A Coleman Halloween

This is a notable Halloween for many reasons. It's our first in Minnesota, our first without Cate (unfortunately) and the first one where Colleen truly gets it.

I have two good friends who each have kids who got invited to last-minute parties. Neither is a big fan of Halloween this year, and I can't say I particularly was either. I much prefer staying home and handing out candy, letting Cate and the kids come back with all the stories and maybe taking whichever children are old enough back out for a second round after the youngest are too tired to continue.

So I was dreading it, a little bit. I'm not a big fan of chaos and this is a day rife with it. But for those who know me, I'll have you know, I kept my cool all the way through.

Cate did a great job of laying the groundwork before she went out of town, and mom has a great archive of costumes to choose from. Colleen's pumpkin and Robert's devil are Coleman classics. Elizabeth is a vampire witch. (The cape is apparently the vampire part.) She didn't want to wear the hat, but I asked her if she would wear it for the group photo and she ended up keeping it on most of the night.

And in addition, it was incredible weather for trick or treating. There were a ton, just a ton of kids out there tonight. We went to a party at the local park, where they had a few activities for the kids that kept them occupied for perhaps a half-hour. One of the rooms had been converted into a space ship having landed on a foreign planet, and upon learning it didn't have a name, Elizabeth dubbed it Xzandorf. (Google this word later. Currently it's not in the database at all.)

So the plan (and it was Cate's, and it was a good one) was to trick-or-treat on the way home. Robert picked out a particularly interesting-looking house on 43rd Street and walked up. This is Colleen's first full-understanding experience of the event, and the porch was a little scary. (Flash lit it all up here, so not even nearly the same atmosphere.) Red lighting, a skeleton, and a spider that crawled down from the ceiling. But she stuck it out, got her candy and even said thank you most times. Though sometimes she was off message, with you're welcome. Or pumpkin. Or trick or treat.

There were a lot of really interesting houses, but only one which Colleen wouldn't go near. Neighbors up the hill had a whole setup, with people sitting on the lawn next to the stairs ready to scare you, a horror movie-masked person on the sidewalk, someone with a microphone hiding in the trees describing who was walking by, a fire pit, etc.

The strangest thing we got? Probably the Cool Ranch Doritos. Lots of mini Snickers, Baby Ruths, and the like. Missing from our youth, the red hots, the candy corn and other loose items. There wasn't a single apple, no popcorn, no Now & Laters, very few Smarties.

And we had another meeting of the generations. The old Coleman rule was you could eat whatever you wanted on Oct. 31, to the point of getting sick, and that was it. Cate and I favor the kids being able to get to bed, so we limit them to three things tonight ... and we'll figure out how to parcel out the rest as the days go by.

I thought Colleen was going to give me trouble with the three pieces rule. She couldn't decide which three she wanted, or more accurately she would decide and then change her mind. So she would start to grab something else, and I would ask her if she wanted to trade one of her three pieces for it. She was always willing, though, and didn't complain too much when the contents of the bag went away for the night.

They will get help disposing of it, no doubt. Even Elizabeth, who went to the trouble of taking an inventory of her haul. I told her that was only going to make for trouble later.

I can only hope our friends had nights that were as good as this was.

More pictures, on my Facebook page (public).

Congrats to the champs

We have lots of friends and relatives who are fans of a certain National League team that won the World Series a couple of days ago. Robert has a special message of congratulations for them.

Robert wore this Phillies shirt to school today, and I reminded him that if anyone asked, we are not Phillies fans, but he has cousins who are and that his mom is from Philadelphia.

She's there right now, in fact, though she did not hit the parade.

I don't think Robert said anything nearly as interesting as Chase Utley did or as clueless as Sarah Palin.

Bedtime for bozos

I've been dusting off my repertoire of late. With Cate out of town I'm in charge of the bedtimes again, which is something that usually only happens when Cate works nights.

If Cate's in the house, Colleen and Robert (Colleen, mostly) just aren't willing to be put to bed by me. We'll give it another try when Cate comes home. But so far, somehow, the three nights Cate has been gone have all been nice and peaceful.

It reminds me of how the whole children bedtime routine got started, of course, with Elizabeth. We had a devil of a time getting her to sleep when she was little. (Actually, up until about the age of seven, but who's counting?) It always involved singing, some swaying, turning around in a circle, anything to calm her down and get her to sleep.

Since it was Christmastime, of course, Christmas carols were top of the mind, and one of them has stayed in the rotation for a decade: Silent Night. (If you have kid sleeping troubles, give it a try. Great song!) Elizabeth's other two songs were Up on the Roof and You Are My Sunshine.

When Robert came along, he was content to listen to Elizabeth's songs for a while, but eventually expressed a desire for his own. So he got I've Been Working on the Railroad.

And of course, Cate has her own set of songs. She tends to sing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and An Irish Lullaby. Neither of us knows the other's songs. And the kids seem to understand that just fine.

In Obama nation

Musings of Elizabeth while watching the World Series:

"If Obama loses, can we move to Holland? It sounds appealing!

"Can we move to Europe?

"Can we move to Canada?"

Hey, she said it. I didn't!

Of course, Elizabeth is accustomed to election uncertainty. In 2000, when the networks originally called Florida for Al Gore, we told her that he was going to be the next president. At not quite age 3, she was already disillusioned.

It's snowing!

The day has finally arrived -- the first snow flurries of winter. And the kids are excited, at least a little bit.

As Elizabeth said: "It was cold, and it was wet, and there wasn't really a lot of it."

