The Boy was so tired this morning that I actually had to carry him downstairs, all fifty pounds of him resting limply against me. One of my friends is TINY - teeny! - this pretty 100 pound girl, and she has two heavy little boys who frequently want to be carried and I wonder how she manages. Luckily for me, I'm built sturdily and can heft any number of small children around. Yes. Luckily.
But he was SO tired - I hate having to wake up my sleeping children on school mornings, their long eyelashes curving down on their rounded cheeks, sleep returning them to their vulnerable infancy. And despite my fantasies of what breakfast SHOULD be like, weekday breakfasts are a pretty uninspired affair - bowls of cereal, perhaps a poached egg (the only kind that The Girl will eat, horrifyingly enough), toast. Then it's rushing them into their clothes, making sure their hair and teeth are brushed and that their faces are reasonably clean, packing lunches and agendas and homework and then shoes, coats, hats, bookbags and out the door, with me barely able to remember that an hour ago, they were sleeping in their warm beds, sweet little children.
The Baby and I have been enjoying our days together, though - she's been deliriously happy to have my uninterrupted attention, and we have a big day of baking ahead of us today, thanks to the over-abundance of my parent's garden. My older kids, despite my O Woe! attitude towards school, LOVE heading off in the morning and come home in the afternoon tired but cheerful and chatty and hungry. And I've been able to do lots of writing and house-cleaning and organizing and baking (of course) and trying to ignore this autumnal yearning for a spring baby. My husband is busy with work and special projects. It's a productive time of year for all of us.
I got an email a few minutes ago from a friend, talking about how much she loves autumn - loves the cool air and the red and gold leaves and the feeling of the year drawing gently to a close. Aesthetically, I find autumn very attractive and it DOES have its consolations - pumpkin bread pudding! chocolate zucchini cake! hot apple cider! (see above, re: my sturdiness) - but mostly I feel mournful in the fall, and all of the sweet things can't entirely make up for autumn's melancholy, the sure knowledge that leaves turn red right before they fall and that sleeping children are their sweetest right before we have to wake them up.
Hi Beck...I finally got a chance to comment on your new blog, even though I have been reading each post I just figured out how to comment...BTW nice photo! I believe I've seen that one before ;o)...Keep up the awesome work!
Personally, I love fall. I find it very energizing. I always want to "get things done" pronto. I am nostalgic for the lost summer fun, though.
yet another lovely post, beck. and i love autumn so so much. but it tends to have the feeling of something portentous. like something big and sad will happen soon. namely a western new york winter.
and that pumpkin pudding looks DIVINE!
Becky, yet another excellent example of your wonderful talent as a writer and more importantly, as a mother. So proud of you!
You make we want to go have a picnic, at this very moment. Sausages. Cheese. Coleslaw. Fresh bread. Are radishes in season? Apple fritters. Mulled wine. Giving Thanks.
Apparently you've singlehandedly unleashed autumn on my mind, in advance of the leaves that haven't yet changed here. Beautifully written!
Hmm...I *love* fall, but I do know what you mean...it's a bit melancholy, too. It must have something to do with school starting, that sense of anticipation that we have built into us from age 5 on. To me, autumn is a time of endings AND beginnings, and that's what makes it so special.
For me the melancholy is about knowing that the season that follows fall is fast approaching.
I find winter depressing and long.
Fall does bring some wonderful baking :)
I am not looking forward to waking Becca on a schedule :( I can only imagine how hard it was to carry the Boy downstairs.
They *are* sweetest right before we have to wake them, aren't they?
Then, in the case of my middle child, they turn. Oh! How she turns. She is her mother's morning shadow.
Thanks for the zucchini cake recipe. I made two more batches of chocolate zucchini muffins to freeze yesterday and I STILL have zucchini left. I am going to do like Marie Antoinette and Let Them Eat Cake!
You are so right about that ... at their age. Wait until they are 16 and it is noon and you have to go kick their sorry behinds out of bed just because they need to learn that this is not real life. And maybe they need to get a job :)
Enjoy those lovely children and feed them all those wonderful things you have in your kitchen. Thanks for this.
I love fall, even though our property is a nightmare in fall (lots of mature trees). I find I have more energy and I just can't get enough of the baking. I used your gingerbread recipe over the weekend, by the way, and it was a BIG hit. I also hate having to wake sleeping children, although it doesn't happen very often with my early risers!
My boy was much the same this morning. He is usually cheerful and bright in the morning, waking well before we do, so on mornings like this I especially want to let him sleep, because it must be needed.
I love autumn. It is the return to being outdoors for us. The weather finally mild enough to endure. Sadly, it hasn't quite reached us yet and the baseballs still sit quietly, waiting to be tossed, and the bikes sit collecting dust in the garage, dreaming of gliding down the streets. Soon enough, I suppose.
