Our Everyday

Below is a little video of Sadie at the town "safe trick-or-treating" outing. The downtown businesses were giving out the goodies. It was about 44 degrees and windy, so we just made one round trip, got the loot, and got on home. Sadie's little hands got cold. LOTS of kids from around Basking Ridge were out in their Halloween garb. Sadie was a lady bug and Emma was a good witch. Sadie did a great job of saying thank you, and of fighting her way through the crowds of kids. She kept asking, "Is this chocolate?' when she looked into the baskets of goodies being offered.
Halloween05.mov

This morning when I was forced to leave the warmth and comfort of Sadie's bed for the forth time in the previous eight hours I looked out the window of Emma's room to discover a sugar coated-roof, just like the witches house in Hansel and Gretel! Well, actually it was frost. And from the sound of this comment it is bit unusual for this time of the year. We are getting our Thanksgiving weather a month early I guess.

I was in Sadie's bed because after one of my trips into feed Emma she ended up on my side of the bed and I was not up for the sardine effect last night.

There was a period of time when Hansel and Gretel had to be read at every nap/bedtime. It lasted a month or so. Having said this, today I discover breadcrust crumbs stuffed into a sock in Sadie's bed. Was she thinking that I was going to lead her down a forresty path and leave her in the woods? You know that story is really not a story for children. When the witch says that she is going to eat the children, Sadie just stares at her with a look of total disbelief. Well, it has lost its number one status in the rotation so I guess she is over her fascination with the witch and her candy house. Grim's Fairy Tales some how became stories for children but I don't think that was their original intention.

There have been so many records set since we moved here. Most recently, we had the driest August and September on record which put the state on the cusp of a drought. Then we recently had eight days of rain with inches of rain each day and now we are out of the drought and we have huge amounts of rain expected this week, first from a noreaster headed here from the Ohio Valley followed by the remnants of Hurricane Wilma.

In other news, Emma reached a very important milestone...

Sadie found a dead cricket on the path to the front door so of course she had to pick it up and find a good spot for it to lay until it's mother found it. She said, "he was up in the tree and then he fell up in the air and landed on his back and now he is hurt and needs some medicine. He needs his mother, where is his mother?" I try to just get her to put him down on the porch so his mother can come and get him but she does not think that is a good idea, he needs to come inside and get bandaid for his back, because he fell and hurt it. Well, his mother will come and do that for him, just leave him on the porch, please! Our differing opinions on what the fate of the cricket should be, lead to a bit of a stomp fest. Poor cricket, stuck in the middle of it all. All he wanted was his "mudder".

At the playground on Monday, Sadie is riding some bouncy thing when she spies a beetle about three yards off crawling thru the mulch. She jumps off the spring horsey, and frantically digs thru the mulch, "a beetle, a beetle!". Soon she has him in hand and she states, " he needs to go back in the dirt so he can find his mudder." She promptly transports the lost and lonely beetle to the grassy dirt where he is set on his way back to his mother's house and off she goes back to frolick with the wee ones on the climbing gym.

The girl loves bugs. (Well, she's not too crazy about spiders.)

You know what is really fun? Having one child wetting her bed regularly and one child starting solids because you get mountains of laundry accumulating on an hourly basis. Did I mention we are invested in Proctor&Gamble? Not really, I just hope our washer holds up!
And what is the deal with everything that is interesting to a six month old is sharp, small or yucky? Emma thought the paper that covers the exam table at the doctor's was the greatest thing ever invented. She ripped a big piece off and was waving it over her head. I think the crinklyness of it was most fascinating. I did not come into the office with a supply of books, toys or the like unfortunately, but the one thing I did have for Emma to chew was just not as fun as any of the miscellaneous items hanging from the walls or tables. Then there was Sadie asking every two seconds where Dr Kohn was. And of course we had a bit of a wait before the doctor came in to see us. But everything turned out okay in the end, with four or five stickers as bribes to move on to the next thing. I never thought I would have to drag Sadie out of the doctor's after her two year check up, when she was unwilling to do anything that had to do with a doctor. Anyway, Emma got her round of shots and was over it in a matter of seconds once they were all done and her thumb was firmly planted in her mouth. She is getting taller and skinnier each month, another string bean like her sister. So much for thinking she was going to be chunky after her first month.

