:Seasons:

Like slipping on an old sweater for the first time of the season, our Fall rhythm greets us like an old friend.  We lose library books and I collect apple cores left all over the house, absent minded kids leaving them behind, noses glued to the page.  A few new tricks this year, and a bit more structure for the little girls, but for the most part we adhere to our school time rhythms of years past.  This baby of mine can't stop smiling in his jolly way and I've found the knitting love/addiction again, rapidly churning out caps and mittens and looking ahead to when such wooly goodness will be necessary.

We're rediscovering old favorites (Betsy-Tacy, Gone-Away Lake) and welcoming them in to snuggle under a quilt with steaming mugs of tea.  I'm back to making soups for dinner.  We close up windows but try to keep from turning on the heat just yet.  I skate the early morning floors in wool socks.

Outside leaves begin their slow spiral downward, and this weekend it will be time to churn under the garden for this season.  Like last year, I'll leave the herbs...they seem to reappear on their own every year anyway.  Jonah keeps turning circles in the driveway on his red tricycle, the pedals his toes could barely reach last spring now firmly pushed on by sturdy legs.  He's grown again.  We all have.

I box up warm weather clothes and try last year's sweaters on this year's bodies.  Flannel lined jeans replace breezy summer skirts and we're ready for whatever the Michigan wind throws our way.

The days have been flying by, and most days I go to bed thinking of all that has been left undone.  Five children my biggest challenge, yet I'm still hoping to stay as present in now as possible.  After all, this is just a season...quickly upon us, then quickly past.