Halloween Year Round

The Second Boy spends his day changing from one identity to another. His favorites are: Fire Boy (who says, "we don't play with fire"), a bee, a butterfly, a butterbee (yes, that's a hybrid), a dragon, a very docile kitten, spiderman, and superman. Although the First Boy is the self-proclaimed real superman.

Hunting and Gathering

Hunting

Yesterday we went fishing at East Park Reservoir to celebrate Pioneer Day. We had a lot of fun especially because the Man had the day off--both from the office and from the big terracing project in the backyard. (Incidentally, he finished the second tier Tuesday.)

The kids were so excited. The Daughter caught the one and only fish. She was thankful that it was too small to keep because she didn't want to eat it anyway. The first Boy summarized the Daughter's sympathies when he declared that she only wanted to "catch and release."

Although the First Boy enjoyed fishing he longed for a bit more action. First he wanted to fish with a bobber, then with a sinker, then he wanted to check to make sure the bait was still on his line, then he wanted to change bait--and on and on.

The Second Boy was perfectly content. A bag of ice and his rubber boots kept him entertained. With his grubby little hands he offered us all chips of ice to suck on and dipped his boots in the water. He was disappointed when the Daughter let her fish go before he had a change to give it a love. Poor fishy!

Gathering

After a while we decided to go on a hike. The day was perfect. A gentle breeze cooled us off and cloud cover came and went. We even felt a few cool drops of rain. We were enjoying the scenery when the children made a delightful discovery: wild strawberries!

The strawberries were delicious. The First Boy described them as "lumps of sugar with a bit of fruit inside." They were much easier to find than the fish were to catch.

It was a wonderful way to spend the day. The First Boy summed it up when he sighed, "What a day!"

New Baby Announcement Reaction

The daughter: excited, prefers a boy so she doesn't have to share her room. In keeping with the vowel theme she likes the name Orphelia for a girl and Oliver for a boy.

The first son is happy and has like been hoping for a sister named Violet for quite some time. He is not so set on any particular boy name.

The second son is uninterested in names, but he does want to know if the baby is happy in my tummy. He has also figured out how the baby got into my tummy--just like anything else gets into tummies--I ate it.

Mother-Daughter

Eight has been a magic number. Ever since my daughter's eighth birthday she has become my buddy. Her moods have evened out, she entertains Danger Boy while I make dinner. Together we cleared and washed off the kitchen table, swept and mopped the floor, wiped down the cupboards and appliances. It was heavenly. I was so tired, but with her help the job I finished a job (mopping the floor) that I had been dreading for longer than I will admit to.

Now she wants to learn to make pillowcases. We went to the fabric store where she picked out some fabric without stomping about when I gave advice on coordinating fabric. Since then she has been practicing sewing straight lines on the sewing machine with scrap pieces of material. As long as she doesn't sew a finger, we'll be fine.