Taking Candy from Strangers

Me: Naiah, are you going to go trick-or-treating tonight after naptime?

Naiah: Yeah! I don’t need a nap.

Me: Can you say, “trick or treat”?

Naiah: Trick or eat!

Me: Trick or TReat.

Naiah: Trick or EAT!

Me: When you say that, the people will give you candy.

Naiah: Who?

Me: Um. . . the people in the stores, and our neighbors in their houses.

Naiah: Who, Mama?

Me: People in stores and houses.

Naiah: Who?

Me: (Quick subject change!) You have to remember to say “thank you” when they give you candy.

Naiah: Who?

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TwinCycle!

Everything’s more fun when you’re evenly matched.

(You might want to turn down the volume. They’re pretty squeaky in this one.)

Note Anna’s budding fashion preferences.

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Practice Makes Perfect

My children are going door-to-door to all the bedrooms in the house, yelling “Trick or treat!” and holding out their candy buckets, grinning maniacally. Oh yes, the day is coming.

Naiah is afraid to wear her dragon costume, because “It’s a scary dragon on my head!” But she is not afraid to cuddle said costume and drag it all over the house with her, trick or treating.

And here’s a little trip down memory lane for ya. . .

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Happy Happy Joy Joy!

(Ten points if you know who/what the title quotes. No wiki-ing! )

I’m running away! Tonight! With Jenn! And two ladies from the church plant!

We aren’t going super far, but we get to stay overnight and watch Beth Moore videos with a bunch of other women and hang out without kids! Isn’t it lovely? I’m stoked. I guess I should probably pack a bag, huh? It’s been a while.

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Story

I’ve been thinking about this paragraph a lot over the last few weeks:

. . . I must ask you to join me in repeating in exactly the right tone of voice the words with which this lecture opened. Do not say them vaguely and good-temperedly like a busman: you have not the right. Do not say them briskly and aggressively like a golfer: you know better. Say them a little sadly, and you will be correct. Yes–oh dear, yes– the novel tells a story.

–E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, Chapter 2: The Story

He’s right, of course, but wouldn’t it be so much easier if he wasn’t?

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The Jonah on a Stage Band

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All Shook Up

The latest: Baby Joel is home, but the fight isn’t over. Here’s the news story.

If you get riled up about little things like the state government taking perfectly healthy babies from perfectly healthy mothers, you probably shouldn’t read this.

Jenn befriended this mother a long time ago on a natural birth forum. She told Jenn that they came into the house and took the baby at gunpoint, while her children were home. If that seems a mite excessive, consider the fact that the blood screening in question tests for diseases that would already be obvious in a six-week-old infant. So what’s all the fuss now, really?

Nebraska also has a lovely little law which makes midwifery illegal, and allows police to arrest anyone attending a homebirth. Which is why Nebraska women have to cross state borders like criminals and give birth in hotels, if they wish to avoid hospitals and their helpful interferences.

Let’s write somebody.

Ben Nelson, U.S. Senator, Nebraska

Chuck Hagel, U.S. Senator, Nebraska

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Pray for Laura

Roxanne can explain it better. . .

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Early Bird

I woke up at 6 a.m. On purpose. It is now 9:30 p.m., and I would like to sleep. That way, maybe I can wake up at 6 a.m. Again.

I’m trying to become a morning person. It seems to me those morning people get a lot more done. I would like to get a lot more done.

On the other hand, the things I might get done are things like kitchen-cleaning and vacuuming, and those things aren’t as fulfilling as the artsy nighttime projects I could get done, were I not a morning person.

But I’ve decided to go to bed. Now. Before ten. We’ll see if anything worthy comes of it. I’m not sure if sparkly clean floors count.

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Shepherd

Jonah made a friend at the pumpkin patch today. She likes to herd soccer balls, wagons, kids. . . Anyway, she was his favorite part of the field trip.

 

 The header photo is also from the pumpkin farm.

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