A few weeks ago, I picked some ripe lemons off the tree hanging over into our backyard. Just a handful, not sure quite what we’d use them for, but they were so yellow and summery and beautiful. They sat with the other fruit in the bowl on the counter for a couple of days.

One afternoon things got rough, you know the kind of day: all the fussiness of late afternoon/early evening, just before the much-needed change of scenery of dinnertime and Dad coming home from work. The boys were bored, needy, whiny. In desperation I cut open a lemon for Alexander to try because, c’mon, funny baby faces when they taste sour lemon! He didn’t disappoint.

I got Eddie to try some too. Then it led to pulling out the juicer to squeeze the lemon to the rind. For some reason, probably novelty, Eddie had a blast with it! I gave him a small jar to pour the juice into, and eventually thought to grab the sugar and teach him how to make lemonade.

He refused to try the sweetened lemon juice since the sour taste was a little too fresh and he’s weird about only ever just drinking plain, room-temperature water. But the point is, this simple thing took up a few minutes of a long afternoon. To drag it out even more, I had Eddie wash the dishes after he finished. He liked that too, probably the novelty again.

Plus, we literally took life’s lemons and made lemonade.