welcome, fall

I love when the first day of a new season actually feels right, the way yesterday just felt like fall.  in the morning, Claire and I walked down to a pasture that has a lovely patch of milkweed and nectar plants (milkweed saved and nectar sources planted by a parent from art class who works at a local greenhouse) and sought out and brought home three monarch caterpillars.  there were several chrysalises (or 'chrysalides') attached along the old, white, flaky-paint fencing, and I couldn't stop staring at their jade-toned shimmery beauty.  the golden flecks, that amazing shade of green.... stunning.

at art class we made blown-watercolor trees with splatter-painted fall foliage and I read 'The Ox Cart Man' to the kids just because I love the book and it's fall.

for dinner we roasted our largest butternut squash from the garden this year and it tasted like a dessert.  we topped pasta with sautéed veggies and lit a candle and Claire made up some song about autumn and circling around the sun and whatnot.  it was sweet.  there was a fire.  there was apple pie. papa and I stayed up late and watched a movie together, petting the cat (Oliver) and spilling popcorn on the couch.

this sounds nice and all, but in between there was an emotionally charged argument between the grownups (sometimes when this most sensitive mama and the not-quite-so papa are pushing our stubborn horns against each other it gets tough) and last night Claire woke me up at least four times in the middle of the night and I was not at all patient about being screamed at because I tried to hand her the wrong tissue, or whatever the problem was.  ooph.  sometimes it's like that, isn't it?  we try to create something seamless, something easy.  and somehow it gets tricky and mucky and sticky and sometimes there are tears (about feeling being hurt, about the wrong tissues...whatever).

but then we carry on and smile as the second morning of autumn, blowing in cool and crisp, necessitates a sweater and slippers and there is pie for breakfast.