It's been a pretty quiet month for us. Your uncle Alex headed out to spend about three months in the Persian Gulf. I managed to see him before he left, on a trip for a museum event in Norfolk. Aunt Lena is coming here for Thanksgiving, so we're all looking forward to that. I brought you home a crab stuffed animal, since you like anything with "big grabbers." You actually ended up with several new toys this month. Holy Name had their big rummage sale, so now Grandma and Grandpa have a train set at their apartment, too. You also went to Madison with them, and came back with a giant motorized back-hoe.
Most of the leaves have fallen off the tree in our front yard, but the two by the street are still hanging on. We did round one of raking in the front, which you enjoyed this year because you had your own little rake to use. You especially enjoyed raking apart the piles that we were making. Then you helped Dad take the leaves back to the raspberry patch in the wagon. You pulled the wagon yourself for a few trips, and then had fun riding with leaves covering you up to your chest. When we took your shoes and pants off later, you had the predictable amount of leaves all over your socks and underwear.
We're still working on the potty training. Some days are more successful than others. You've had a couple of nights where you want to go potty after lights out, so we need to add that to our brush teeth time in the bathroom. You do seem to enjoy deciding which underpants to wear in the morning, though, and I really laughed one day when you had an accident and then told me, "I pooped on Thomas!"
Other funny things you have said lately:
Lock me up! [while sitting in Arrow's crate]
I like to eat bacon.
Let's do it!
Can I have it? Can I have it please? I said please! [said without pauses]
Me, about the train track I put together: I'm amazing! You: You're NOT amazing.
Dad finished building your twin bed, so on Saturday we moved the couch out (into the van, to go back to Madison) and put your big bed in your room. We picked up a mattress, and I even grabbed some sheets at Target for it, so it's all put together and made up. Unfortunately, it's destroyed any sense of organization (never mind the feng shui) in your room because it's larger than the couch. We're going to have to take another couple of days to figure out how to rearrange the rest of the furniture so that everything fits again. We were going to have to do some of that in order to fit baby stuff in anyway, of course, but I didn't expect quite this much. It's always such a trial when we have to organize something. I get all excited and make great plans, and then your father mocks me, and then I get revenge by making him go to Ikea.
I think the furniture change is combining with some normal toddler sleep disruption to make life difficult, too. You're at the age where nightmares can start, and they just might have. You got all interested in storm clouds and lightning and tornadoes the other day. We have a Charlie Brown encyclopedia about the weather, and you like to page through it until you get to the picture of the tornado and the page about lightning. The first day that you brought it up, I tried to find some good storm footage on Youtube. Epic Mom Fail. You were up at 9pm that night, telling me all about how you thought there was lightning outside and asking me if tornadoes would come in the house. I don't know if you hadn't been to sleep yet, or if you actually had a bad dream, but I felt pretty stupid for encouraging you earlier.
We went to visit a second Montessori preschool. There were things we liked more than the first one, and things we liked less. Neither of those schools had an opening for you, but we'll go visit a third school in November which might. That school is close to the Sculpture Garden and the Walker Art Center, which sounds great until I start thinking that you'll grow up wanting to be a modern artist. (Although, at least if you become a sculpture artist, you'll probably learn how to weld, and that would be awesome.) I found myself watching you play trains all weekend and thinking, Too bad there isn't a preschool that emphasizes playing with trains. You would ace that curriculum.
The biggest news this month has taken place far outside of our little home sphere. Politics around the world seem to be changing very quickly, and I wonder how your adult life will be affected. So many people today are calling loudly for social and economic changes. I wonder if they will happen, and how. I am not a person who joins in movements, who goes to protests or espouses causes. I'm happy to vote for people who I believe will work toward goals that I agree with. I'm happy to email the mayor with an idea. I'm happy to email my Congressmen and -women. If you become a person who is happy to protest and march, I hope that you will do it with respect. I hope that you will remember that systems can be improved from both the outside and from the inside, from the bottom and from the top, and that meeting in the middle is a worthy outcome. And I hope that you write clever signs and that I don't have to bail you out of jail too many times.
Love,
Mom
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