October was a mix of warm and cold, but two very important dates came with great weather – Thanksgiving and Halloween!
The kids had fun at the cottage again, exploring their tree house and helping to rake the beach. Oma and Opa came to help – and Opa did a lot of the hard work of putting the dock away, although Jon was the only one in water! Even Isaac wouldn’t go in – but he was happy to hang around in his swimsuit.
We didn’t get to do the usual Thanksgiving celebration because of the pandemic, so we made due with a makeshift turkey ring and some pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, Barbara had spent a couple weeks in the hospital after a procedure gone wrong – so it wouldn’t have been quite the same anyway regardless of covid. Luckily she was well enough to be able to come home on Thanksgiving Monday – something we are all very thankful for! We did sneak in a park visit with Sam,Charlotte and Isabelle, and met their new dog Winston.
Isaac surprised us with his thankfulness, offering to go first for the round the table “what are we thankful for” and volunteered that he is “thankful for his teachers because they do lots of fun things!” He has been enjoying school, and is obviously learning a lot. His interest in French has spiked again and he often asks what something is called in French. His drawings have become attempts at depicting an object or person rather than just scribbles, and his writing and spelling are improving.
There are frequent emails from the school to all the parents, but I’m afraid the emails asking us to dress our children for the weather are aimed at us…Isaac still wants to wear shorts!! We’ve had every item of outdoor wear in use already this season, from shorts to snow suits. Lindy ended up buying Isaac new dragon light up running shoes when his feet seemed to grow overnight – and now there’s a battle about having to wear boots. The only saving grace one morning, getting us to the bus on time, was bringing out the entire outfit of Batman gear – from socks to underwear to t-shirt to go with his Batman hat…It’s the small things in life right?
We did lots of Halloween decorating and activities, including our usual visit to Saunders Farm. This year, we actually did the Haunted Hayride (during the day of course) and were surprised at what scared and didn’t scare the kids! Isaac was excited to wear his dragon costume, but covid changed the rules for costumes at school and so he was contented to wear his Batman gear again though that really isn’t out of the norm now. Cadence and Asher refused to wear costumes for longer than 5 minutes at home, but luckily daycare worked their charm for some cute photos.
We have such great neighbours! When Halloween Trick or Treating was officially cancelled, we started receiving ghost packages at the door from anonymous friends. “Boo -You’ve been ghosted!!” Of course the kids loved ghosting other kids too, and helped put the individualized packages together and going out in the dark evening to drop them off at people’s front doors. This of course dragged Halloween on for over a week.,, Then our neighbourhood association put together a scavenger hunt from all the yard decorations and planned a walk around the neighbourhood on Halloween as a sort of unorganized costume parade. And of course people started putting candy out at the bottom of their driveway (all wrapped individually again) and it turned into Trick or Treating! We ended up with more candy than normal after a week of ghosting as well… The adults all agreed that the afternoon stroll was the perfect way to celebrate, although very contrary to the intentions of cancelling Halloween, it was still socially distant and a beautiful day for a walk! We even had surprise trick or treaters to our house when Opa and Oma appeared in costume (well Oma anyway!)
The kids were just as excited the next day to wake up to snow! They suited up and got out the shovels. The snow has instigated evening walks around the block after dinner, which seems to calm everyone down a bit and has relaxed our evenings to be more enjoyable. Halloween (or maybe all that sugar) did seem to spark some early wake-ups around here, as well as Isaac coming into our room again at night. Luckily Cadence and Asher don’t scream/cry so much in the morning, and are often just chatting or singing to each other. Hopefully a short lived phase.
Cadence is still very much interested in potty training but hasn’t quite been successful yet. She does often go by herself to get out her change pad and diapers and wipes and will get undressed and lie herself down to be changed. She now also likes changing her baby doll. We acquired a baby stroller that then became the fought over toy…until a new toy lawnmower showed up as well.
Lindy has relaxed a bit about looking after the kids on Saturdays while Jon is working his 6 day weeks leading up to Christmas. The day after Halloween (and daylight savings), we spent the morning at home without a plan or help…and ended up spending most of it chasing naked bums around trying to get clothes and diapers on, as well as tattooing kids with the tattoos received in the Halloween treats! It was good that there wasn’t a plan that day – we wouldn’t have made it anywhere anyway! We still very much enjoy the company of Oma and Opa who come help after nap and have dinner with us.
Cadence and Asher’s words have started to explode now, although they still aren’t very coherent. We understand most of what they are trying to say. Asher’s word humming seems to have turned into vocabulary all of a sudden. There are still many tantrums in this house, but the communication is going much better. There is a little bit of tv watching happening as well, and the kids will all get seated in a row on the couch and say “wiggle wiggle wiggle” or “baby bum baby bum baby bum” to instigate watching a show (those are the names of the two shows we watch).
Daycare and school are going well – we’ve now been a month without being sent home for covid testing. The pick up routine is going to become interesting as it gets colder, since the parents have to wait outside in a line to get the kids. Lindy is thankful for the minivan and the ability to get the kids all inside and get in and close the door while trying to wrangle them into their seats.
We are really starting to miss the usual activities of going to the library, gymnastics and museums and indoor playdates as the weather gets colder. Our nature walks are filling our mornings these days, and we even got Uncle Greg out bright and early one day. We will need to get creative this winter!
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