It's a good thing I like jam.

pan·de·mo·ni·um  (pnd-mn-m) n. :  Going strawberry picking and making jam when outnumbered 5:4 by 3-and-unders. 

This picture was the beginning of the day.  Please note the smiles, unstained clothing and empty basket.

By the end of the day we had: one missing child (only for a few minutes); two port-a-potty dramas; nine people covered in strawberry, sweat and dirt; one sunburn (mine); four adults with achy muscles (presumably from picking in a crouched position while children crawled on our backs); five children with no proper naps; 12 batches of strawberry jam; four slurpees; five overtired, overstimulated children; and four overworked adults in need of a stiff drink...  oh, and I almost forgot... one burnt potholder.

I didn't really think anything of it.  I've gone strawberry picking since I was a kid, and the idea of picking 16 baskets of berries wasn't daunting in the least.  When picking is good it can go as quickly as an hour and a half, so keeping five kids (two of whom are confined to strollers) busy for that long didn't seem too tough.  Picking wasn't good.  The berries were small, somewhat over-ripe and few and far between.  It took about 4 hours to fill our baskets.  Even a trip to the petting zoo for the three oldest children didn't seem to help much (especially since the two oldest, potty-trained ones were suffering from full bladders and chronic fear of the port-a-potty).  Luckily we had no accidents, though Girl still talks about how she went to the port-a-potty with "no fuss"  (The people outside listening to her blood-curdling screams might disagree. I wouldn't know, I'm deaf now).

I've made jam so many times I can do it without a recipe, but nothing could prepare me for jam-making while at least one of the five kids was screaming at all times.  Somehow we figured out a system, we woman-ed our stations in such a way that there was always a floater to take over for critical positions if the need arose.  Boy, did it ever.  Serenity now.

I think I'm going to need until next year to recover, and let the memories blur into pleasant, happy, fuzzy, strawberry-jam-filled clouds.  I think it's starting already.  Whiskey helps.