Holidays and Roosters and Ponies, Oh My!

• Julian turned 2 today! I'm so thankful that he was able to get his breath into his lungs on that dramatic entrance in to this world. Now that I've been sleeping next to Julian for the past 2 years, he has a bit of sleep apnea, like his mama and breaths much easier on his side, like his mama. Maybe he took awhile to get going due to apnea? Who knows. Maybe babies having a hard time getting going should be held on their side to breath? I don't know. We're so glad he chose us to be his family and we love him more every day. I really love him more today, now that he's sleeping in his own bed. Its so nice not to have a skull, elbow or heel pressing into my spine all night.
• The air is thick with frenzied madness of costume preparation. Gone are the days of dressing up for Halloween night, not we must dress up every day, for a week ahead of time. We're each preparing three costumes . . . wings to be made, boots to be found, wings to be repaired and hats to be re-fitted. Francesca made a kangaroo baby to go in her pouch and dressed in her kangaroo costume all day. Bouncing on the furniture abounds.
• Thankful that Eve, the Halloween fairy will kindly visit and take all the candy, leaving a gift. My dental insurance will be thankful, too.
• Our new rooster seems nice, but I'm still weary. He's begun attempting to hump the hens and falls off of them, they turn around and give him a good pecking and he runs away. I feel like I'm watching a little teenager out there and wishing that he's gay and friendly as opposed to horny and aggressive like our last rooster.
• Our pair of ponies should arrive Friday. I'm secretly hoping that this will suffice as my insurance to never have to take my children to Disneyland/world/whatever. I know that sounds so Mr. Burns, but Disney drives me crazy. Thank goodness my children don't have a clue what Disney or any of that crap is. Pony rides galore in two days and counting. Francesca is pretty certain that she is going to just get on and ride away, all the live long day. We shall see. If her confidence during her last two riding lessons is any indication, we will probably have to keep the ponies under lock and key.

"The Harvest Has Come!"

While our Palisade Branch Library was closed last month, we hosted story time with a few friends at our house. I was reading this great book about the harvest and Cecilia, overcome with emotion jumped up and, very dramatically said, "The harvest has come." (Imagine Cecilia as Abraham Lincoln, giving a speech.) It was hilarious.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the pumpkins we grew in our garden, the bazillions of gourdes, some of our first eggs from the Silver Laced Wyandott chickens, green tomatoes that I wish would hurry up and ripen and our friendly garden spiders. Although the one with the gigantic white abdomen could actually be a Western Widow Spider, not as venomous as the Black Widow but every bit as huge. Hopefully all the spiders are whispering of our kindness to spiders, especially the ones that keep biting me while I sleep, right this minute.

Calabash

I've recovered from my McCruelty (I'm Hatin' It!) lapse in judgement and have been making bread every day since in penance. (What am I Catholic? No, we were just out of bread and the girls and Julian love playing with the dough.) Especially Julian, "Mo pay do!"

I had no idea we had so many gourds growing out there in our garden. We must have brought in about 25 or 30 ladle gourds, some of them as long as Cecilia and Lagenaria gourds (bird house gourds.) I'm not sure if they've had a chance to "harden off" at all so lest they all freeze and be ruined, we have them all in the basement to cure. However, I just read that that's now such a good idea so we'll have to move them to the barn tomorrow. Evidently, the lengthy curing process can be a bit messy and smelly.

We had the most gorgeous spider in our garden all summer and we're sad to see her go. She looked a bit sluggish today from enduring the cold last night. Hopefully she had time to make an egg sack. She looked like the spider from Miss Spiders Tea Party, yellow and black zig zaggy patterns.

Dinnertime

Its probably bad that Julian can now say, "Happy Meal! McDonalds!" when he can't say Francesca or Cecilia. That's bad, huh? What can I say, for all my home schooling, cloth diapering, organic eating, home birthing, I'm not Perfect Mom. And when I'm driving home from Spanish Co-op on the Redlands and I have three starving children in the back seat, have to stop for gas in Clifton and am so hungary myself that I can't think of what to eat once we get home . . . we went to McDonalds. I haven't gone there in so long that I was stupified at the intercom. The choices!

If the worst thing I did to my children today was feed them a Happy Meal, then so be it. I was leaning towards Taco Bell because I could've stuck to my fake vegetarian diet, but Francesca and Cecilia would have nothing of it. "I want a McDonalds hamburger because they taste like candy!" she exclaims from the back seat (thanks Granny.) How do they do that? Get a hamburger to taste like candy? Is there crack in those Happy Meals? Do you think they put something in them to make kids addicted? Ground up tobacco in with the hamburger? "And their buns are so soft!" she says dreamily. How do they get those buns so soft? I know why my buns are so soft, its because I just macked down on that deep fried chicken sandwich (not vegetarian.) I was actually thinking, "Man, I hope nobody sees me in the drive thru here. How embarrassing."

Fortunately, parenting isn't a checklist or a goal, its about just being present and mindful every day. When at the end of the day the children are saying, "This was the fun-nest day. Even though it was rainy, it was still really fun," mission accomplished. Now to work on that self acceptance. Mommy guilt is such a biatch.