So this morning, we all put on our Sunday best and went down to the Navy base, where E solemnly swore “that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

So help him God.

E gets to spend the next 5 years at the beck and call of the US Government and I got a nice certificate that thanked me for my service. Little Evan got one too.

To celebrate we went down to Mystic.

Splashed in some puddles

Got a family picture with E in uniform

We went to buy my dream stroller (UppaBaby, baby!) but the people at the store were…less than knowledgeable. I felt sort of like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman – I am in your store, trying to spend obscene amounts of money with very little effort on your part, and yet you can’t be bothered to help? BIG MISTAKE. HUGE.

It was really confusing. We looked totally respectable and not at all hooker-ish. I’m visibly pregnant & carrying a toddler, so I’m obviously not lost. The lady BOTH sales women were helping was buying $30 worth of dresses. No one can stop for a second to help me with a $800 stroller? (Does that sound SUPER bitchy and entitled? Yeah, probably.)

Finally, they called the owner who assured me I could have my stroller, on sale, with all the parts by Sunday.

So boo and yah!

Since E is shockingly unexcited by dropping wads of cash on a stroller (geez, why not dude?), we went down to Clyde’s Cider Mill to get him a little present of his own.

Cinnamon sugar donuts and a bottle of hard cider. There are no pictures because we inhaled the donuts too fast and I told E he couldn’t drink the cider until after noon. We’re classy like that.

And now we’re spending the rest of the day doing errands and being lazy while the weather decides if it’s going to be sunny and warmish or rainy, windy and cold. Either way, it’s been a good day already.

Happy Re-Enlistment E! Your family & your country appreciates everything you do for us!

I know it’s ridiculous to complain about the sunshine! and the gorgeous weather! and the warm! and the chance to go to the beach! again!!! but I am SO DONE with summer. It was an especially long and hot one here, made longer and hotter by the oven attached to my midsection. Plus, I FINALLY found a pair of brown flat boot to fit over my giant calves and I want to wear them before the pregnancy swelling gets too bad.

The in-between seasons – Spring and Fall – are the best times of the year here in New England. (Although I don’t know why I think of them as in-between. They’re just as long as the Winter and Summer.) And as much as I love the budding trees and melting snow and daffodils and balmy days in March April May, Fall is sort of New England’s “thing”. If you don’t slow down just a little to enjoy the beautiful hills flaming with reds and yellows and oranges or get the sudden urge for a steaming mug of mulled cider on a cool evening or sigh with happiness when the smell of wood stove starts drifting through the neighborhood then you’re dead inside. DEAD INSIDE.

But yesterday it was 84 degrees. And today it’s supposed to be almost 9o. And humid. I would be turning the air conditioning back on…if we had any air conditioning.

I’ve decided the best course of action is to just WILL Fall into being. I got out the pumpkin decorations. I changed the wreath on the door from a jaunty bucket of yellow (fake) flowers to (fake) twigs and leaves and berries. And then, in a blatant act of defiance against Mother Nature, I took Baby Evan apple picking. I wore flip-flops. He wore socks but no shoes (also known as the hobo baby compromise).

Holmberg Orchards

Baby Evan was REALLY convinced he wanted to eat one of the decorative gourds. He tried to sample one in every color.

He did a lot better in the orchard, although that face in the middle is from eating an apple he found on the ground. P.S. The adorable little girl is his friend Amelia. She's FRICKIN ADORABLE.

We’ll have to go back when it’s Fall for reals and do the hay ride and get our pumpkins and buy some mums and cider and do the rest of the traditional New England Autumnal Family Weekend. Hopefully when it’s cold enough to wear boots. Or at least shoes.

Baby Evan is suffering from his first real illness, although unless there’s a medical term for “buckets of snot coming from the nose” it’s not something we could have vaccinated against. I think it’s due to a combination of  the weather change, teething, and maybe a tiny head cold. Unfortunately, his cold came at exactly the same moment he learned to army crawl at an alarming speed, so now he’s dragging himself around the house, leaving slimy trails of snot and booger-filled spit everywhere he goes. He’s the world’s cutest snail.

For the most part, Baby Evan doesn’t seem to care his nose is dripping everywhere, and refuses to allow anyone to do anything about it. He fights tissues, cloths or baby wipes anywhere near his face. Yesterday we held him down and got a few saline drops up his nose, but the level of EVIL WOMAN CHILD ABUSE TORTURE SOMEBODY HELP ME screaming and struggling hardly seemed worth it. I tried to squirt some milk in his nostrils but most of it ended up in his eye. Unless he gets sicker or starts spiking a fever, we’re going to just wait out the booger machine. I’m hoping that doesn’t mean waiting for warmer April May June weather, when the neighbors become concerned and break in to find all of us stuck to the floor, encased in slime, a horrible tableau serving as a warning to lazy parents everywhere.

On Saturday, E and I took Baby Evan up to Amherst, Massachusetts to visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. I read Mr. Carle’s blog fairly regularly and he mentioned the museum was hosting an exibit of Tomie dePaola’s work this summer/fall. Now, I don’t like to play favorites with my children’s books – I have so very many favorites it would be impossible to choose one or two or twelve – but have you SEEN Tomie dePaola’s work? My favorite is The Quilt Story. It’s about a girl named Abigail whose family moves to a new home and her special quilt makes her feel safe and happy. Not to get all sappy and gross but we moved around fairly often when I was a kid, so that book meant a lot to me.

Along with the exibit of his work, Tomie dePaola was also going to be at the museum for a meet and greet on October 17th.  My copy of The Quilt Story was actually already signed “To Suzanne” by Tomie, way back in 1985. So the chance to meet him now, with my own child, was really exciting. (Sadly, Tomie just had surgery on his signing hand for carpel tunnel so he passed out bookplates instead of actually signing. Still worth the trip.)

Baby Evan is way too young to understand the actual museum and a little too young to enjoy the “studio” where kids can make their own crafts, but he was well behaved and – as always – a big hit with everyone who crossed his path. Ok, not WELL behaved – I’m told there was quite a bit of screaming during Tomie’s Q & A in the auditorium but E was nice enough to watch the baby in the hall so I could stay and listen, (Tomie was very funny in sort of an curmudgeonly old man way – he said he didn’t do school visits anymore because kids are hyper and awful and too much for him) but he didn’t poop or throw up on anything. Which is pretty much the baby equivalent of a standing ovation.

I couldn’t take any pictures in the galleries, which are set up like a regular art museum with lots of white space and low lighting. There are two galleries, one holds work by Carle and the other rotates original work by various children’s illustrators. It doesn’t take very long to see all the art (especially with an impatient child) but there is a children’s library, the studio and an amazing gift shop. We may have gone overboard in the gift shop, but with our military discount admission price (only $3 instead of $9!) the trip didn’t cost very much. The museum has an area called the “Cafe” but it was really just a dining space and a couple vending machines. We left to search for food and stumbled across a giant but insanely busy country market/grocery store/bakery/deli. If we hadn’t been in a hurry to get back and meet Tomie I could have spent HOURS picking out fresh produce and locally made goat cheeses. (In case you didn’t know, Amherst is a little…crunchy. Ok, the whole place smells like hippies. College kid hippies.) We also stopped at a pumpkin farm on the way home and got our family of pumpkins for carving and took some great pictures. I highly recommend Western Mass in the fall, and the Eric Carle Museum anytime.