Three Reasons... (with gifs!)

... to be happy in September, one of my historically least happy months.  If you don't feel like being happy, though, that's okay too.  Go back to your Fiona Apple album and don't mind me.

• First,  a quick and slightly bossy reminder to you to read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making because reading a book with beautiful prose and a protagonist named September can help make things better. Or at least appear to be better. Appearances are all that matter, anyway, right?  I'm pretty sure Chomsky said that.  Or Nietzsche, who has a fun name to say but does not appear to have been a fun guy, like, at all.

• This is a book that exists in this world:

This book is so charming, and deals with difficult subject matter with such humor, and I just love it so much.  This is Honeyman's first book, and she has such a deft hand I want to take her, chain her to a word processor, and force her to write a book a year for the next forever, because that's how I express affection.

This is not too much to ask.

• The elastic waist trend is back in women's wear.  I haven't been this comfortable in years!  What a time to be alive!  

Fake Farm Fun

We visited the orchard one day a couple weeks ago after school.  I'm leading school tours there again this fall, giving our family free admission; somehow Derek managed to avoid going all last year, so we were quick to drag him along this time.



I probably shouldn't say "dragged," as he was happy to participate in every activity there, which was plain fun for the kids and mixed fun for me as I was reminded that some people are irritatingly good at most everything.

Of course you can successfully rope pretend cattle, Derek.  Of course you can.

And pull a tractor up a slight incline with two of your children.

Although I'm shamefully excited to report that were unable to budge that thing until I joined in and pulled, too.  Raw animal strength, that's me.

He finally found a chair big enough for him, and then stepped onto the jumping pillow and thrilled/ terrified his family by bouncing right next to us and sending us all sky high.  The kids actually handled this better than I did, as every time he'd start to jump my way I'd mutter, "NoNoNoNoNo" and slowly crumple into myself.  It turns out I'm a bit of a baby about being shot five feet into the air.

We entered the corn maze, which seemed like a good idea until my family deserted me- Derek in the vast, 5-acre maze, the kids into the much more manageable kid's section.  I followed the kids in, took three turns, and got lost. 

This was a bad idea.

Plus my phone was about to die, so I resigned myself to a life of ferality within the corn.  But lo!

After my trusty guide gently led me out of the agricultural labyrinth (aka activity made for six-year-olds), I was too scarred to continue.  Or we were all hungry?  I don't remember.  This is why I need to stop trying to write these posts in six different sittings. 

[Enter abrupt ending here.]

After School

Half the days I've worked at the orchard lately, I've checked out, run home to get the kids off the bus, saying to myself, "I am in no way, shape, or form ready to go right back there.  I will only take the kids if they specifically ask to go.  Surely they're too tired from a long, strenuous day of book-learnin', though."

Then Atticus disembarks from the giant metal twinkie, marches up to me, and sweetly asks, "Can we go to the orchard?"

Jiveoiab'aiwhbaiewbh.


But I am a big girl with big girl panties of my very own, so I figuratively change into those and literally change out of my orchard shirt so I am not accosted within moments of re-entering.  Besides, I tell myself, I do so enjoy mentally adding up the "saved" cost of all these complementary visits we make, kind of like all the money you "save" at Kohl's.  (Side note:  Does anyone else want to demand "Exactly how stupid do I look to you?" when the Kohl's cashier tells you "You saved X dollars today!"  Not to worry, I do not, as despite what I may lead you to believe on this blog I do have some interpersonal skills, not to mention a healthy respect for all the garbage our friends in retail have to stomach on a daily basis.)

So we jump backwards into the corn pool.

We swoon over our son's profile.  (Maybe just me doing that.)

We hold baby goats, despite the fact that they won't stop trying to eat our clothing and hair.

We go down the combine slide.

And we do our homework in the van on the way there and back- one my stipulations for being allowed to go immediately after school.

