37/365 Basil, King Billy, and Absolutely Not

I went out to the garden to pick basil after Billy fell asleep sitting next to me on the couch. Pesto is happening tonight. A little late for peak basil, but better than the last two years when we had....no pesto.

So I picked a stuffed to the gills paper grocery bag full, a small but nice looking cucumber (I've pickled 11 quarts of cucumbers this weekend, so we're starting over with teeny ones), some chard and some parsley--definitely not enough to balance the basil in pesto, but we'll go with what we have. I don't miss the parsley when it's not there, but Jake does.

I came in and there were girls in my house: Fiona, Daisy, Eliza, Bree, and Iris. Can they play at the house? Sure, I told them, but don't wake Billy.

"Well, when he gets up we're going to play with King Billy!" Iris announced. Daisy started jumping up and down.

"That's great," I tell them honestly. Anytime I get them to play with the 18 month old is fine with me.

I get the mail and put my shoes away in the front hall baskets. I'm heading back to the kitchen to start work on de-leafing the basil when Fiona approaches me with my knitting. "Where should I put this?"

It had been on the coffee table. "It's fine where it is, or the bag behind the couch," I say, not really caring.

"We're going to build a castle for King Billy in the living room!" she says gleefully. I glance into the living room then and see Bree and Iris moving the coffee table around. The ottoman to the big chair is already in the dining room.

"No," I shake my head at all of them--they know me as Fiona's mom, but also as a girl scout leader. "You're not making a huge old mess."

Fiona puts on her sad puppy dog face.

"Absolutely not."

Bree looks around awkwardly like she does when I say things with finality. I don't like to make her uncomfortable, so I back off a bit. "I'm just, the living room is clean. You're welcome to play, but don't make a big old mess for me."

They decide to watch Batman (the cartoon from the 90s, the good one) and play smaller games on the living room floor. I come back up here to take my afternoon thyroid medication and there he goes. King Billy awakes.

Deep breath.

He nurses back down and my afternoon goes as planned.