Emma has been eating solids and likes it quite well. She has tried quite a few things and seems to like or tolerate most everything. The rice cereal is quite low on her list unless mixed with something that tastes like it grew on a tree rather than was made from tree bark. That cereal is beyond plain, like plain cubed.

Sadie has had so many great stories lately but my mind is just a sieve and all the things I think "I have to remember that" just slip away. I need that Rememory chip implanted. Oh, which reminds me that this house is like a black hole. There are too manys places for things to get put. It is crazy, I am constantly trying to find something that is usually here but is not there, maybe here? No. I find myself thinking I wish the camera had a remote with a button to press that sets off a signal to let me know where it is. Or the car keys, or the diaper bag, or the potato peeler or Sadie's shoes! And then I was thinking I need a microchip that can read my thoughts, like when I think there is a great story to blog I could just think it thru while I am changing diapers, washing dishes, etc. It would just access the internet and the site I need and viola! I don't need to interrupt anything to put down this thought and I won't forget it either. Okay, I know, I am just scatter-brained. Maybe it is ADD, or ADHD or some other acronym for a brain that just can't seem to stay on track. Maybe it is four years of interrupted sleep? Maybe it is global warming or the thinning of the ozone layer? Could I blame the president? My mind is a tumbleweed, enough said.

Tonight Sadie was pretending to go Trick or Treating. She and Nathan filled their plastic pumpkins with pretend candy. There were "vanilledy" and chocolately morsels in the forms of railroad tracks, Lincoln logs, bean bags, balls and anything else small enough to fit inside the orange orbs. She shared her candy with me as I washed up the dinner dishes. They were quite delicious. Sadie is going to be a ladybug for Halloween. She keeps saying she needs to look at the clock to see if it is almost Halloween yet.

Also, Emma is sleeping in her own room now. She graduated, or I graduated, to her sleeping in her crib last week. Yes, she slept in the cradle until she was six months in our room. I have to admit that I like her sleeping next to me. It seems so safe with her right there. I think the best part was that she was not in our bed the whole time like Sadie was or is. She still manages to end up in our bed five out of seven nights of the week. But don't think that Emma is over the hump. She still sleeps on the changing pad mattress that I had to put in the cradle after I washed the cradle pad and it came out in a million little pieces. She loves it. It is curved so it cradles her. I tried laying her down in the crib without it and she woke up after an hour fussing. So I decided we will move through this in baby steps. I was not up for a night of soothing her back to sleep every hour or so.

On the school front, Sadie has been invited to her first party. It is a pumpkin painting party and when I heard the mother in charge asking another mom what day was best for her, all I could think was," Let the competition begin!" Not between the kids but between the mothers. Who will throw the best holiday/birthday party? Susie had a zoo party with an elephant, but Tommy had a Thomas the Tank Engine party with a real train for kids to ride. Then Billy had a cowboy party with horses and cattle and a saloon, and then Jenny had a Movie Star party with the red carpet, limos, real movie stars...
I am going to stick to cupcakes and balloons.

After driving home from school on Thursday, Sadie says,"Mama, where is God?"
At this moment the world starts spinning through my mind wondering how in the world to explain this. Obviously they had been talking about it at school that day. So I say, "Well, God is in heaven. He is everywhere, in your heart, in the sky, in the trees, in the rain." And leave it up to Sadie to take it to the next level, she says " But I can't see God." Ah, help me out here.
"Yeah, we can't see him, he is just there." After that her interest seemed to be satiated. You could hear and see the wheels turning at break neck pace.

above: Sadie making "rain soup"

We decided that I (husband, daddy, raconteur) should contribute more often to the blog here, so I will be posting once a month (or so). If any readers disapprove, please address all complaints to Sara (wife, mama, super-woman).

