfuls into his mouth (nothing has changed there), making jam with Ryan one night after the kids were asleep, making muffins with the kids, cleaning berry stains out of the rug (already have some new ones this year), adding them to pancakes, making syrup for Scott's homemade ice cream on the 4th of July, Ryan covered in head to toe bug netting spending hours picking them by the bucketful, topping them on yogurt with granola, black raspberry pie, stained fingers and lips- so many of my mothering memories are tied to our black raspberries.  I'm thinking once my kids are grown they will find it hard pressed to fight the urge to find some sort of berry to pick come June.