Spying

Tonight after dinner, we decided to carve pumpkins. We got everything ready (newspaper, tools, pumpkins, warm cider) on the dining room table. Jason and I started drawing away with the Sharpie, carving off the tops, scooping out the yuck and the seeds. A few minutes into it, we noticed that the girls had totally lost interest in the process (knives too sharp, pumpkin yuck too yucky to touch) and were nowhere to be seen or heard.

I left Jason carving at the table and snuck down the hall towards Annie's room. I peeked in the door, and there they were, lying side by side on her bed. With her MagnaDoodle, Annie was teaching Jemma how to write the letter A, uppercase and lowercase, which she is just learning about at school. I stood there for a few minutes, and they were totally content. I think it's one of the very first times that I've found them doing something collaborative, positive, and quiet together.

Now, the pumpkins are carved, the girls are snug in bed (readying themselves for another night of random coughing, I'm sure), and we're tidying the house, and getting ready for a big, fun weekend ahead: the neighborhood Halloweenie Roast, trick-or-treating with the girls, houseguests, a "friends" Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, helping in Annie's Sunday School class . . . I'm sure we're going to be exhausted and full of sugar when it's over.

Speaking of sugar, I sense a necessary raiding of the Halloween candy for tonight's new Office and 30 Rock episodes. Do Kit-Kats and Chimay go together?

Jemma, 22 Months

What with all my podium-tapping and lecture-giving yesterday, I failed to notice that it was the 27th and, therefore, another month gone by in the life of Jemma. Also, I never know the date. Also, I admit to sometimes digging through Annie's preschool bag two minutes before we're supposed to leave for school in the morning, instead of right when she brings it home the time before. So there: a few confessions to start this off.

Jemma. Whereas a month ago, I was still in shock that she was inching closer and closer to the two-year mark, today I am not surprised at all. She looks like she's two. She acts like she's two. She's even starting to grow into a few 18-24 month clothes, which tends to be the size my children wear until they're at least two-and-a-half! Must be all the . . . waffles?

She knows exactly what she wants, but tries to get it without having to ask. This leads to her repeating a sound or a single world over and over ("have it," "hold it," "more," and the dreaded "my") until I get it for her. I am trying to slow down, trying to force her to use a nice tone and ask for the object by name, followed by the word "please." This works, sometimes. She hates to get dressed, have her diaper changed, wear shoes, be strapped into the stroller, wear mittens, have her face washed off after eating. She loves to brush her teeth, stand up in her highchair, color, jump to music, ride the red tricycle really fast down the driveway and turn at the last second, talk on the phone, put things away where they belong, take care of dolls, and cuddle.

We've started giving her time-outs. When we go back in her room after a minute or two, she looks at us, holds her arms up to be picked up, and says, "Sorry." And whenever Annie has done something that requires her to apologize to Jemma, Jemma says, "Sorry" to Annie instead. She's just so good-natured; she wants everyone to get along.

These past few weeks since school started have been filled with a lot of Mommy-Jemma time that we never had before (last year, she was taking her morning nap while Annie was at school). We hang out together, often walking to the grocery store or taking a run in the jogging stroller. We have a snack while we watch some Sesame Street. We run errands and hit Starbucks (coffee, vanilla milk) at the mall or Target. We read books, build with blocks, draw with chalk, and do all those one-on-one things that she used to miss out on.

The Obligatory Politics Post

For the first 17 years of my life, I lived in what might possibly be one of the most conservative small towns in the country. At the time that I lived there, I believe it held the honor of "Most Churches Per Capita;" for sure, there literally IS one on every corner of the downtown and I didn't personally know anyone who didn't attend weekly. There were mostly blond, Dutch people. There was exactly one black family, and then another family who had adopted some African-American children. Also, one family who had adopted some Korean children. That was the diversity, in toto. Also living in this town was, as far as I could tell, one Democrat. She was my high school Spanish teacher, and people referred to her as "Crazy Jo Bird" because she was pretty much the only one who ever wrote liberal-leaning letters to the editor during election seasons. (Plus, she frequently wore large, chili-pepper earrings and said, "Yowsa!" a lot, so she maybe was a tiny bit crazy, for real.) Until last year, absolutely no alcohol was ever sold in the city limits. My parents still live there, and when I've been back recently, the yard signs go: McCain, McCain, McCain, McCain, McCain.

