October thoughts

How in the world is it October already? I'm in a little bit of denial, even as the weather has taken a turn in the rainy and foggy direction and the temperature has necessitated daily doses of hot chocolate.  It can't be October yet, because I haven't had closure on summer. I'm missing the lazy days when we didn't have anywhere to go and when popsicles and squirt guns were essential.

The older I get the more I know that time just keeps on marching, even when I don't want it to. Seasons go by in a blink. It feels like we catapult from one super busy event into another, and I'm constantly telling myself and others "as soon as ______ is done, I will get to that." Sigh . . . for better or worse, there's a lot of things I'm just not going to get to, but hopefully the essential things are getting done, and most hopefully we are enjoying the ride.

There are a lot of reasons that I am glad that we have our cute youngest son. One very small reason is that he keeps my standard of holiday decorating up to an acceptable level.  To be honest, at this point it would be easy and REALLY tempting to back off on holiday decorations, especially for the "lesser" holidays like Halloween ("lesser" by my criteria, at least).

But Joseph will have none of that. He is positively militant about his insistence on holiday decorations. By September 28th he was already begging and guilting me into getting the boxes of fall decorations down. By October 1st he was apoplectic that we hadn't strung up our fake spiderwebs across the porch and installed our big, ugly, motion-activated spider that drops onto the heads of unsuspecting passers-by. Have I mentioned that I'm really not a fan of spiders, unless they look friendly and have googly cartoonish eyes? This particular spider looks like something brought in from the depths of the jungle, and it is hairy and has multiple creepy red eyes.  I'll let you guess who pressured me into buying this joyful decoration.

Actually, we have a fair amount of spider Halloween paraphernalia, because I really dislike the "evil" side of Halloween but will acquiesce on spiders. The ghoulish decorations are a no-go at our house, leaving spiders and cute witches, black cats, and pumpkins.

Anyway, we are now adequately decorated, and it's fun, and I owe it all to the insistence of my 8 year old.  One more thing . . . he is never content with our current decorations but is always dreaming about and planning our next acquisition. Now he tells me that what we really need is a machine that makes fake fog.  Looking out my window today, I see plenty of real fog. Why do I need to manufacture any?

Tomorrow is one of our favorite weekends of the year - LDS General Conference. I need to start preparations, because this is an EVENT at our house. The family room will be transformed into a comfortable hangout with a blanket fort for Joseph and blankets, beanbags, and pillows for everyone else. We will eat nothing but carbs and sugar all weekend. On the menu: homemade mac and cheese, apple crisp, pumpkin muffins with salted caramel glaze, Lindsey Porter's famous french toast, tacos with homemade salsa, and lots of M&Ms for Conference Bingo. It will be a great weekend, and not just because of the food and the company. We love the chance to hear the words of the Lord, communicated through His servants on the earth.

One final random thought. It is so much fun to be about to nurture my kids this last week. They are fully capable of doing most things themselves, including their own laundry, making their own breakfasts and school lunches, etc. And over the summer I really encouraged them to become even more self-sufficient and independent because I knew that they would need to be big helpers while we were gone to Europe. They did a fantastic job, handling the chores, the meal preparation, the laundry, and calming the nightmares of the younger brother. They made the babysitter's job very easy! And Joseph did a great job preparing his own lunches and entertaining himself.

But now it's nice to give them a well-deserved break. All week the girls have looked grateful and happy when I hand them their prepared school lunch. And it has been fun to surprise them with cookies and homemade rolls. It's especially nice to lay down by them at night and talk about their day.

So, like always, it's about balance. I am so glad Dan and I chose to go on our trip to Europe - it was a priceless experience and I hope we have a chance to do similar things again. But it is also great to be home with our kids who are are even infinitely better than Swiss chocolate (and that is a true, heartfelt compliment!)