After many days of steady rain, wind, clouds and general autumn gloom, today the clouds were blown away and the sun shone bright...just in time for the annual Galloping Hill Road block party. It was 70 degrees or so, and we spent a couple hours mingling with some neighbors and lots of kids. We met two Emmas (one 2 1/2, the other 4), but no other Sadies, Nates or Saras. We engaged in much predictable small talk about San Diego weather versus New Jersey weather, and the scariest tale we heard was of a 26-inch snow storm that occurred in 2000. We actually had met some of the people already, due to Sara and the girls' frequent walks around the neighborhood. On my doubled-up paper plates I had the following: hot dog (and bun), chicken tortilla casserole, multi-layered bean dip, scoop-shaped chips, two ranch-dipped carrots, two ranch-dipped celery sticks, one slice of cucumber (un-dipped), one frosted leaf cookie. And in my hands were: one Ginger Ale and one ghost sugar cookie. This is the stuff that make block parties worth the wait!

Sadie painted one (actual) pumpkin, and wacked another (pinata) pumpkin with a whiffle ball bat. All the kids lined up to do their best Babe Ruth imitation on the poor paper party pinata pumpkin ("one swing per person only," said the 13-year old girls who were supervising the event), until everyone realized we'd be there until Christmas if we expected 32-lb kids with a 1-ounce weapon to inflict any damage whatsoever, so a parent busted the thing open, unleashing the frenzied candy grab. Sadie ignored all the toys and came away with a pretty good haul of pure chocolate.

Unfortunately, our still camera had dead batteries, so no photos of the party for this post, but I did get some good video of Sadie's T-ball prowess and her steady hand as she meticulously lined up orange cones (in place for a bike race) in a perfect row.

Around bedtime (for humans under age 4) I realized that the newly cleared sky also allowed a great view of the moon, which was very bright tonight at our house (how about yours?). I put barefoot Sadie on my shoulders so we could go outside and take a look. She loves the moon and the sun and Earth, and is always talking about them. (For instance, we have to hurry and get up in the morning before the moon comes up and we have to go to bed again.) So after we walked to the end of the driveway to see the moon up close, we walked back up and sat on the bench, where Sadie thoughtfully provided the quote of the day...

"Daddy...we need to get a ladder, so we can go up and get the moon and take it inside and show it to my Mama."

[Note: Don't be afraid to post your "comments," because we know you have them. We know you are reading because we have one of those new one-way blog mirrors that Bill Gates has been working on.]

The snow came down and down and down. Only a couple days after the horse picture the Colorado folks received 18 inches of snow! That's Becka on the tractor plowing the road with the valley behind her. For some reason whenever there is a huge storm all the men are out of town! They were out of water and power for 31 hours but everyone is okay.

There are two new faces out at the Heckman/Lipka compound. I am guessing Harold never thought he would see a picture of himself leading horses on the property but the day has come! Luci and Nate are surely in cowgirl/boy heaven these days. We can't wait to meet the horses on our visit over Christmas and maybe even go for a ride.

The leaves are finally changing and falling. We have been busy with Papa and Nana's visit. Yesterday we all went for a walk around the neighborhood and found so many pretty leaves. Thursday Sadie went back to school after missing a week and a half just in time to see the chicks that were hatched in the classroom during her absence. Papa and Nana went into the city that day to see the sights. Friday we went to the town of Chester and did some shopping and had lunch. There were some great antique stores and other fun stuff. It was raining the whole time but it was quite warm because of the tropical storm that brought all the rain. Saturday it poured all day and then turned cold at the end of the day. Nathan and I went out for dinner and a movie while P&N were watching the girls.
Emma has another new tooth and a funny new smile.

Sadie in her rocking chair...

Everyone making muffins...

Daddy's girls...

Emma says Hello...

Here is Sadie and Emma's newest cousin. She is a sweetie! Congratulations Jenny and Will!