7000 Days

A few of the emails sent to Charles today:

From:     Emily Reed
Date:     29 October 2009 10:12:32 AM
To:     Charles Young
Subject: Off to storytime

As you can see we got the tarp on just in time. Also, Gus is holding one of the 10 books I fixed last night before we ran out of tape. Only 15 or so more to go (ugh)

From:     Emily Reed
Date:     29 October 2009 10:40 AM
To:     Charles Young
Subject: Costume day at storytime

So we made him a makeshift tree.

From:     Emily Reed
Date:     29 October 2009 11:11 AM
To:     Charles Young
Subject: Spotting the otter

From:     Emily Reed
Date:     29 October 2009 11:17 AM
To:     Charles Young
Subject: Not getting any closer

Took Gus out to Rasmussen’s Farms today. I used to work there in college and it’s a real destination around this time of year.

The pumpkin patch…

The corn maze…

And, of course, Pumpkin Funland.

A huge building filled with scenes made of pumpkin characters. When Chris and I were in charge of it, we took it up a notch and created elaborate mountains, Olympic stadiums, and references to movies (a real twist from the traditional story book genre of years before).

Dolly & Lynn (pictured above) were uncomfortable with our departure from the down home farm craft. But I see now that all that unease is long gone. Now they have scenes where the pumpkin heads are suspended from wires from the ceiling. Wires! We would have never stood for such artificiality back in my day.

I do, however, approve of these two scenes from today. They’re my favorites. Enjoy:

Gus had four spills today -two of them real doozies and not more than 5 minutes apart from each other. Poor guy.

(Ok, so the last one isn’t a spill but when he cries he keeps pointing to the thing he fell onto, as if taking notes for future reference, but with the cat there was a whole other layer of indignity as if he were saying, ’she, she, she bit me.’ This after numerous tail pulling and warm-comfy-chair stealing on his part.)

…to have a great visit with cousins Eli, Dawn, Gianna & Kaia. Along with Grantie Nett and Gruncle Steave. Lots more photos to come (when I can down load them) but this one pretty much summarizes the relationship between cousin Gianna and Gus. She’s a bit wary but periodically nice to him and he’s oblivious and happy to be around her. After this, he practiced pushing the empty swing and got knocked down a couple of times. I’m sure that’s a good analogy for something.

Oh, and new word: Gianna’s nickname, ‘GG’

The theme at story time today was leaves. We had three books about them and it struck me that it’s a tough topic to introduce much tension or suspense into.

(Gus felt the same)

(Actually several of the parents had to keep jumping up to drag their kids back from a premature bolt towards door or the plastic box of music toys that they always bring out at the end)

And in the afternoon we had a walk in the orchard which is turning yellow and orange.

Gus picked up a few presents for Charles. The first was a half of a rotting acorn. The second was a new and lovely acorn. And the third a rotting yellow fruit of some kind.

(I think I may be ahead so far in the gifts department.)