Clover Lane

This is how I spent the first day of fall.
Inside in air conditioning because it was 90 degrees outside.

But we still did this:

That's how Patrick says football.  With some sort of sophisticated foreign accent.

And here's my son, Matthew, that you never knew existed because he hates getting his picture taken in a bad way.
Just like me.

But I got this one while he was famished, right before practice.

I took Patrick to a county fair last week. 
I really was certain I wasn't a fan of fairs.  The last one I went to, to drop Abbey off for a dance show, scared the be-jibbers out of me.
I came to the conclusion that the only thing a fair could possibly do for me is make me lose all hope for the future of humanity.
Until I went to a REAL fair.  Not a fake carnival-like cess pool of degradation, trying to pass off as a fair.
A small, mid-west, 4-H based county fair out in the country.  WAY out in the country.
Like my sister-in-law promised, it was right out of Charlotte's Web.

From my friend Erin's blog.
That's her and that's her baby.
And although maybe this photograph can be titled "Meeting for the First Time" it is very apparent in his eyes that he has known her for awhile.

It seems like I've had a lot on my list lately. Making up for the summer vacation, trying to get things cleaned and organized around here, staying on top of things, which has involved lots of errands, and attempting to establish a good routine to start the school year off right has occupied my mind and my time. Last night, after a challenging evening, I went to bed feeling icky and out of sorts.

Doesn't it weigh heavy on a mother's heart when one of her children are having a "hard time of it"?  Our minds turn circles of "what if, what now, what if always" and just that can keep us awake for hours.

But then I remember what I've learned over the years. This age, and geez, all ages, they need us to SLOW down and STOP. STOP the running, the constant in and out of the car, STOP standing at my kitchen counter and checking off my to-do list and GIVE.

Give them full attention for hours. Look them in the eyes as much as we can. Eat meals with them.  Good healthy meals.  Slowly.  Don't answer the phone. Stop RUSHING. Kids hate rushing, don't they? Especially the little ones.  It's not good for them.  It makes them, well, screech, and stomp and hit and rebel against the world. 

One of my favorite, if not THE favorite, children's books I own is the Harry the Dirty Dog Treasury.  When I hear myself saying, "Hurry!"  I think of the story titled "Harry by the Sea."  Harry gets lost and is finally found when he thinks he hears someone calling, "Harry, Harry, Harry!"  Really it's just the hot dog man, yelling, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!  Get them while they're hot!"   It always makes us laugh.  Hurry might have helped Harry out, but it doesn't help me out.  It's an annoying way to live, and a recipe for disaster for all of our little guys who don't need to see the bigger picture, but are constantly observing and learning from the little things...the things you miss, when you say the dreaded "hurry" word, or the live the stressful "hurry" lifestyle.

We haven't done much in the last couple days, and my tried and true "getting back to the sweetness" has proven to work again.  Train tables, chicken noodle soup and crackers, long baths, (I sneak in some reading time on the bathroom floor while Patrick creates tsunamis), and a hiatus on the icecream stockage in the freezer has made things so much better already.

But finally, I caved.  I justified it this way.