*****************************

After graduating from Hope and marrying the love of my life at the ripe old age of 21, we moved to Ann Arbor. Even though it's just on the other side of the state, a little over 2 hours away, it was like a different world. Our next door neighbors hailed from San Francisco. He was Jewish, she was Unitarian. They were grad students getting their MBA and MSW, respectively. She kept her last name. In walking distance from our house, there was a People's Food Co-op, a huge farmer's market, a vegan/organic bakery, stores that sold bongs, my yoga studio, and The University of Michigan. There is a huge Art Fair there every year. I was often the only blond person in the room. People biked to work. People were vegetarians. People were, generally speaking, NOT Republicans. When we visited a few weeks ago for the Homecoming football game, the yard signs went: Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama.

*****************************

While I'm not claiming to have traveled the world or anything here, I think it's safe to say that I've seen a pretty broad spectrum of political opinions. And while I really can tolerate a pretty wide variety of those opinions, what I can't take is a lot of the scorn and hostility that sometimes gets wrapped up in the message. Just this week, I've read a blog post entitled, "Why No One With a Uterus Should Vote for John McCain" and received a e-mail forward from a family member that ended by comparing Obama to Hitler back in 1932. And I'm like, REALLY? NO ONE with a uterus? You can't understand how, maybe, someone's worldview might lead them to agree with the majority of his platforms? Also: A Hitler/Obama comparison? Words fail me, there.

I try to read a variety of sources, watch the debates first-hand, and go into conversations with an open mind, because my mind really HAS been changed on some things in the last 10-15 years. I went to an Obama party last month, which was very positive and which I loved; I watched a Catholic Vote video just this week. And one thing I've read recently has stuck with me - not a Newsweek article or a blog or a Daily Show interview, but a "teaching" from our priest, of all things. In in, he writes about each human being's right to have life, and to have life to the fullest, and how it pertains to this election. He challenges Catholics who are Democrats to be working within their party and their government to recognize the right to life of all citizens; he challenges Catholics who are Republicans to be working within their party and their government to promote the rights of those citizens to have life to the fullest. (He does not, happily, inform Catholics who have ever voted for a politician who has voted pro-choice that they will automatically be going to hell, like one letter I once received from a helpful family member did, because: AWESOME. THANKS.)

And then he says:

Stay clear of rhetoric that is filled with loathing of anyone – public official or private citizen – or of any party or group. Withdraw from any conversation in which one of the participants spews bitter resentment, unreasoned disdain, rancor or hatred of anyone or anything. When political conversations touch upon issues of importance to someone or upon concerns of great moral value, these conversations will seldom be without passion. But there is a difference between passion and rancor, between animated disagreement and loathing. You do not need to become an angry, resentful person to participate in political debate or to exercise your responsibilities as a citizen, but you will if you don’t distance yourself from those who foment it. In this same regard, examine the broadcast personages and programs you listen to.

This is a struggle for me, too, because I hate conflict and confrontation. It's hard for me to stay rational, because I get upset. But I'm going to try to do it sensitively - today, this week, indefinitely, because I think it's a skill and a grace I'd like to model for my children, and because I think that family and friends can disagree and still be kind. One week from now, we'll be on the eve of the election I've been the most passionate about, ever. And in between now and then, I anticipate getting more than a few e-mails, website links, and forwards from a variety of family and friends. All I'm saying is, Be Nice. Otherwise, I'll be tying on my Nikes to get my heart rate back down, running in the dark on the wet leaves, noticing how the yard signs here go: Obama, McCain, Obama, McCain, Obama, Obama.

On the Way Home From the Pool: A Conversation

Annie: I'm cooold, Mom!

Me: Yeah, I bet. It's too bad you didn't want to wear a coat.

Annie: Mom! You wouldn't LET me wear a coat! (total lie)

Jemma: humming merrily

Annie: No, Jemma. You can't sing that. Only big girls can sing that.

Jemma: humming merrily

Annie: Jemma, only I can sing that.

Me: Annie, that's not true. Anyone may sing nicely in the car.

Annie: Jemma, stop singing! Please!

Me: Hey! Who wants to eat lunch when we get home?

Jemma: I do! I do!

Annie: I want to have peanut butter and jelly.

Me: Okay.

Annie: Mom, I SAID, I want to have peanut butter and jelly.

Me. Yep, I said you could.

