Overheard in my kitchen

Henry, to James, at the breakfast table, while I was out of the room: "Are a lot of the people you love in Bloomington?"

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!"

Fright night

Last Halloween, our next door neighbor was shot in the leg by a maniac while she was walking her dog. This year, the festivities were much tamer. Henry has been on tenterhooks for days, although he had no intention of wearing a costume or going trick-or-treating. In the end, he walked along with me to three neighbors' houses and hid in the bushes while James and I got enough treats to share. He had a thoroughly grand time back home, though, plopping fistfuls of candy into other kids' bags. James, too: He wasn't allowed to disburse candy but he stomped around the porch in his jack-o'lantern vest, doubling over and crowing in delight at the hubbub.

Boo!

Peter picked a pumpkin costume for James, on account of his
proprietary interest in  the runt pumpkins we are growing in the yard.

Mom came over this morning dressed as a ghost. She got exorcised. 

Meanwhile, I am experiencing yet another flare-up of anxiety, my old familiar goblin.

A spot of archaeology

"Mommy, Mommy, do you want to see?" called Henry this morning from the front porch.
I came to see.
He and James opened up a shoe box and unpacked a dead barberry branch.
"It's a dinosaur mouth bone!"
"Wow!" I said.
A minute later, I was summoned again to see.
"What is it?"
"Look!" Henry said. "I was digging in the dirt and found this little baby!"

The exhibits

It must be fall

Apples...

and pumpkins.