Rain

It feels rather like the sun will never shine again, here in Cleveland Heights.  It's really only been about 3 days of 45-degree drizzle, but combined with a sick boy, thwarted plans, and an simply overwhelming amount of schoolwork hanging over my head-- it's been a dreary weekend indeed.

I've been struggling, this weekend, with that fine art of appreciating all the moments of my life.  It's been hard to filter out the good in a whining 5 year old, a two year old experimenting with scowling, fleeting weekend days whiling away in a blur of cleaning up tissues and the detritus of a family trapped inside.

It was there, though.  In a half hour snuggling my boy as we read poem after poem from my Childcraft books.  In a little girl's giggles and the cadence of her voice.  In snuggly lazy mornings nursing my girl in bed.  In costumed little ones dancing to a bluegrass band.  In a house cozy with steam and good smells from a pot of fejouada on the stove all day.

It was there. 

And looking back on the weekend, maybe I should choose to remember those moments over the others, the discontent of expectations versus disappointments, the chaos of an overcrowded mall, venting my frustration onto my family, the guilt at feeling frustrated with little ones who weren't trying to frustrate me at all.

But, those moments are life too.  If life is good, by definition they must be good, too, right?

Yes.  Good for helping me to appreciate the sun, when it does peek out, all the more.

Here's to some sunshine, soon.

 In the meantime, here are our (sick, overtired) children at the Bootanical Bash last night.  We're not about to let a feverish child stand in the way of a family tradition!  At least not one we've paid for in advance!

Some Halloween portraits:

The sick ninja

The fairy.  She LOVED getting makeup on...

In the dark of the garden.  The decorations are so wonderful.  Ghosts and scarecrows and spider webs everywhere and so well done.  Jack loved everything.  Ivy was rather scared of the ghosts and ghouls but did much better once we explained that they were pretend.  "oh!" she'd say pleasantly. We had to repeat this ritual by every. single. scary thing. She is so cute.

The disintegration of a costume by the end of the evening..

Little finger puppet bats that were one of the highlights of the evening for the kids.  Kids are weird.

There and back again

Nat and I had a wonderful trip down memory lane this weekend, revisiting our past lives in Winnipeg. Four days away, international travel, and we returned home with a robe and hood and mortarboard and a piece of parchment declaring my husband to be a Doctor of Philosophy. The weather was rotten and our flight out left much to be desired-- but all told it was a perfect trip.  I am so glad we went, that we took the time and the money to attend a ceremony that placed a stamp of closure on this past decade of our lives.  It's good to make things official.

The ceremony itself was smooth, lovely, long and a bit boring.  It was thrilling to watch Nat come forward for his quick walk across that stage  I was on the edge of my seat and so proud and excited.  This moment that he thought might never come!  Then, there were 550 more graduates to watch.  And the chairs in the gym?  Not so soft.   But I can handle a hard chair for a few hours, after all this guy has done to be where he is today.  Finishing a dissertation, long distance from his University while raising our children and teaching part-time  too.  He's amazing.

Or as Nat is apt to say these days,  "That's Dr. Amazing to you..."

It is strange to think that it has been 8 years since I've been to Winnipeg.  For most of those eight years I would have told you that Winnipeg was rarely in my conscious thoughts-- yet it was always there as an underlay, those two years of my life shaping what came next.  And being back there this weekend?  It almost felt, by Saturday morning, that we had never left.

The really crazy part?  Being there just the two of us, sans kids-- and trying to remember how it had felt for life to be that simple, all the time.  Just us to take care of, imagine!  Somehow that had kept us busy enough...  This weekend, we didn't even really have to take care of ourselves.  Hotel stays can be magical that way; no cooking, no cleaning, asking someone to call you a car...  We ate well, starting with the really quite impressive breakfast buffet at the hotel and going on to include meals at Nikos and Fude, two of our favorite restaurants of all time.  Friday we were undeterred by the cold and drizzly weather, and wandered the city for hours, visiting our old haunts in the Exchange, at the Forks, in Osborne Village, and taking lots of self-portraits in touristy locations.  We walked through our old neighborhood, scoping out our little house (it looks good, has new siding... the deck Nat made is still out back...) and speculating about dog park.  Walking those familiar sidewalks it really did feel like mere moments had passed since we lived there.

It was a lovely weekend.  I can't believe its come and gone already, with all the planning that went into making it happen.  The kids did great with Bec and Gram and we briefly considered proposing a monthly weekend away-- until the full extent of real life hit us, just how behind we are on everything thanks to stepping out of all of our roles for this bit of time.  Wonderful to be away, good and slightly overwhelming to be back..

It promises to be a  bust week of catching up so I am going to include here a pictorial review of today's lovely trip to Lake FarmPark, in the full realization that I might not get on here again to do a separate post.   The weather was a fine today as it was dismal in Winnipeg, so in the midst of the mess and the laundry, we spent the afternoon walking through a corn maze and petting sheep.  What else would you expect from us, really?

Apple Day! And ducks!

 It has been a glorious fall weekend-- and it's only Saturday!

Last night we celebrated NEOEA day ( a short day for me and a day off for Melinda and Will ) with an evening at Shaker Lakes.

It was a crisp 45 degrees, brilliantly sunny and perfectly fall- a great time to avail ourselves of the lovely fire pit...

 The children ran and climbed and had a dance party out in the field...

 
We wandered through the woods and threw leaves in the air...

 ... and of course, we fed the ducks...

Pretty hard to top that, eh?  

Try Apple Day.

It was a cold morning, and there were fewer apples on the trees than in ears past... but we weren't about to let little things like that  interfere with a perfect fall day..  We wandered among the trees, picking apples, munching on them, taking copious amounts of pictures of our little ones.  They are all such children now; these trees have watched them grow, one apple day at a time.  It seems like it can't have been a whole year since a little, just-walking Ivy munched on apples in a short sleeved shirt, two years since I walked the lines of trees with a baby in an Ergo on my chest; four years since Jack ate his first apple and held our fingers to walk among the trees.

And now here they are.

The sun came out at lunchtime. We bought pumpkins, ate hot dogs and kettle corn, and enjoyed the deliciousness of the fall air.

Today was a good day.