Annie: When I get home, I'm going to put on my wedding dress and play wedding. I'll be the bride. Jemma, do you want to be the groom?

Jemma: No.

Annie: Jemma, do you want to hold my hand and walk down the aisle?

Jemma: No.

Annie: Jemma, you HAVE to play that with me! (Starts humming Trumpet Voluntaire) Mom, I want to have peanut butter and jelly when we get home, okay?

Jemma: starts humming

Annie: Jemma, NO! Only I can hum that! (Kicks off rain boots, takes off socks in a fury)

Jemma: kicks off rain boots, takes off socks in a fury

Annie: Mom, I'm cooooold!

Slacking

I love Annie's dance teacher, Miss Amy. She is always happy and smiling, but in a calm, normal way, not a manic too-good-to-be-true way. She remembers Jemma's name and always gives her a stamp after class, too, for good measure. Yesterday, after the dancers came running out mid-class to change from ballet shoes to tap shoes, they ran back in and began spontaneously hugging each other while Miss Amy stood, holding the door open for the last stragglers. "When I see that, I think about how nice it must be for them to hug someone their own size," she said.

I like that perspective, because sometimes I forget that Annie and Jemma aren't just small people - they're coming at life from a whole different point of view than adults are. Things that are a big deal to me aren't even on their radar, while things I would never think to note matter greatly to them. I started thinking about how it would be to be THAT fascinated with everyone else's boo-boo's and Band-Aids, how satisfying it would be to say to myself on the way home from the mall, "And now I'll go home and have gum," and not need anything else for my own happiness for the rest of the afternoon.

We did go home, have gum, eat lunch, rest, and then played outside for the whole of what might have been one of the last gorgeous fall afternoons of this year. I look back at the pictures I took at the beach less than two weeks ago and I can't believe that there's SNOW in the 5-day forecast. Snow! So I sucked all the goodness out of last night: made what I will not-at-all-humbly say was The Best Pot Roast Ever, bundled the girls up for a long walk at dusk, "boo-ed" our neighbors by passing on a ghosty bag of treats after ringing their doorbell and hiding to watch them retrieve it, and watched the girls warm up in a "spooky" bath in the dark with a glow stick.

This morning, it's raining, and Jason took Jemma off to run some errands while Annie's at school. And instead of paying bills and washing the kitchen floor like I meant to, I'm up here on the computer with my coffee, letting my freshly-painted toenails dry, doing some on-line Christmas shopping, and getting down one more memory in the long string of moments I want to remember.

Ordinary

Besides a fun morning playtime with Gina, Andrea, and their cute, cute kids, we mostly did ordinary things today: played outside, did "letter hopscotch," walked to the grocery store in the sunshine to buy roast chicken and stuffing for dinner, made some art projects with glitter glue, ate donut holes, and tried to keep the house going with laundry, dishes, etc. We collected more pretty leaves on our walk home from the store, and I felt lucky to be taking a quiet walk with my girls on such an ordinary fall afternoon. The sunshine made all the difference, and I was grateful for it while at the same time realizing how dim and dark the days ahead will be. Oh, winter, how I dread you.

After baths tonight, I let each girl pick a book and bring it into our bed so we could all read together, since Jason wasn't going to be home until much later. They grabbed books, climbed up, clutched their blankets, and snuggled back against the pillows to listen. Of course, it was my favorite moment of the day. Annie has lately been obsessed with the Madeleine books and shocked me one day last week by reciting the entire story, word for word, after we'd only had it from the library for a week or so. So tonight, we read Madeleine Goes to London, which she has not yet fully memorized. Jemma chose Curious George and the Bunny, and while she doesn't nearly recite the whole story, she follows along carefully and often says a word or two on each page: "shot," "all gone!," "sad," "string," etc. She also does this thing where she cups her hand as though she's holding the baby bunny during the part of the story that goes, "It was fun to hold a baby bunny!" It's so lovely to end the day all cozy, surrounded by my girls and their books.

Things That Are Ridiculous:

-The names Annie has recently bestowed upon the imaginary kittens her stuffed animal has had: Leedy, Leechy, Seedy, Forty, Fifty, and Ben.

-The pseudonyms that Annie and Lucy assumed while playing the other day - Annie was "Wheatie" and Lucy was "Simone."

-The number of times I was awake with one child or another last night due to coughing, monsters, being "too hot," or just general neediness.

