A month of change in the weather transitions us from more time spent outside to more time spent inside.
Superboy, my superhero, went outside to rescue the green beans from the first frost expected that night. The beans I planted in August ended up with enough rain and took care of themselves, growing huge. Look at their size next to Nathan’s hands. Inside we managed to keep warm enough by bundling up at night without turning on the furnace until October 30th. Usually I have a rule that we don’t turn on the furnace until November. We bailed on that with the strange weather that came with Superstorm Sandy and we were so close anyway. The furnace filters were cleaned and ready to go earlier in the month and we were thankful for the warmth that night as the temperature plummeted with high winds and damp air. We had a near miss with a limb from our tree nearly going through the roof. It was luck that the other sturdy branches of the tree caught the huge limb and helped it ease its way to the ground over a 2 day period. When it finally finished its decent it sounded like thunder over the rooftop. Narrowly missing going through the front living room window, the last branch of the tree held it away from the glass and we only ended up with a mildly damaged gutter. Miracles!
Nathan and I took some chalk outdoors and made some roads for his cars to ride on. We made water and cities and home on the path with our chalk too. Kaitlyn enjoyed playing on this later when she got home from school with Nathan as I got busy making dinner. It was nice to have sunshine for playing outdoors after school before the time change.
Nathan loved puzzles and does very well putting together this 5 Little Monkeys puzzle and several other boxes of 25 piece puzzles that we have. October also brings a chill in the air with it that drives us to the backs of our dressers and then finally down to the clothing storage boxes. One day Nathan picked a pair of pants that had been in his dresser all summer to wear on a particularly chilly morning and got himself ready for his day. Flood water pants??? He could NOT be talked out of wearing them and yes we went out in public anyway!!! After a run through the laundry they discreetly vanished and I made sure to rummage around his room exchanging his smaller sizes for bigger ones that I’d tucked away when his big brother was done with them saving them for Nathan.
If Nathan could go to the mailbox every single day and mail something to his cousin Porter he would be in heaven. Actually I think he’d have to stick himself in a box and mail himself to Washington State for “heaven” to occur and he’s actually enquired about that! One day we made some Halloween pictures and cut and glued some little pumpkins. A couple of those went for a nice long walk and were tossed in the mail box for both Porter and Samuel after they were dry. Nathan loves using scissors, glue and the hole punch.
While I don’t have any pictures of the annual “Ghost Cupcake” this little boy thoroughly enjoyed his as you can plainly see from his cupcake face. The first time he got one Nathan left the cupcake itself just licking the buttercream from its top. The next day Nathan ate his whole cupcake, however. There ARE chocolate chips in it, I pointed out!
Cooler temperatures meant more cuddling! I kept finding these two “boys” leaning up against each other at nap time. We call it the “bachelor pad”. And Spooky curled up on Nathan’s beloved Halloween costume as often as he found it no matter where it had been left. Seeing him ON the costume curled up may give you an idea of how big Spooky is.
One Saturday at lunch we had an apple tasting. There are not very many varieties of apples sold here at all and so I picked up a few old favorites at the farm market that they had out in a basket for sale as well as a kind I’d never heard of before. There were Winesap, Cortland and Banana Apples! I’d have picked out more but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep them all straight. Our favorites were all over the place so they were all good and it was fun to try something new.
I made a “Frog’s Eye” salad to take with us to a party. Not a good picture but yes it was green! The texture of it combined with its name leaves you to think you might actually be eating something fiercely out of the ordinary! Nathan asked me where my costume was for the party. So I threw on a winter nightgown as we were walking out the door and went as a “tired Mom”. Later that night as I was tucking Nathan into bed he said to me “Mom, thanks for wearing your costume. That made me happy”. Smiles… and maybe next year I’ll get more creative with myself. I say that every year.
Nathan enjoyed fitting gears together and watching them turn, learning how they work. He liked playing board games with me and doing puzzles. One day we had fun spelling words with his Boggle Jr. game. He’s very good at matching them up to spell 3 and 4 letter words. And the Spider Costume was on Nathan constantly. One morning I found him out in the living room reading a book with the costume on over his PJs. Sometimes I found him wearing ONLY the spider costume. What a goof ball!
The leaves in the front yard were gathered up one Saturday on the rare day off that Rick’s schedule allows. There was lots of fun outdoors for many hours that day.
Of course we read books… books about feelings, and books that helped us explore some of those feelings. Some books helped us count; some were rhyme and reason. They were all fun.
We read books about the changing seasons, books about Harvest and fact books about skeletons. Apply knowledge about bodies to your own body and this is a geography lesson for the youngest student. And again, some books explored all the feelings with such a lot of Halloween fun. We did many finger plays at story time and did some movement and dancing to some very SPOOKY music.
Halloween safety can be discussed with some the Halloween books and as preparations are made for Trick or Treating too.
And then there was candy! Candy! Candy! Candy! Nathan loved sharing his “Gobbles” (Whoppers) with me and we had fun trading them back and forth. What a terrific month.
