October

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.

September Activities

Nearly every day Nathan exclaims upon our return from the morning drive, “Mom, it’s just us”!  Yes, having Kaitlyn go to school is an adjustment for everyone.
 
One of the results is that this post is nearly all about what Nathan and I have done during the day simply because “it’s just us”… at least for a few hours each day.

With so many apples around to snack on and fix for breakfast, lunch and dinner Nathan decided to try his hand at peeling an apple “all by myself” since he is so independent these days.  He gave it a try before handing this one back to me.  Then I took a turn trying to talk him into eat this apple WITH the rest of its peel.  I remember having the same “peel discussion” with MY Mom only I was on the other end of it. 

We made our favorite Chocolate Softies one Monday when it was Nathan’s turn to make Family Night treats.  He enjoyed learning how to roll dough into balls and he enjoyed eating a few of these balls after he rolled them in sugar.

Cats found some new napping spots.  I found Spooky in the laundry basket in the hall one evening.  Oscar discovered a love for the vintage chair from Rick’s late Great Aunt Eleanor that moved into our home halfway through the month.  Since the seat is a beautiful needlepoint cover I put a quilt over the pad making the chair even better in the cat’s opinion.

Nathan and I blew catnip bubbles for the cats one rainy morning down in the basement.  All the cats gathered and their silliness made us laugh.  Sandy retrieved her favorite catnip mouse, last year’s Christmas present, and attacked it for a while, making us giggle and smile.  Spooky and Scruffles are often together doing the same exact thing.  They are loving the open windows of late summer.

Nathan enjoyed play-doh outside one morning.  He loved watching the play-doh hair grow and then giving the guy a hair cut.  As long as we stick with cutting play-doh hair only I will be happy.  Nathan also enjoyed putting together a variety of puzzles and shows focus and concentration as he works and problem solves.  Asking him to complete a regular task, like “go put your pants on” is an entirely different story.

Kaitlyn was content when she finally got her first homework assignments which just so happened to make all of the other kids jealous.  Not that they didn’t have homework!!!  Nathan was jealous because he wanted homework too and the older ones were all exclaiming over longing for homework assignments like hunting for autumn leaves and making crayon rubbings too. 

Nathan decided to try his hand at stencils and crayon rubbings as we used one of his puzzles/stencil/zoo figure set to help us tell a brief story of our trip to the zoo and when it was finished we put it in an envelope and walked it to the mailbox to tell his cousin Porter all about what we saw at the zoo.

We went to the farm one morning for a few hours.  They have another barn cat finally who resembles our beloved cat Samantha who Nathan sadly does not remember.   Her name comes up frequently and Tristan has a picture of himself with her in their bedroom though so he is “aware” of her.

Another picture of the barn cat before we ran off to water the gardens, chase the chickens and play at the playground.  Most school days Nathan ends up falling asleep in the car during the drive.  One afternoon after having gotten up exceptionally early I found him asleep on the couch during Quiet Time.  Rare!

Nathan was a good helper vacuuming out toy bins when we switched toys around and was also a good sweeper and vacuum-er when it was his week to clean the kitchen with me.  He also has been enjoying his very own magazine called High 5.  His favorite pages are the hidden pictures and silly pictures and the cartoon story each month with the cat named “Cow”.

We grabbed some before school playtime with Kaitlyn when we could.  One day they constructed a huge tower from nesting blocks so they could make a sky high building which Nathan can also do alone.  Nathan can do the same thing with nesting/stacking cars also.  And he enjoyed reading a book he put together himself from his new magazine about his feet making music!  He brought up his “feet making music” on several walks after this, especially once those leaves began to fall in earnest forming a crunchy carpet on which to walk. 

There were Little People to play with who rode the bus to school and went on Field Trips to the ZOO!