-The number of times per day I find one or both of my children walking around with a ball shoved up their shirt, pretending to be pregnant.

-Annie's current obsession with gum. After a weekend jam-packed with all sorts of spectacular events (her race, Meijer Gardens, parade, football game, etc.), she hopped out of the car this morning at school, ran up to Ben, and reported breathlessly: "Guess what? Yesterday . . . I had FOUR pieces of gum!"

-The elaborate story I have now invented about how difficult it is to buy gum; how you don't just march into the store and BUY it; how you have to get permission until you're a grown-up . . .help me out here, people. I need some way of keeping Annie from asking me for gum every 2.4 seconds for the rest of her life. She's had a taste and now she's totally addicted.

-The amount of drama involved in trying to plan our family vacation in February - e-mailing, researching, consulting with both sets of grandparents, trying to assess the quality of a condo by looking at sketchy internet photos. Someone other than me, please make a decision.

Enough, Already

Can't . . . Stop . . . Posting . . . Adorable . . . Fall . . . Pictures . . .

Annie's First Race

Life has been a whirlwind lately, but a good, crisp whirlwind filled with football games, tailgate parties, parades, pumpkin-decorating and apple-eating, family photos, and happy afternoons outside marveling at the gorgeousness of it all.

This afternoon found us downtown for Annie's first race, the GR Kids Marathon. We (I) signed her up in early September and she's been running a mile (or so) about three times a week since then, sometimes at the track and sometimes just to the library and back or the grocery store and back or Starbuck's and back or . . . ANYWAY, the idea is that, by today, she's run 25 miles total. And then today she got to run the last 1.2 miles of her "marathon" on a race course downtown with about 1,000 other kids and their parents. She was so excited; for the last four or five days, she's been telling anyone and everyone, "I have a race on Saturday."

We picked up her packet, pinned on her bib number (ha! hilarious!), and lined up at the start to wait while Jason and Jemma went to find a good spot on the course from which to cheer. We stretched. We listened to a small, brave girl sing The Star-Spangled Banner surprisingly well. And then, we were off, running, holding hands, surrounded by other kids and parents under a beautiful blue October sky.

We crossed under the Start banner, still holding hands, and I was suddenly blinking back tears. There was just something so pure about watching her little four-year-old legs churn determinedly down that street that left me feeling incredibly lucky to be doing something I love with her - passing it on, so to speak. I do look forward to the days when she and Jemma are good at all sorts of things I've always sucked at (volleyball? spatial reasoning on standardized tests?); I think it will be a fun surprise to watch them enjoy things I've always hated. But for now, I get the exquisite pleasure of sharing my favorite things with them. And it makes me want to cry, a little.

I pulled it together. She ran the whole way. She got a medal and a T-shirt. After we crossed the finish line, I hugged her hard and she said, "Mom? When can I do another race?"

The Million-Dollar Question

I just got home from book club. In between drinking wine, eating dill havarti, and actually discussing this month's book (Eat, Pray, Love), the discussion turned, predictably, to babies. Everyone in the group is a mom and we all feel fairly comfortable with one another - comfortable enough, I guess, that we were just polling the group: "Are you done?" Having babies, that is. A few people definitely are. The rest of us are in a weird limbo, throwing out percentages and feeling "75% sure" we're done, but not knowing what to do with that niggling doubt, the one that asks if you'll regret your little family of four later in life. Wondering just how you'd fit another person into your already-chaotic life. Wondering how it would feel to shut that door completely.

It's funny; I've been thinking about this very question since this weekend, when I packed away the most recent round of outgrown/wrong season clothes. I can think of better things to do with a Saturday night than spend an hour or so sorting clothes into one of six Rubbermaid bins, but I just can't quite give them away yet.

I was going along merrily, spending most of my time in the 12-18 month and 3T area with clothes that the girls have just outgrown. Then I got down to the part of the pile I just got back from loaning out to a new-ish niece. There in front of me was a little pink fleece snowsuit that both girls wore in their first few months; the orange knit hat Jemma wore home from the hospital, knit by a L&D nurse; the "big sister" t-shirt we gave Annie when she came to meet Jemma in the hospital. All of a sudden, instead of efficiently packing things away, I was sort of stroking various newborn items, wondering if, truly, no baby of mine would ever wear them again.

