I Have Forgotten How This Goes.

It is suddenly cold and dark. The shift from summer to winter-ish is awfully abrupt here, and it has taken me by surprise, though I suppose it shouldn’t have, as we’ve made it all the way to the middle of October, somehow. Also, my new baby is fat and drooling and growing out of things, and my old baby isn’t a baby anymore at all, and soon they will both be entirely grown up, and THEN WE WILL ALL BE DEAD. To everything, turn, turn, etc.

We’ve all been sick, including Twyla, who took it rather hard. She is a dramatic baby. When Twyla smiles, she opens her whole mouth in a veritable parody of joy. When she is unhappy, she makes horribly sad faces and sort of…warbles mournfully, like a sick pigeon, or the pound dogs howling along to “No Place Like Home” in Lady and The Tramp. But she made it through her first illness, and now, should she ever record an album of Stevie Wonder covers played at half-speed, in an arrangement for cello, bassoon, and seagull, she has the album art all ready to go.

Because it is Simone’s last year before Kindergarten, it is our last year at her preschool, that marvelous, magical idyll dotted liberally with goats (there is a new one named Banjo!) and chickens and llamas oh my. I honestly think I’ll miss it almost as much as she will. (Would it be weird if I stopped by next year from time to time to wander about wistfully, rending my garments and reminding the children HOW FLEETING IS YOUTH! do you think? Probably.)

Anyhow, I am trying to soak it all up before it is over, and have been carefully curating the Last Year of Preschool Memorial Art Collection. Allow me to share two recent works:

The above, as any fool can see, is a portrait of me, in buttons, glue, and crayon on paper. Please note the two circles on either side of my fetching buttoned placket.
(“Those are her NEPPLES,” Simone explained loudly to her teacher, pointing them out to us.)

The next piece I admit to finding a bit baffling:

Simone has confirmed that the three parts of this equation are a llama, wool, and a mitten, respectively, but how does a llama plus wool equal mitten? Wouldn’t a llama MINUS wool get one to knitwear more efficiently? Maybe what I am taking for a plus sign is actually a spinning wheel and the two parallel lines pre-mitten are knitting needles? Is this the New Math?