Last Fall: Pushups: Showoff: Another Zoetrope

This post's title could just as easily be "I'm Posting Them All Because I'm Too Lazy for Sorting."

 

 

This was also about the time he began eating anything he spied, a stage which, unfortunately, won't end for another year or so.

It's a good thing he's kind of cute.

We Took Her Home, of Course

Whenever a little elfling pops from a pile of dead leaves, the proper course of action is always-- always-- to adopt her for one's own.

 


 

 


 

 

I heard Finders are free to adopt as many as they can find, so we took them all.

 

Belles of the Fall

Sorry for the pun.

I may be lame, but these two are nothing of the kind.

 

 

 


 

So Was I Once Myself

I've always loved the poem "Birches" by Robert Frost. I read it first in college and was arrested by how familiar and right its images were, by how apt and true its bittersweet longing.

 It captures a piece of my childhood I like to remember, though in the case of my brothers and I, any slender sapling would do.  I've grown too large now, and I miss the exhilaration of a quick shimmy up, the parachute swoop down in a cloud of leaves.

Needless to say, I'm glad to see the girls enjoy trees. Pip is the most recent girl to fall in love, though one evening last summer she climbed too high into the slight upper branches to return, and I had to fetch a ladder to bring her to earth again.  She clambered at least twice as high as she was here and then mewed pitifully like a little cat frozen at the top.

 

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over. 

 

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

 

Bound to Be

Punxsutawney Phil fails to impress me.  On my evening jog tonight, bound and muffled against the wind, I heard what could have been the faintest of honks.  In hope, I frantically yanked off my hat, and, sure enough, stretched out nine-in-a-line, the first geese of the season determinedly flapped over my head, towing spring behind them.

Winter holds a lot of beauty, but at times, it seems a long, harsh season up on the hill.  The geese disappeared into the smoky stretch of horizon, and while I jogged, I stared at the narrow strip of scarlet edging the trees and kept time to my footfalls with the muttered refrain of spring, spring, spring.

P Is For...

 Pip
 and
playdough*.


OBVIOUSLY.


*Thank you, Grandma, for the luxury of bright, fresh, storebought playdough.

L is for

You guessed it.

 

 What are the chances that a drowsy ladybug would settle on the very letter Pip was to learn that day*?

*In early November, maybe? I'm moving through the months like dark molasses, folks.

That Couch! They've Certainly Upgraded.

But then again, so have we.
  

 

 Also, this visit to the bookstore included Annika's and Susie's first introduction to the Eloise books.  Annika was astounded to find meandering maps inside...just like the ones she still makes!

 

Apple Brothers

Dude and Mom Owen came to visit us in October, and we went to a local apple farm for their upstate apple fix, which entailed, naturally, our yearly run through the haunted barn.  (Pip ran faster than others.)

 

The younger girls were stymied by this funny guy (who was immensely more frightening than anything in the free haunted barn he's hawking).

 

 



The bigger girls, however, showed them just how to treat such a gent.

 

Tweak his nose.  That's right.  Tweak his nose!

 

 


Luci's a quick learner.





Pip found a large version of Stinker.

 

 

Everyone else had to settle for the remains.

 

 

They also fulfilled expectations by feeding the animals.

 

 

  We didn't shell out any money for the grain sold inside the market, because, as you can see, the critters were surrounded by lush, green grass.

 

Clearly excited to be fed such a rare delicacy, they tried to scale the fence.

 

My girls made it their mission to nurture the starving beasties.


 

 


 

 

Afterward, Dude and Mom O. treated us to greasy food.  Yummy grease and pirates! Who could ask for anything more?  

 

With just a smidge of Little Dude with Big Dude, the weekend was perfect.

 

Because Millie Dared Me to Post It

I wouldn't have dared, though, if yesterday's sneak-attempt to videotape me performing the brilliant "Earth's Atmosphere" dance that I had just invented was even slightly successful.  Millie's laughter is reason enough for posting.

Hands on my belly and "Mesosphere- in the middle!" is all you get. Please don't imagine the rest.*

*Really, don't. Also, please ignore my pajamas on the stairs that I never got around to putting away that morning. Also, please ignore Luci coming downstairs from her afternoon nap still wearing her nightgown. (She's on a freezing-house pajamas, bathrobe, and mittens kick, and I don't blame her. She got it from me, after all.)

p.s. This video makes our house seem like a model of Happy-Learning-Is-SO-FUN-with-Our-Jolly-Patient-Dancing-Mama.  As any homeschooling mama knows (I hope!), the reality is pockmarked with my gripes and impatience far too often for me to admit here in a public forum.  Oops.  I guess I just did, huh.  (I'm not posting a video of THAT, though.)

For Titi, to Whom I Will Send an Email (Tomorrow?)

What on earth happened to Pip?

Three weeks ago, she fell down (the full length of stairs) and broke her crown (10 stitches on the outside and about that many on the inside, too).





She's fine, though, and is the bravest trooper I ever did see.