Let me say that I love my life right now, that I am really not a person who deals well with everything that goes along with birthing and raising and feeding a small baby - the sleep deprivation, the lack of free time, the inability to be alone for even a second without someone needing something from you. I feel like having a baby is like falling down a very deep hole, and it takes me a full year to dig myself back out again. Right now, I am relishing the balance that is emerging in my life. There's time, really, for exercise, date nights, lunch with friends, reading, writing - all the things that keep me sane. And when we're with the kids (which is still most of the time, mind you), they're actually fun to be around. They DO things. They interact with us and with each other. Not only am I not in the hole, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel-like existence I have been in since Annie was born, the one where my life revolves around the next naptime or nursing or bedtime. At the end of the tunnel is a place where I get to be just me for a few hours every day (when they're both in school) and a better, more engaged mom when they're home. There are a lot of days when I look around and I'm fairly sure we're done.

But then . . . the hats. The snowsuit. Who knows if having another baby would be the right thing for our family or the development that finally put Mommy over the edge (because some days, she's pretty close). I think I am destined to live in the weird limbo for a while longer, pondering, questioning, wondering What If. I wonder how you finally make that call, if there is a moment when you just know what's right for you. I marked this quote in Eat, Pray, Love: "That's the thing about a human life - there's no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed." I'll ponder that, I guess, as I sit up here with my Rubbermaid bins of pink clothes.

A Tradition: October Day at the Beach

Commence the Time-Sucking

After weeks of incessantly mocking Jason ("What are you, a teenager?"), I have done the inevitable and signed up for Facebook. I am mildly ashamed (what am I, a teenager?), but apparently not so ashamed that it prevented me from signing up. Now, if I could only find one single picture of myself taken within the last two years or so, I could add it to my profile. Off to hunt, and to see which interesting people from my past come out of the virtual woodwork.

Bad Hair Day

Jemma's: full of sucker, which I had to take away from her because she wouldn't stop going down the slide with it in her mouth. My reward for preventing some type of life-threatening injury? A ten-minute indoor/outdoor tantrum, complete with foot stomping, spinning in circles, and banging on the door. Also, sticky toddler hair.

Annie's: decorated with some type of shiny bright blue pipe cleaner that HAD to be twisted up a certain way for Blue Day at school. When I asked her if she wanted to wear a hat for playing on the playground this morning she said, "Mom, no. It would ruin my hair."

Mine: semi-curly and messy because I was too weak to do the round-brushing and blow-drying and flat-ironing required to make it lie correctly after my shower this morning. Also, full of glitter after decorating my front-stoop pumpkins, which I could secretly do all day long. Mmmm, fall.

Colors

A few we've seen recently:

Fall colors on our drive to and from Ann Arbor on Saturday. Jason and I headed out, coffee on board, to his five-year dental school reunion. We tailgated with old friends, drank beer, tossed the football around, and watched Michigan play on a quintessential fall day in one of our favorite cities. It was so, so good to be there, and even better to catch up with old friends. Zingerman's, you never let us down, either.

Purple, as in the color of Flintstone vitamin that is most coveted by both girls and led to a full-blown temper tantrum by Jemma today at lunch when I sadly informed her that we were out of purple and down to just red and orange. She loves purple, loves to whisper it when asked what her favorite color is, loves to demand it while coloring in her high chair on a rainy afternoon. Red and orange are just not going to cut it.

Blue and gold at Friday night's home football game. We walked merrily down our street and just followed the crowd into the stands one block away to watch our home team score lots of points. The girls were all bundled up in their little coats and hats; they sat snug and STILL between us, sucking away at the mother of all treats, THE RING POP. We held mittened hands on the way home, tucked them into bed while their cheeks were still rosy and sticky.

Black and white and read all over tonight after dinner, when the girls took turns raiding the bookshelves in Jemma's room and reading books on the rug on her floor. Jemma brings me her favorites: "Cow," "George," "Babies," "Carl." I read them to her, and when I don't, she throws a fit. Annie sits down with Five Silly Monkeys and paraphrases the story, patiently counting the monkeys on each page. She pretends not to notice that I am watching her.

No, Really, It's Saving Us a Ton of Money

Jason went to Costco this morning to buy eggs.

