Backyard Apple-Picking

“Mom! You want to go apple picking?” I don’t know where Isaac gets this stuff. I must have mentioned it before I realized there seem to be zero places to pick apples within three hours of here.

He kept asking. I kept looking for somewhere close enough we’d have good memories of the occasion. Finally I got wise!

There’s this book “Many Moons” where the beloved princess tells her dad all she wants for her birthday is the moon. The king freaks out and calls his advisers, who tell him the moon is huge and made of impossible-to-find things. The court jester asks the princess how big she thinks it is (small enough she can block it out with her pinkie), what it’s made out of (silver), and what will happen to the night sky once it’s hers (another will appear, like when she loses a tooth). Of course the jester is promoted and the princess gets just what she wanted in the form of a sparkling silver moon necklace.

So I thought, “What does Isaac actually want when he asks to go apple picking?” Certainly not six hours in the car and a grouchy sister and frazzled mom. He wants…maybe…something like an Easter egg hunt. Or visiting a pumpkin patch when hundreds of perfect pumpkins perch neatly on a nice lawn with hale bales. Bingo!

I wedged and balanced five apples into the tree in our backyard. “Isaac! You wanted to go apple picking, right? Did you check the tree in our backyard for apples?” I handed him a basket. He was completely delighted.

The next day I was upstairs with Eloise when the back door slammed. “Isaac? Were you outside?”
“Yeah! I was checking the tree to see if there were any more apples!”

I think there will be more apple picking in our near future!