Time Slipping Downhill ... And Some Misc.

I'm peeling potatoes for dinner when, out the kitchen-sink window in front of me, I see a small blonde-headed boy run by. It's near dark, and it's been raining all day so the remaining fall yellows and reds of our backyard look watercolored over in gray. It's cold. (And about two minutes after viewing this scene it will have begun hailing.) But Hans is out there. He's got a jacket that he's clearly thrown hastily on (it's falling off his shoulders) and his little feet are completely bare. He's running in circles around our mid-yard landscaping with a small kite in tow. (He's made it himself, and it's tethered to only a foot of yellow yarn [attached to one of his sisters' hair bows], so its potential for flight appears rather limited; but he harbors no doubt about its possibilities. If he just runs fast enough, it will soar.)

I'm watching him. And the leaves that keep falling off of our trees. And I feel it again: this strange, slipping-downhill sense of time that I've run into lately. And I don't mean to sound overly sentimental (as, at times, the days ahead of repeating messes, lack of sleep, and demands from small people seem an eternity through which I will never actually pass); but something has shifted in my view towards, what previously seemed, an endless bounty of mortal life and possibility ahead. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that, for decades, Mike and I have been in the business of adding people to our home and now we seem to be subtracting them; or if it has to do with a spate of recent cancer diagnoses among my siblings (all of them looking to have positive outcomes, but in the space of waiting, we all saw, with some shock, our siblings' mortalness, and, in turn, considered the possible limits of our own earth-side plans); or if it has somewhat to do with Logan and our struggles to arrange a thousand pieces to get up there in time for it to still become home to most of our children.

Never in life before have I felt that I need to get something done ... while there's still time.

And it's a strange, new sensation--this pressing down of time on me. Something I've never really felt until recently. 

But! Whatever side of earth's time I'm on, there's still plenty happening. And here is the tiniest bit of it:

Grinding and pressing apples into cider. It was a simple enough process (cut in fourths, grind, press), and pretty fun, but sticky and time consuming (with so much to wash afterwards), and I think, after all his interest in apple presses, Mike seemed a bit disillusioned in the end--unsure if it was worth all the mess and work for the amount of cider we got. I think you'd have to have your own apples (or a neighbor giving you loads of them) to have it be worth doing regularly as, if we'd purchased apples, this would have turned out to be some very expensive cider! But I can still see us maybe doing it again someday! A fun memory for sure.

This little sprite has taken to doing the dishes on occasion. The cutest.

Speaking of this little dish-washer. I'm not sure when her decided preference for pink emerged; perhaps it was there all along (and us just unaware of it because she simply hadn't yet gained the motor skills necessary to pull out and put on the two or three items of clothing she is willing to wear, or to open the upstairs blanket closet to retrieve the old, pink, sleeping-bag blanket to replace the blue blanket I'd had in her crib with her since she was born). In any case, I've never had a child with such strong feelings about color. She's 65% pink, 30% yellow, 4% purple and 1% orange. Where are my blues and greens I wonder? Nowhere. (I sometimes look at pictures of her from a year or two ago and marvel that I was ever able to just choose darling outfits of any color and then freely put them on her!) And this "blanket" (if indeed it can be termed that with all of its velcro and straps), I fear is in part responsible for why she will only let me do her hair for two hours on Sunday. She wants pink blanket always on her head, and it troubles her somehow to put in on her head with her hair done. 

And ... pink make-up. (Yes I do own pink eye shadow. I like it. I just apply it quite a bit more subtly than she has here. ...)

Abe has used his climbing knowledge quite generously--taking people from his ward etc. who seem to be feeling a little down or needing something to feel excited about. And it makes me happy to see how he uses this little thing of his unselfishly--to bring belonging and enjoyment to others. But of course it is still the most fun for him when he can use his skills as freely as he likes. He and one of his friends have recently been doing some multi-pitch climbs which take a lot more know-how to make sure it is done properly and safely but which also allow you to go ... much higher! (Those dots below the orange shoe laces are people.) These pictures were from a three-pitch climb. But they have their eyes set on a nine-pitch!

(I'm also glad that Abe is incredibly safety conscious. He follows all the proper climbing protocol and researches exactly how to do these things well before attempting them. He and his friends saw a girl fall across the canyon from them a month or two ago. It was a pretty upsetting experience. But it has reinforced in him even more the importance of not being careless.)

Anders recently played "school teacher" for several days for his younger siblings. I liked the school rules (if only they wouldn't "blurt out" so):

And there appears to have been some type of yearbook-cover design contest. (Though I never saw the submissions.)

The other day I told Hans about how much I loved unicorns when I was little--how everything about them seemed magical and good to me, and how I cried and cried when one of my brothers told me they weren't real (and how my dad comforted me by insisting they might be). Hans seemed quite touched by this. And so sweetly went off to draw me a unicorn. And here it is. ...

If I ever get to create worlds of my own, I will most definitely be populating them with herds of these fellas.

We don't have school on Halloween this year, so the kids got to wear their costumes to school today. I honestly don't think anything feels happier to me than dropping them off at school on Halloween morning and seeing all those little kids excitedly running about in costume.

And Daisy texted us this pie that she'd made with some of the apples we'd sent her back with last weekend. She really ought to have made that while she was home I think. ... (Hopefully I can talk her into making apple-cider donuts the next time she's up! After all, as you know, we have the cider!)

The End.