Good Reads

As you can see, the pile of books next to my side of the bed is becoming ridiculous. A few recent thoughts I've had while reading some of these (and other) books:

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder: What am I even DOING with my life, besides piddling around in suburbia with a couple kids and one too many pairs of expensive jeans? Meanwhile, this Farmer guy is single-handedly saving Haiti.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman: Have both candidates for president read this book? They need to. Also, Thomas Friedman officially makes my top five in the list of People, Living or Dead, With Whom You'd Like To Have Dinner. So smart.

Parenting With Love and Logic: What???? You mean this near-constant-management-of-children thing is going to continue, unabated, right on through all the years they live with us?

Nearly Every Book I Read to Jemma: Do kids catch on to (and become suspicious of) the fact that roughly 70% of children's books end with the main character going to bed? At a certain point, I feel like the kids are going to call us on this not-so-subtle ruse to get them to sleep at night.

I Love You Forever (the non-creepy version)

This morning, I got both girls dressed and packed up The Bag (ballet shoes, tap shoes, diaper and wipes for Jemma, snack for Jemma, water for them, water for me, wallet, phone, toys and books to entertain Jemma) and were were out the door at 9:10, walking to Annie's dance class with Jemma in the jogging stroller. After dance, we walked it to the grocery store, where I bribed the girls with donut holes through the store and the whole way home. I unloaded groceries, made lunch, switched the laundry, and put girls down for naps. While they were napping, I returned phone calls and started making dinner. Jemma woke up after just an hour - in turn, waking Annie up, who was taking her first nap of the week. We scrambled through the afternoon with the help of a visit from Lucy (she and Annie played 'having a baby in the hospital' with no intervention from me for almost an hour!) and some good cold-rainy-day music.

Through all of this, I consoled myself with the fact that Jason would be home to relieve me at 5:30 sharp, when I would take myself to yoga and come home for a relaxing evening. But 5:20 rolled around, and I hadn't even gotten the "I'm on my way home" phone call from Jason. At 5:30, when I should have been driving to yoga, I was feeding the girls dinner, and since it contained spinach, they didn't eat it, anyway.

After dinner (and after Jason had finally called to say he was running late and why didn't he just stop and get his hair cut, too?), I was trying to take the girls outside to play. I was following Jemma around, trying to get her put her pants back on for at least the fifth time today while hunting down hats and shoes, and it all began to seem absurd, too much to handle for so many hours straight. There are some days when I feel like parenting is secretly so fun, easy, and amazingly rewarding (these days are mostly in the summer, when the kids are healthy, adorable, and just happy to flail outside while I drink coffee and talk to other moms); there are other days when the minutes tick by sloooowly and every minor annoyance feels like a major transgression (these days are mostly in the winter, when the kids are sick and we're stuck inside). Today at 6:00 p.m., one of those minor annoyances prompted me to say aloud, to no one in particular, "Oh My Gosh!" in a voice full of impatience and disbelief that getting two children ready to go play in the front yard could take so long and be so chaotic.

Annie looked at me across the kitchen. "Being a mom is a lot of hard work, huh?" she said.

"Yeah, sometimes it is," I said.

"You're going to be my mom forever, though," she said, and smiled. And I crossed the room and hugged her, holding her little pink hat while Jemma sat on the floor and put her jean jacket on backwards.

"Yeah, I am."

Season Change

Last night's yoga class left me focused, energized, and calm - just like good yoga is supposed to. I am sore, in spite of it being a "Back to Basics" class, but intend to go back. Frequently. I am thinking, this is what will get me through the dreaded winter, screw the cost, I will ask for it for Christmas.

So I went into this morning all Zen with my cup of green tea and semi-clean house and blow-dried hair. Jemma and I hung out and built tall block towers while Annie was at school. Then we went to the farmer's market and bought apples, pears, and pumpkins for the girls to decorate for our front stoop. I made some more applesauce, which made the house smell great. The clouds were low and dark all day but it never really rained, so we were able to play outside in the crisp air this afternoon after naptime (henceforth called Time For Jemma To Nap While Annie Sings Songs Vigorously In Her Room and Takes All The Wall Hangings Off The Wall And Changes Into Dirty Clothes From Her Laundry Hamper).

Just now, I'm returned from a walk by myself. I caught the tail end of the sunset and picked up a beautiful red leaf to give to Annie. As I passed the football field, the high school band was practicing. Lights were on in all the houses on our street, and the air smelled like someone was having the first fire of the year in their fireplace. Yep, it's fall, and I love it.