Then the whole Living Room would turn into a ZOO as we used Little People as well as Legos for our stories.  The Zoo was also a fantastic garden with exotic flowers and trees as well as the usual exotic animals to see.  After the twins named Owl & Freddy paid their admission and the bus load of students on their field trip entered the gate with the teacher and began to visit the Polar Bear there was a runaway construction vehicle who kept trying to run into the zoo visitors and the children who were scared had a hard time finding their teacher (who had been picked up by a digger truck and carried off) so they found the zoo police who told the construction guy to behave and be safe who said he wouldn’t behave and be safe and so jail was threatened but the construction guy said there WAS NO jail and so the zoo keeper commissioned one to be built and said the people would come to see him in jail at the zoo and after that the construction vehicle behaved himself so the elephants and giraffe could be seen after all!  What an adventure!!!

Haley set out her breakfast, a blueberry coffee cake containing cream cheese, one morning and when she turned around she found one very happy cat with some very good manners waiting patiently in her seat! This made us all laugh.

Sunday afternoons were utilized for tea parties in the backyard, just like old times.   And they were even dressed up for these but the footwear was a little off!

Nathan helped me make some peanut butter and jelly cookies which were so good.  He used his old baby spoon to help put on the homemade raspberry jam after criss crossing some of the cookies with a fork. 

Early morning seminary treats were made, left on the counter and then tossed into the timed preheated oven at 5 a.m. so they would still be fresh and hot.  Not sure I’ll ever get used to 5 a.m.

Kaitlyn also began her very first violin lessons this month on a 1/10th size violin.  It is once again, so tiny and cute pictured here next to mine and they almost look like twins.  I work with her during the week at home on her skills and we go to school early at 8 a.m. every Thursday for a beginning group lesson.  I’ve had enough beginning Suzuki lessons over the past 10 years after having taken Suzuki violin years ago personally to probably teach this myself.  So after working all week on her posture and playing position the teacher went around the room correcting everyone until she got to Kaitlyn.  “She looks excellent” remarked her teacher, who didn’t have anything to correct but then attributed it to “watching her big sisters all these years”.  Oh well!  I never seem to get any credit.  I have been working on auditory skills with Kaitlyn as she repeats the rhythm and note pattern I pluck out for her.  She repeats this perfectly and knew all the names of her strings the first time she picked it up, which I’m not sure how she knew.  We are also working on “holding” the bow correctly.  Now that her finger tapes are on we will begin learning “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” along with the notes ON the strings.  It’s exciting to see another child learning her music, making connections and feeling proud of her progress.

Nathan worked once again on sorting by shape and size and reading equations with words like “plus, take away” and “leaves” as he looked at the math sentences and counted the pictured objects in his mini puzzles. 

Stamping, coloring and water color paints were favorite mediums for artwork this month.

A study in art of symmetry and cursive writing as we made our names “beautiful” enamored even Tristan.  And there is Nathan on the right, done with his math puzzles.  “Let’s do it again”.

We ended the month when Kaitlyn came home from school having been “caught being good”!  She was “Student of the Month” at Fairview and if you had needed a band aid or were lost or needed a reminder to get in line in the proper place or needed to be walked to the nurses office or you had lost your sticker and needed someone to share theirs with you she was your girl. She does seem to have a lot of friends except for two boys in her class who tell her they don’t like her… to which she shrugs.  She LOVES school and after taking her kindergarten readiness test the teacher concluded that as long as Kaitlyn isn’t coming home bored she’s fine. She could take the end of the year test right now and be ready to move on! At her parent teacher conference I was informed by her German teacher that Kaitlyn has excellent auditory skills and can repeat words and phrases with such exactness that he calls on Kaitlyn first to model for the other children and that she is learning well and is an excellent roll model in every way for her peers. Her regular teacher described Kaitlyn as “the perfect student” and said “if only I could have a whole class of her”.  This might be why we are missing her at home!  The next school day after getting her “Student of the Month” note Kaitlyn got in the car and announced to me that she had a “bad note” in her folder. This surprised me after such high praises the week before and so when I enquired what this “bad note” might tell me I was informed that it would tell me that Kaitlyn got poked in the eye! Well, that wasn’t nice but wasn’t what I was thinking either! And her eye was fine. Side note; Kaitlyn lost her front left tooth one day in the lunch room and went to the nurse to get cleaned up and a special envelope for it. Amazingly she wasn’t the only one in her class to lose a tooth at school that day!
THAT was our September.