I promise, we do still have a third child, and he is allowed to come to the orchard with us; he does not have a cupboard under the stairs.  Here is a photo of him and Derek reading on a tiny red couch at the library, instead.

Four Things

• This week Facebook reminded me how much I love- and have always loved- to torture our children.

Four years ago I took that picture of almost-two-year-old Caedmon, despite the fact that he was getting annoyed with the camera in my hands.  These days, if they do not want me to snap a photo, I desist and find more creative ways to irritate them.  I don't know why I so delight in these kids of ours' angry faces, but man, do I.  Look at his little face!  He's always been something of an intense creature, which probably helps explain my frequent urge to lighten the mood.  If anything, our children should leave this nest someday knowing not to take themselves too seriously.  I have no regrets.  (So far.)

• My pumpkins are finally ripening!

I was so excited by the Long Island Cheese heirloom pumpkins that Adelaide felt the need to make fun of my gourd-inspired jubilation, as seen in the above photo.  I was tempted to respond to her mockery by saying things like, "Nobody appreciates my pumpkin-growing prowess!" or maybe "You're grounded!" but given my previously mentioned delight in poking fun at our children, I really felt like I had no place in disciplining our children for behavior they may or may not have learned from a certain Gourd Growing Queen (long may she reign).  (I am also obviously more than capable of encouraging myself in my gardening pursuits, and can withstand all manner of taunts from certain snarky daughters.)

Hello, beautiful pumpkin plant curlicue-thing!

• My trail half marathon is three weeks from today.  This means that this morning was one of my last long runs of the year, which makes me holler "HAL-LE-LU-JAH" because, as seen in this rare early morning picture of me... 

... I'm not much of a morning person.  

But then I get out the door, and, well, I'm actually still really cranky for the first couple miles.  Things always tend to get a little brighter once the sun comes up, though. (That one's for you, punny friends.)

I know this photo isn't nearly as pleasant for all the farmers who've experienced a delayed harvest this year due to an incredibly rainy September, so- sorry, farmers.  I love your work!  I also love sun over corn stalks, especially since I know that once that corn is gone, winter is not far away.  

• And now, because I always feel vaguely guilty when I have two of our children in one post but leave the third one out, here is a picture of Atticus reading in the van.

Apples and Jumping and Jumping and Apples

The seasonal work I've recently undertaken is that of school tour guide at our local apple orchard/pumpkin patch/place you go to wear your kids out.  This is fairly ideal as they took my "I can only work two days a week for these very limited hours" availability and basically said, "Okey dokey."  So now I'm talking to kids about apples and pollination and pheromone traps and accepting that they really just want me to hurry up and stop talking so they can go jump in the corn pool.

I've also learned I roll my eyes a lot (note to self:  apologize to Adelaide for giving her so much grief about this habit, as she is apparently just mimicking her mother); I had to quash this urge when a four-year-old daintily informed me that she doesn't go to a preschool, it's a learning center (I also had to resist the desire to ask her, "You still can't read, right?  Then you're in preschool."), also when another little girl squealed and cried every time a bug flew, crawled, or otherwise invaded a ten-foot bubble around her.  Patient reminders that we are on a working farm did nothing to penetrate her haze of panic.

For every whimpering princess and unimpressed boy who declares he likes the farm game on his mom's phone better than the actual farm (making me want to weep for the youth of America), there were ten others excited to learn how to properly pick an apple, and taste the difference between tart and sour varieties, and look at deer fences.

Arguably the best part of the whole deal?  Our little family gets in free to the place.  So now I leave the orchard, pick the kids up from the bus stop, and drive back so they can play at least once a week.

Caedmon's running form is around a million times better than mine.  Face included.

Atticus did hardly any jumping in the corn; he mostly seemed to enjoy lying around watching other kids getting told off by their moms for throwing corn.

There are two jumping pillows to satisfy all your bouncing needs- a small one for our smaller people, and a big one for our bigger people.  To jump on the big one, you need to be bigger, yea high according the sign in front of the pillows.  This makes sense to mothers who like for their children to be safe while jumping.  It feels woefully unfair to five-year-old boys who are not tall enough to jump on the big pillow with their big siblings.