I hate waking up my girls as well, there is something just wrong about waking a sleeping child.
I do love fall though and I don't really find it depressing. I love being able to cover up my flabby arms, picking apples and our annual watching the leaves turn drive we take.
I will check out the new recipes...I know you choose easy ones just for me!
oh... i love fall so much and have lived in the south without it for 8 years now!
your breakfasts are better than those I feed MQ - pancakes which I make over the weekend and pull out of the fridge every morning. I know it's not the most nutritious thing, but I am SO not up for an argument at 7am in the morning, so pancakes it is.
I think fall is lovely but around here, where it gets cold and stays cold quickly and the sun is less than what it once was, it is definitely depressing (A good reminder for me to get my full spectrum light bulbs in place--what a difference those make.)
Fall is my favorite time of year: chunky sweaters, tweeds, jackets all layered over one another in browns, creams, red and orange. The last splash of color on the trees before the leaves fall. The brisk air and oh, the food. I love everything with pumpkin and the farmer's market on Wednesday and Saturday up my street has the best vegetables and a wide array of apples this time of year. I love plucking up an experimental squash and making up a recipe around it. And even 6 years out of school, I still feel like back to school time is really the time for re-committment and resolutions.
Beautiful post, Beck! I love Autumn. See, I even capitalized it! Warm days, cool nights, the harvest, the smells, the food. But it is definitely harder to get kids up when it is dark outside, for sure!
i too hate dragging warm sleeping children bodies out of bed. i rarely have to do it though, but when i do, there's that moment right before i wake them up when everything is quiet and i think why would i ruin this?
but my children are always happy to wake up early. i guess because they have slept late to the point that it is so old news and now getting up and seeing the sunrise is all Fun and New!
I love your blogs! Thanks for the new addition to urban moms...I am sooooo enjoying your writing and if I ever get the time I will spend some of it on your other blog because the few seconds there were very enjoyable!
Bread pudding is TFH's all time favorite dessert! Thanks for the recipe link, it has been added to "favorites," appropriately enough.
I love the fall, but I totally get what you're saying. I feel that way towards the end of all the seasons. Nothing like a quarterly bout of depression.
did you say chocolate zucchini bread?!?! Wow.
I was just trying to compose a follow-up post to my I Heart Autumn post. Because now I've got the autumnal blues. The in-between melancholy. It will soon be swept away by trips to the pumpkin patch, horse farm, and apple orchard. At least, I hope it will.
You can express so eloquently how I feel but could never put into words. You touch the heart, not to mention the stomach!!!! Chocolate zucchini cake - sigh...do you do care packages???
Chocolate Zuchinni Bread (or cake) ROCKS!
The perfect way to get rid of those giant baseball bat sized zuchinnis...and an excellent way to sneak a veg in to the kids lunch boxes!
I like the fall alright but it ALWAYS make me feel melancholy when it begins. Something about the summer ending and the busy life of fall beginning. I don't know what reallly.
Wonderful lovely post Bec, as usual. I look forward to Mondays knowing that you'll have a new post up here to read.
Indded, the photo is quite stunning, though I still picture you Ramona Quimbyesque when you comment at my place. Going to try the Chocolate Z bread.
I keep thinking, "It's early fall and I'm going to be here for all of it this time!" I'm rather excited, actually. Usually by this point, we'd be back in the desert. So a different perspective, but a shared appreciation of baking. ;)
beautiful post, Becks! :) I had to wake the monkey up for school today. She cried.... I've never had to actually wake her up in the morning before. We're used to HER waking US up.... But, school days are earlier days, so....
i am so thankful that my kids are so wee. emily is 6 and only weighs about 32 pounds...because i'm little and cannot for the life of me figure out how i'd carry them if they were bigger!! :)
I thought I was the only one with autumn blues! Can't figure out why as it's the most beautiful time of the year...
I love fall. Partly because it IS melancholy. Kinda like a good tear jerker movie. It is a time to reflect and say good-bye to the carefree days of summer. It is also time to hunker down for a long, cold winter.
Funnily I had to wake up my boy this morning too. Usually he jumps out of bed eager to start his day but today he was tired and slow to get going. Back to the busy schedules and daily routine is tiring for all of us. But stroking his back and nuzzling his warm neck was a perfect start to my day.
Wonderful insight, Beck and wonderful writing.
Fall is my favourite season. It is partly the melancholy but mostly the sweaters and cords.
I like early fall actually. I have that urgent must get things done feeling like a squirrel that stores nuts away for the winter. The sun being lower in the sky makes for wonderful light, and then there are those beautiful coloured autumn leaves. My feeling of melancholy arrives later in the fall, long after the leaves are gone in late November just after my birthday. Coincidence? Probably not.