October seemed to arrive decisively this weekend (the first weekend of the month), all brisk and breezy and somehow snap-your-fingers different.
I do not have appropriate anything together: jackets that fit, all the other things we might need momentarily like hats and mittens in the right places. And socks; I’m sure we need more socks for just about everyone (they disappear, really and truly).
Over the weekend I had a celebratory feeling, even if my husband left for Montreal (without me) on our seventeenth (gasp) anniversary. I felt celebratory about him and us because, jeesh, that’s a good chunk of life journeyed through together and despite feeling frazzled and wishing for more quiet and time together, the other truth is that we do sneak moments and we have, for the most part, figured out how to support each other well and we certainly love each other a whole lot. How else to feel about that but hugely appreciative?
The weather was cool and clear after a big storm, much like seventeen October 2nd’s ago.
Meantime, on the anniversary, we got my (step)sister Emily, brother-in-law and adorable smiling one year-old nephew Ian for an overnight. Their anniversary is the day before ours, essentially a wedding the same Saturday twelve years later. Ian’s a dumpling of a baby and I really got to flirt and snuggle and love him up. Now that my toddler is so determinedly heading toward three, I have given myself full permission to love up yummy babies. Ask my friends with yummy babies; I really do snatch their babies (briefly) and pour on the love and soak in their babies’ charms (which are plentiful). Ian has a smile to end all smiles and his mother’s capacity to engage with people instantaneously. Truth is, he met up with many of my friends and he charmed them all.
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After a certain sort of luxuriousness to the weekend, of the lovely birthday party for a four year-old in an apple orchard and oh-so-friendly Barn fundraiser variety, of the house smelling incredible after I left for a couple of hours Sunday afternoon because Lucien (and our lovely friend/babysitter, Mim) made two huge pots of tomato sauce to freeze (theirs was a tiny bit different than this, but you get the idea), Monday morning came as a bit of shock. It was cold. It was dark (at first, and remains very grey). Looming was the big first-day-back-at-school push, of the get them breakfast, make sure they’re clothed, put lunches into the sacks and push the stroller to the elementary school and then the preschool.
After I got downstairs, the next person down was Remy, per usual (but I’d missed him the morning before, because he was at a sleepover party).
Remy’s such an interesting kid. The night before, we’d gone over the school’s new civility agreement, which he questioned (and maybe even objected to) because he mostly wants to engage fully but there are parts of school he really dislikes and so, he reasoned, he cannot be both honest and kind at the same time. I responded that proof a document like this civility one is working is not if everyone agrees, but if it sparks questions and discussion. He’s afraid to make waves, but he has a lot of questions, including why school can’t be more fun, because he learned so much at overnight camp and had so much fun at the same time. Again, I told him I think these are great questions.
So, my Monday moment—inspired by Damaris at Bebeloo (and let me say here and now, I really love this blog, so go there already)—took place with all that sincere Remy-ness in mind. After I brought him yogurt and cereal on the couch in the dining room, he got his brand-new second grade homework out and read for the requisite fifteen minutes and wrote on the sheet that he’d read Stink (you don’t have to indicate which one, I am told, but this was the Intergalactic Jawbreaker one, in case you were wondering; you’d see a picture of this moment here if the software for the blog were working, but it’s not so visualize eight year-old on couch reading) and put the folder back where we are keeping it. Having feared second grade homework all last year, how much did I love his remark this morning, his third doing homework, that “second grade homework is really easy.” Yup, you guessed it; I loved it.