He did eventually get past his finely tuned sense of justice (or injustice, as the case was here in his mind) and had a ball with the smaller pillow all to himself, as seen in the first photo above.

My biggest challenge now is to not spend the entirety of my wages on apple cider doughnuts.  I get them at a discount!  And they're made with real apple cider!  And isn't it somehow a sin to not enjoy the more pleasurable parts of our existence- or... something...?

Enjoying Ourselves Whether We Want To or Not

It's that time of year again, where we all panic about the coming cold and pressure ourselves to have as much warm weather fun as humanly possible while we still can.

This is not something we ever have to force on the boys.  They will be wild and weird anytime, especially when it's raining on them.  They were supposedly dancing, but instead arrived at whatever intersection is home to a mosh pit plus interpretative art no one understands, especially those who pretend to.

Or maybe this is a rain dance?  I really couldn't say.

Adelaide and I have engaged in somewhat more civilized behavior.  Eating ice cream being what constitutes civilized behavior in this family.

Aaaaand then she saw I was taking her picture, and was thrilled.

When she gives me this look I yell things like, "Adelaide, what are you wearing?" just to complete the paparazzo feel of the situation.


Even though there are beautiful temperatures outside right now and I feel that autumn-pressure to enjoy every last outdoor activity until it is in fact robbed of all pleasantry, I sometimes need a little rest from such breakneck fun.  Currently I'm doing this by watching Stranger Things on Netflix.

If 80's nostalgia is your thing, this show will be like crack to you.  The 1980's were my years of early childhood, so each episode basically involves constant memory whiplash, uncovering all these memories I'd previously completely forgotten, from hairstyles to telephones to the entire feel of the show.  I can only think the Duffer Brothers invented a time machine and for some bizarre reason used it to go back to the 80's and film a television show.  Even that part of the show that you usually skip over, there at the beginning where it's basically reminding you, "Hey, in case you've forgotten that decision you made 90 seconds ago, here's the name of the show you're watching," with clips of the actors laughing or glaring disapprovingly or whatever along with the title of the show [here is where Derek should swoop in and supply me with the name of whatever that thing is called, but no, he's not here and instead I've had to write all these words to explain a practice I find ridiculous anyway], well that thing that I normally find outrageously annoying- with Stranger Things?  I like theirs.  I never skip it or feel suddenly compelled to get a snack, no:  I watch it every time, start to finish.

Here's the thing, though:  I am a scaredy cat.  Seriously a-feared of everyone and everything when it comes to tv and movies (and books and, you know, life), so I can't just watch this show; it is way too scary and jumpy for the yellow likes of me.  So instead I have to multi-task, something I'm normally terrible at doing, but seriously, more than 80% of my attention focused on the television at any one time is bad news.  I have a very sensitive sympathetic nervous system, okay?

So I'm trying to blog while watching the show, which is good, because then I'm not so scared, but also not good, because go back two paragraphs, just beneath the Stranger Things photo.  What a mess.  And I would go back and try to fix it, but they're trying to make a homemade sensory deprivation chamber for Eleven and Winona Ryder seems to be returning to her former glory, so...

Halloween, Take Six

The theme for this year's Halloween costumes, I believe, was "Fine."  They were fine.  Nothing extravagant, nothing high-maintenance, just fine.  Of course, when it comes to Halloween, "fine" suits me right down to the ground.  It seems to have become one of those holidays where America has done what it does best, which is to throw so much money at it that it becomes virtually unrecognizable and no longer much fun.  How many parents did I talk to this year whose kids' threw out-and-out tantrums because it wasn't precisely what they wanted?  Too many.  Our children obviously would never do that, because they are so perfectly well-behaved at all times.  Or they had the looming specter of their father and I eating every last piece of their candy at the slightest hint of whining.  One of those two.

