Buddhism for beginners

We had a busy--too busy--pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday, visiting Lesley and Paul, then the Gleesons, then Mom's, so it was no surprise that by the time we were driving away from Ballantine Road at dusk, Henry was cracking up. Still, the actual breakdown happened in an unexpected way.
"Mama!" he called excitedly from his car seat . "I saw two fawns!"
"Oh!" I said. I need to mention that Henry's car seat still faces backwards, so we don't really have the same view when I'm driving.
"Did you see them?" he asked.
"No, I didn't, but---" He correctly read this as the introduction to a little maternal soft-soaping, and immediately lost his shit.
"Turn around!" he shrieked. "Turn around! Turn around right now! Mommy, turn around!!" We'd driven another three or four blocks and he was already stopping between "turn" and "around" to suck his breath in hysterically.
I murmured pointless, placating things for a few more blocks. By then he was full-on screaming. "Turn around! Turn around!! My penis hurts! I have to pee! Stop this car!!!" We were half a mile from home, and I told him I was going to keep driving.
"No! No! No! Turn around! Mom-MEEEEE! I can't stop something unintelligible."
"What did you say?" I asked. "You can't stop shivering?" This seemed likely, because of his near-hysteria.
"NO!" he roared, repeating his cri de coeur. I still didn't get it. Once more, he mustered all his passion and will to make me understand.
"I (gasp) can't (gasp) stop (gasp) suffering!"
Oh, my love.

November doings

We harvested the first and the last of our carrots. They tasted wonderful.

I made hats.

James built a poppin' hole for two.

The boys dressed themselves.

Henry wondered whether if we scanned herbs from the garden,
the computer would smell good. 

Sweets

This morning, I left the boys to play together while I cleaned the bathroom. When I came back into the kitchen, James was about to spade into the end of a pint of ice cream, and Henry had disappeared, although the chair in front of the open freezer door revealed more, perhaps, than he realized. When I took the ice cream away from James, he burst into noisy tears, which brought Henry out of hiding in the bedroom.
"Why is James sad?" he asked, with a conscious look.
I offered to hold James, to console him. He shook his head and said, "No!" Then he climbed down from his chair, sobbing, and staggered, sobbing, over to Henry, butting his head gently into Henry's chest, wrapping his arms around his waist. Henry bent down and, with exaggerated tenderness, put his arms around James too, patting his back. After a few moments, he looked up at me and said, in a tone of delighted wonderment, "He wanted ME!"