The Big, Fat Caterpillar

My mum is obsessed with Eric Carle books.  (Sorry, Mum, it's true.)  Not that this is a bad thing.  It just means that my kids have received a number of Eric Carle books over the years, and we've amassed quite a collection.  They happen to be great books for kids.  A favourite of Reuben's has always been "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", and he actually had the book memorized at a very young age.  I'm not sure if he still does; maybe one of these days I'll pull it out again and find out.

Anyway, I digress.  Today, I found the very hungry caterpillar in my garden.  Except, he was not a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.  He was a big, fat caterpillar.

See for yourself...

The Big, Fat Caterpillar

Apparently, instead of just eating through one nice, green leaf, he decided to eat through a whole bunch of nice green leaves, like the ones on my tomato plants.  And he took a few bites out of some nice red tomatoes as well...

 I don't know how well you can see in this picture, but this is a tomato plant that's had all of it's leaves eaten off.  I now have the answer as to what's plaguing my tomato plants.

Suffice to say, it gave me a bit of a jolt when I was out picking tomatoes this afternoon and reached down to lift up the tomato plant and grabbed that not-so-little guy.  I mean, I've seen some caterpillars in my life, but none quite like this one, and I've certainly never touched any like this.  It gives me the creepy-crawlies just thinking about it...

In other news, the basil and parsley I planted in one of my barrels has taken over.  Take a look:

I really need to get around to making some more of the Herbed Garlic Butter I made last year.  And more bruschetta.  And anything else I can think of that needs basil.  If anyone wants some fresh basil, I've got more than enough to share.  Let me know...

Life goes too fast

It's amazing how time flies.  I had so many good intentions to write posts more frequently, and then somehow, I end up busy, and before I know it, it's been two weeks since my last post.

Nathan is over six weeks old already.  When all the stars align, (which for a baby means that he's just woken up and isn't tired, he's been fed and has a clean diaper), you just might get lucky and coax a smile out of him.  It's pretty doggone cute.  Reuben and Kaylee seem to think that any facial expression that isn't crying is a smile, and Reuben frequently makes comments about Nathan's various baby noises that Nathan has just said something "like a real human".  Kids are hilarious, especially with babies.

Reuben starts school in four weeks.  I assume anyway.  We haven't had the official word yet if the SK students start right on time with everyone else or if they stagger them in or how that all works.  It's a little mind-blowing that my little boy is heading off to school.  It's a bittersweet moment when I actually manage to find the time to sit and think about it, which isn't often.  (In fact, most of the time I forget it's happening.)

Am I supposed to be excited that it won't be my job to keep him entertained anymore?  But at the same time, I know that school changes people, and he's going to be influenced by so much more than just the things in our little home, and wow, I am so grateful that we're sending him to a Christian school so I at least have that reassurance behind what those influences are going to be.

I find myself wanting to do more things one on one with each of the kids, but struggling with such an immense lack of time and opportunity because they all need me to be there all the time.  I go grocery shopping with just Kaylee and me pretty regularly, but Reuben hates getting groceries, so I need to find something to do with just him and me, hopefully before school starts.  I'm thinking maybe I just might be able to convince him to come shopping if I tell him it's for his school supplies and bribe him with Tim Horton's when we're finished.

Anyway, it's now two hours since I typed this post up, and I somehow managed to get myself so distracted that I didn't just wrap this up and hit "Publish".  So that's what I'm doing now...