Adelaide's was my favorite, because I had to do jack squat to put it together.  She is now old enough to costume herself.  Hallelujah.

Dapper Derek there in the background went as Dapper Derek.

This vampire already owned her white t-shirt, black pants, black cardigan, and that red tie belonged to Derek's grandpa.  The black satin was culled from my scrap fabric bin, and while she did wonder for five seconds if I might hem it for a cape, my hysterical laughter answered that.  I never even had to utter the word "No."  I did graciously loan her a safety pin to secure it to her clothing for trick-or-treating, because I am a generous monarch, always going out of my way for the serfs who inhabit my kingdom.  The blood- or red lipstick- was also loaned by Us.  That's the Royal We in action, to you peasants.

Adelaide was the tiniest bit put out when people kept mistaking her for some kind of scary Harry Potter; for me this only enhanced her costume.  We did not make the mistake of voicing this opinion to Daughter.

Caedmon was Batman.  

Cutest- I mean FIERCEST- Batman ever.

He had, at one point, mentioned something about being a ghost, but when I realized I didn't have enough white fabric on hand to make this happen, I ever so gently steered him toward super hero-dom.  I did not say words like "cape," "muscle costume," "we already have all these things," but I did speak about such high-falutin' concepts as "honor," "bravery," "protecting all the other little kids out on Halloween."  Caedmon ate this up like the tastiest deception he's ever consumed.  Adelaide rolled her eyes.  Atticus was too worried about his own costume to pay any attention to how his mother may or may not be manipulating holidays to fit her own whims.

Atticus wanted to be a dragon.  He's had grand plans for me for months:  How I could sew spikes down the back of his shirt, and craft wings that would attach to his back, and figure out a way to get fabric flames on something that he could hold in his mouth.  This was a subject of great humor to me, as I had no intention of doing any of those things.  I told him he could wear the costume he already owned, and when he protested that it was an Iron Man costume, I pointed out that the print on it was CLEARLY dragon muscles, not human, and after all, it came with a dragon mask, didn't it?

The truth is my dear friend Shayla handed a sack full of costume items to us awhile back (which included both of this year's costumes), and I have no idea if that mask is supposed to go with that costume, or if it's even a dragon.  All that mattered was that Atticus believed it, which he eventually chose to, but not before proposing a compromise to me:  He would wear the costume, but only if I sewed some wings to the sleeves of it, made out of some felt still in its Clearance wrapper he'd found in my fabric bin.  Oh, and it needed to start here and end here, and he wanted the bottoms of the wings to be cut in scoops, like this.  He is a canny negotiator.

This is why you always take a moment to poke through the Clearance bin at craft stores:  37¢ in 2012 is 2015's dragon wings.  

One of the best parts of the night was when we walked up to the house of an elderly gentleman sitting in front of his house with two bowls:  One with candy, and one with rocks.  The children got to pick an item from each, and I am not kidding you, the air around that house was filled with cries of, "Rocks!"  "Dad, look!  I got a ROCK!"  "Wow, look at this rock!"  No sarcasm, no irony, nothing; those kids were genuinely thrilled to be receiving a rock along with a sweet.  

Now, yes, they were smooth and polished rocks, but still, ROCKS.  Somehow that guy had the right idea, and was a popular destination in our part of town.

I can't help but wonder if he had one of these bad boys:

I remember asking for and receiving one of these for Christmas as a kid.  Shockingly, the results didn't exactly match those advertised.

Oh, yes, and for those of you keeping track (please tell me you don't), this has been our cheapest Halloween yet, because we already owned every last piece of these costumes.  So I win!  Except now, looking back at more extravagant Halloweens in our past where we spent all of $5 total, I'm amazed at how cute our children were in their little costumes.  Remember Caedmon the Chick?!  Or Atticus the Roasting Pan Turtle?  Or Adelaide the Tiger, and the first real post on the blog?

