November

The trees that line my street are a brilliant yellow-gold. Such a deep color that it seems sunny outside even when it's not. For this one week, I see beauty instead of speeding cars and a gas station parking lot filled with used condoms and cigarette butts. As a season, fall stretches out from the first cool night in August until December, but the moments that make it feel like fall are fleeting. A rainbow of colors one day and then the next, bare branches and a pile of wet, rotting leaves to scoop out of your gutters. When we left for school today, it was quite windy, with leaves swirling around our driveway, fluttering down like fat snowflakes. Laurel immediately started skipping and singing, "Fall is my favorite season!"

Marko is now officially 9 months old. Seventeen pounds, if you like to hear stats like that. He babbles and crawls, pulls himself up on the furniture and stairs. He likes to eat cheerios and graham crackers. We wonder what his first word will be, and not sure if we should count his calls for "Ummma ummma mama mama," when he's looking for me. He knows the sign for milk. He waves goodbye and mimics our sounds. He's starting to get object permanence, and I swear he hides things for later...little bits of paper he finds or a stale cheerio.

November brings change. A new job for me. We will have a four year old in the house by this time next week. M is winding down his weekly trips to work on the farm. Every surface of the house is filled with harvest bounty - things are drying and fermenting and waiting to be blanched and frozen.