In which I inundate you with photographs

I was considering writing this post in two parts so it looked like I sit down in front of my computer more often, but thought that possibly you all know me better, so it'll all be one rambling blaaaagh with a bunch of stuff all jammed together. You know. Like always.

Zoe and I went to Mt. Bonnell some time ago. I enticed her by asking, "Do you want to go have a muffin on a mountain?" Naturally, anything paired with a muffin is a guaranteed hit. "Do you want to go have a muffin and sit on an ant hill?"

I had no idea what Mt. Bonnell really was, except that I looked it up on the internet in a moment of sheer I'm-a-horrible-parent-who-can't-think-of-a-single-thing-to-do-today-except-maybe-watch-8-hours-of-mind-numbing-children's-programming panic. AHA, I thought. We can climb the 99 steps to the top of Mt. Bonnell. And what the heck! When we get there, let's REALLY go wild and have a muffin! So we went shopping for said muffins, and I was far more bummed than is usually considered normal to find that the crunchy-granola-tree-hugger organic grocery store that sells these obscenely delicious chocolate muffins had decided on that particular day to NOT. (Make the chocolate muffins.) I got a chocolate CHIP muffin instead. Honestly. The sacrifices I make. So there really are 99 freaking steps to the top of Mt. Bonnell, which Zoe took at mach 9. At the top, we were rewarded with a lovely view, and then we ate muffins. Here is a photo taken after the muffin nosh, and prior to the apple nosh, which happened about 20 minutes later, and and eighth of a mile away. (The last two paragraphs featured the word "muffin" 10 times. Now 11.)

On Zoe's birthday, she had school in the morning, so I dressed her in precious Hippie Chick attire that I spent way too much time shopping for. At Starbright (her school), birthdays are celebrated in a relatively non-traditional manner, in that at least one parent is needed to attend, and brings snacks (no chocolate, please.) I took banana muffins with very little sugar. The birthday child is given a crown to wear, and a little cape. Then, at their usual Circle Time, the teacher tells a very detailed story about the day when the birthday child went from being a Starchild to an earth-born child (she picked us to be her parents.) Each other student has colored a card to her, which they give her, and the teachers have made some little gifts--Zoe got a handmade candle with a 3 on it, and a flower, and a treasure bag that had a shell, a little glass heart, and a crystal in it. It really is cute and very Waldorf-handmade-organic-earthy. Way cool. After school we picked her up and took her to visit Nana, who then accompanied us to the local mall where we not only went INTO Build-a-Bear, but we actually BUILT A BEAR! The excitement was palpable, I tell you. She chose to build a pink poodle, who she named all by herself: Rina. Rina wears a pink and purple fairy costume most of the time, but I suspect that at Christmas, she will get a doctor outfit, and also maybe a cheerleader, because those two things usually go together. Here is my Hippie Chick before school.


The theme, this year, was costumes. She got lots of them. The one that seemed to make the most impact, though, was her doctor costume/kit. I found the kit on clearance about 6 months ago, and have been holding onto it since then. We picked up a little lab coat to go with it, and the resulting present has resulted in me hearing this statment on a regular basis: "Mommy, you're sick!" I must then allow my resident doctor to (in this exact order) listen to my heart, take my blood pressure, look in my ears and mouth, take my temperature (it's never normal, by the way,) give me a shot, and then get a bandaid. Then I get to be the doctor. Then she's the doctor again. Then me. Then her. Me. Her. Me. Her. At that point, I really AM sick, and walk away to have an Alka Seltzer and watch Dr. Phil. Here is the (neverending) doctor.

She was also given two (quite lovely) princess gowns made by her selfless mother. I didn't get photos of them both, and this one isn't particularly good--you can't see the seamstress's painstaking attention to detail--but good enough for government work.

Finally, Granny Jan went shopping at the famous garage sale in Stepford (I mean Celebration,) the town that Disney built. I can only imagine the bank accounts of the people who live there. Which, of course, is what makes the famous garage sale famous and wonderful. The dress Zoe scored from this trip is, we believe, actually a pageant dress, because it is made far too well to be anything but. It's cute as hell on, but I have to admit that it is vaguely jarring that you have this pageant dress being worn by a normal little girl instead of a plastic-faced-grown-up-way-too-early-aspiring-to-be-JonBenet-except-still-alive-Mommy-has-issues little girl. (Does anyone else worry that I might go to hell over that last line? If so, don't stand too near me for awhile. Lightening is pretty precise, isn't it?) This is too, too cute. Thank you, Granny Jan!

Her personal birthday party (the one filled with screaming kids, gaily wrapped gifts, and enough sugar to bring down about 100 diabetics) was on the Sunday after her actual birthday. We have bunches of photos of that, but I'm only putting one in here, because despite the fact that my hair is pulled back, Zach's forehead is shiny, and Zoe has a swath of hot-pink paint across her forehead, I think it's a really nice photo of all of us. Go figure. We had a painting party, by the way. We put up giant pieces of paper on the fence of the backyard, gave the kids Dixie cups full of paint, brushes and sponges, and said, "GO!" They then came inside and painted t-shirts, and then wrapped it all up with naked cupcakes that they used paintbrushes to apply their own frosting, and then chose from a bunch of bowls of various sprinkles and candies to decorate them. At one point, I caught Sam, our nearly-three-year-old neighbor with a bowl of red sugar sprinkles and a spoon, quietly going to town. It was hilarious.

And finally, yesterday Zach and I took Zoe to a pumpkin patch. It was pretty picked over, but she still seemed to have a good time. They had some little things for kids to play with, and something called a "Pumpkin Hunt" which I found surprisingly fun. We piled onto a flatbed pulled by a tractor and they took us to the Christmas trees. (Yeah, this pumpkin patch was on a Christmas tree farm.) In the tree field, they had hidden bunches of those teeny little pumpkins you can buy at the grocery store. Each child had a little bag, and could collect 3 pumpkins. I was pretty confident that we'd hop off the flatbed and snarf up the first 3 pumpkins we saw, but no. No, we wandered up and down the rows of trees until she had found the PERFECT trio of baby pumpkins. We were the last ones back to the truck. Once back at central command, we then were able to sit down and paint the pumpkins. After we got home, I went to the grocery store to buy a real carving pumpkin or two, but apparently, I'm way behind the schedule. There were literally NO pumpkins left, except for the extravagantly expensive princess pumkins, and little pie pumpkins, of which I bought three. Two have been carved (one is mad, one is sad, and the happy one will have to wait 'till tomorrow.) Below, the third perfect pumpkinette.

And here, an apple being eaten in the actual patch. Please note the marked insouciance.

So there are my photos. (I say that like there are ACTUAL photos. I don't know if it's my computer which is hooked up to a DSL line, but still flows speedily along like freaking molasses, or if it's the blogger site, which likes to occasionally give me the finger for hours at a time, but in the time it took me to think up all these words and then type them, I've been able to upload ONE photo. So this may not get published 'till Christmas.) Maybe I'll just reboot. Because that fixes everything, all the time.

On a final note, I am eating far too much cream cheese these days.