Deep breath, and repeat after me:  I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday, I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday, I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday...

And the Running of the Deer

This morning was chilly and wet and blustery, which means I had the forest preserve all to myself.

Did I almost break my neck (twice) because the leaves were thick and wet on the path?  Yes.  Did I keep confusing game trails for running trails and losing my sense of direction in the woods?  Yes.  Was I thankful for regular benches to show me that I was on trails for humans and not just deer?  Yes.

Although I did consume a goodly amount The Far Side comics growing up, so I can't say I would have been too terribly surprised to encounter a bespectacled deer sitting on a bench, reading the newspaper.

Another round of Running Trail or Game Trail?  Such a fun game.  Almost as entertaining as the one I just finished, where I pin felt onto Atticus's sleeves, readying myself for an evening of sewing.  Atticus is absolutely positive that a dragon is not a dragon if there are no wings, and I refuse to buy anything for a costume, so we're making do with the felt I found in my scrap fabric bin, all while Adelaide swoops around in the Dracula costume she's putting together.  She keeps making overtures about my blood in what she clearly thinks is an eastern european accent, but really just sounds like she's overdue for an appointment with a speech pathologist.  She's at a bit of a tender age, where we have to be careful how we make fun of her, so I've closeted myself in the bathroom and perched on the edge of the tub, giggling over her interpretation of a vampire and thinking my own thoughts for ten seconds, not to mention scrolling through the photos I took on my run this morning, because I could have sworn I snapped one of the half a dozen deer I startled this morning.

Aha!  Found her!  Can you?

Fall Indoors, Fall Outdoors

It finally feels like fall.  I mean, it kind of, sort of did before, but now with all the leaves bidding adieu to their chlorophyll and the National Weather Service sending me threatening emails about Frost Warnings, which in turn cause irrational amounts of panic in my person- well, it's definitely fall.

That is 10 1/2 pounds of tomatoes, because I wasn't kidding about the panic.  I've managed to get rid of a few pounds' worth so far, but that means I still have around 7 lbs of mostly green tomatoes.  What the heck am I supposed to do with that many green tomatoes?  I like fried green tomatoes as much as the next person, but I feel sick just thinking about putting seven pounds of fried food in me.  Any alternate suggestions?

I also brought it in the last of the rhubarb, which is still sitting on my counter, waiting to be turned into a tasty treat, along with a giant pile of tulip bulbs, because thirty minutes ago I said to myself, "I only have time to do one of the following:  Bake rhubarb bread, plant bulbs, or write a blog post."  As you can see, sitting on my keister won.

When I'm not huddling under a blanket indoors, however, I'm struck with how beautiful it is this time of year, from the view on my morning run:

...to watching Caedmon explore puddles with his hands while waiting for the elder two to disembark from their giant yellow chariot every afternoon:

Signs of fall indoors are a little less thrilling, but still welcome.

Hello, Favorite and Most Wonderful Slippers in the Universe.  You had a solid five months to hibernate, but now you're back on Active Duty every single day until next May.  My icicle feet will appreciate the tar out of you, even if my clumsy hands can't help but spill food on you every blessed day.

Hello, giant mound of flannel sheets.  The temperature in the house has hovered right around sixty degrees for most of the last week, and so when I switched out the cotton sheets for your soft warmth on all four beds, our children rejoiced, I rejoiced, even Derek the Furnace rejoiced for a while.  

Hello, unspecific succulent.  I'm sorry I can never remember your actual name.  I'm sure it's beautiful.  (Not sure at all, actually; so many flowers have seriously ugly names:  Why did your mother hate you so, Spiderwort?)  You've thrived all summer in benign neglect on the back deck, and now I will bring indoors for the winter, where you will mostly likely curse my name as you succumb to a slow death under my well-meaning ministrations.  Sorry in advance.  It's not you, it's me.

And now look at that!  I still have time to throw a few bulbs in the ground before I leave the house, after all.  God forbid I go out in public with clean hands.