High Atop Sky Top

If you ask me, it's straight up crazy to wait until Fall to visit Sky Top. The crowds from Labor Day on  are ridiculous. It's overrun with school groups during the week, and by the weekends, you can hardly find a place to park your car. Plus, the apples are pretty well picked through way before the season ends. Those are just a few of the reasons why the boys and I make a habit of going towards the end of August.

This year, we had even more motivation to get our Sky Top on: with Jones in school five days a week starting Thursday, our options for an off-peak visit were limited. Thus, we hit the orchard earlier today.

As they usually do, the boys had a BALL on the playground. They'd have been perfectly happy to play there all day. Their enjoyment of the multiple playhouses, in fact, was what gave me the idea to have one built in the backyard for them. Today, each playhouse in its turn became the boys' firehouse. Freddie played Fireman Sam, and Jones was Fire Captain Steele. They also loved swinging, Superman-style.

In spite of how much they enjoyed the playground, I was able to pull them away to ride the Bee Train (new this year, I believe!), which they loved just as much. As we walked away from the train, Jones asked if we could pick some apples. Believe it or not, for all of our trips to the orchard, I don't think we've ever picked a single apple. The boys have just never cared about it. When Jones asked this year, I was fine with it, until I realized you paid by the bushel, and, after buying apple juice and a couple of doughnuts, I didn't have $20 in cash (they don't take credit cards) left!

He handled the disappointment really well - probably because it was tempered with the promise of playing more on the playground before we left. Afterwards, we ate lunch at the Mountain Deli in Hendersonville. This was Freddie's request. We ate there with my parents a couple of Sundays ago, and the boys have begged to go back ever since. Of course, they begged to go back to Kilwin's after, too, and since this is the last week (for awhile, anyway) that I'll have my two buddies all to myself, I said yes.

I will miss lazy days like this - when an endless amount of time was ours to spontaneously spend in whatever way we wanted to. I know they need to go out and grow up. I'm (think I'm) ready for that, and so are they, but the lazy days of early childhood have been so good to us, and I am so grateful for the gift of being home for every, single one of them.

As I've been mentally prepping myself to move into another stage of their lives, I keep flashing back to the fun we've had as Three Amigos these last five years. The bubble of our world has been so beautiful - me and my babies, a tiny trio. It's time to expand our world a little, but I'm so thankful that, as we do, I don't have any regrets for the way we've spent the last five years. Like Freddie with that cup of Kilwin's Cherry Ice Cream, we've gotten the good out of these baby days ... every last drop of it.

The whole thing has me thinking of the chorus to the Ronnie Milsap song "I Wouldn't Have Missed it for the World" (with a few necessary modifications):

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world,
wouldn't have missed loving you, (Boys).
You've made my whole life worth while
with your smiles.
I wouldn't trade one memory,
'cause you mean too much to me.
Even though (you had to go to school),
I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Truer words were never spoken ... er, sung.

Freddie said, "Let's take a picture here,
because I'M a bear, and I have
pink ice cream." LOVING that he
connected those dots, I, OF COURSE,
took the picture he requested!