Poke Poke Poke

Earlier, I was standing in the kitchen cooking dinner. I'm rather exhausted today. In about 3 days time, I have picked bags and bags of apples and pears (before that I picked blackberries--talk about thorns! Ugh! My arms were torn to shreds!), peeled, cored and sliced them, covered them in water, strained them through jelly bags, measured the juice, mixed it with pectin and sugar, boiled it, filled jars, cooked it in my canner, until "ta-da!" I have beautiful jars and jars of jelly. I have made 25 jars so far, and I'm just getting warmed up. (More about that later.) On top of that, I have had a house full of kids since my nieces are here for the summer and have spent almost every day with me while their mother worked. Today was especially tiring because, on top of making jelly, I had to go to Whole Foods to pick up a few things, stop at Sam's for sugar, take G to a dental appointment, and on and on.... But I digress.

As I was stirring the Alfredo sauce, G my son walked by and patted my back and then poked me in the ribs. He walked away then but kept walking by poking me in the ribs. I was patient with his 13-year-old game of "pick at/play with Mom," until my ribs started to feel sore. I finally told him to stop. After a few playful "please stops" I finally said, "I don't like this game. It hurts. Stop." But he didn't. Over and over he poked me until I was angry. I finally growled, "Stop!!" Giggling, he went into the living room. Not to long after he left, Tobey walked in and did THE SAME THING! I said, "Why are you poking me? Your son just did the same thing! I hate it when you do that! Why do you guys think its okay to do that?" Tobey grinned (the same grin I might add), and said, "Maybe its because of what's on your back." I reached up to the middle of my back and pulled off a Post-it Note that read:


Poke my sides


Boys!