Obviously, the flurries aren't accumulating anywhere and there won't be any sledding or snowball fights today, but at least it's something. The kids were all standing at the kitchen windows staring, then had a sudden interest in playing outside, for some reason.

As I write this, Elizabeth has gone back outside to document it. You may have to click on the photo to get the larger version to actually see the snow coming down.

A moving experience

Cate and I had an interesting evening last night, taking in an evening of Handel music performed by a soprano, a harpsichord and a viola da gamba. The soprano, Carrie Henneman Shaw, is a friend Robert and I met at the Twins game last month.

In a word: impressive.

First of all, Cate and I both played string instruments growing up but neither of us had ever seen a viola da gamba being performed. It's about the size of a cello, played upright, with seven strings and tuned somewhat like a guitar. It's bowed underhanded and it doesn't have a stand -- it's held between the legs. Fascinating.

And of course, our friend the soprano was brilliant as well. All in all, a nice evening in St. Paul -- bookended by dinner at Cafe Latte and drinks with Carrie and some of her friends afterward.

But the highlight of the evening was probably the up-close-and-personal encounter with the harpsichord. I helped carry and move the instrument after the performance. Barely, I basically helped load it onto a dolly. But moving a harpsichord was something new to me.

The little things

I opened up Google Maps this afternoon to plot out a potentially crazy trip for a D3football/D3hoops weekend in November and had to smile -- the default location on that service seems to be a little hit or miss but it remembered who I was today and displayed the satellite image of our neighborhood here in Minneapolis.

It reminded me, also, that I have this list of adjustments that I've had to make (or try to make) over the past few months now that we're not in Northern Virginia anymore.

Such as one that's pretty basic: remembering to dial 1 in front of 703. Definitely not a local call anymore. I think I finally have this down.

Going up and down the creaky stairs from the main level of my parents house to the upstairs. They creaked back then and creak even more now. Only now I'm worried about waking up the kids rather than waking up mom and dad.

Driving at what's considered a normal pace out here. And keeping my hands off the car horn.

Remembering that shows start an hour earlier. Or that 4 is CBS and 9 is Fox rather than NBC and CBS.

Remembering to call the Interstate around here I-94, not I-95. This also took a long time to adjust in the other direction, when on the east coast.

There's a whole new round of remembering what's east of me and what's west of me. In Connecticut I had the same problem, since New York City had been east and north of me for so long that it was ingrained in my head that way. Except getting on 95 ... err, 94 ... err, 95 in Connecticut, NYC was always west and south. Here it's getting away from the thought that Minneapolis is west of me, or north of me, 100 percent of the time. I've confused Cate probably a dozen times already.

But I'm not going back on one thing. I'm going to keep calling it soda. It seems like everyone knows what I mean.

In limbo

I keep having dreams about boxes.

In these dreams, I'm still packing. We have a house full of stuff that needs to go into boxes so we can move.

In real life, all that is done. It's the unpacking that hasn't started, because we don't have anywhere to put it.

I thought we were packed appropriately -- that things we needed were in the right spots in storage so that we could access them. But we shuffled things to make them fit, and we're nowhere near getting into a house with winter fast approaching.

I had to go out and buy clothes today because I don't have nearly enough winter clothes to get me through the winter. We were able to get to the winter coats, not that I could find any other coat of mine, and the kids will all be wearing new clothes instead of hand-me-downs for a while.

We would love to be home buyers in this market. The problem is we can't seem to sell anything. We are probably going to take 406 off the market for a while, because, let's face it, why have the listing out there getting dusty in such bad economic times?

I do know full well that we could be in a much worse position. For that I am indeed thankful. But that doesn't mean limbo is any fun.

A net loss, but a clarinet gained

Minneapolis public schools don't offer Spanish, for whatever reason, but they do offer band. So while Elizabeth hasn't been getting twice-weekly instruction in the language anymore, she is getting clarinet instruction once a week.

There was much debate among us as to which instrument Elizabeth should take. Clarinet won out over the saxophone -- she wanted to play the sax but there were already too many playing it in her class.

The good news is that Elizabeth is very enthusiastic about taking an instrument. The bad news is that neither Cate nor I can help her with the clarinet. Both of us have string and brass experience to draw on but neither of us played a woodwind.

So far, though, it hasn't been a problem. Her tone has improved vastly in the week she's been practicing. (Her playing tone, not her speaking tone.)

At this point she can play any song that contains C, D, E, F and G.

Mom even pulled my old music stand out of a drawer in the linen closet for her to use!

So far, so good.

E's ticket to ride

As we've written before, Elizabeth has gotten a lot more confident with her new bike. I've been dying to get out and ride with her, but the number of daylight hours where we're both home and I'm not busy with my fall endeavors is really limited.

So this afternoon, with a temperature in the mid-60s, Cate and Robert off to the children's theatre, Colleen playing quietly and mom and dad home, I looked at the clock at 1:30 and said, "Elizabeth, let's go for a ride!"

I have not been on a bicycle since we got here. (No worries, still maintaining my goal weight, going on more than six months now.) And I know Elizabeth has been out biking with her PE class. They've gone around both Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun in one trip. So she's maybe even in better shape to ride than I was.

We went all the way around Lake Harriet, then up the west side of Lake Calhoun to Lake of the Isles, back down the other side of Calhoun to the house. Grand total of 8 miles. And Elizabeth kept up with me the whole way, though I took her smaller wheels and the fact that she is riding in fifth gear most of the way into account.

I can't wait for next spring, when we have good weather again and a lot more time.

I took this photo with my camera phone, hoping she was in the frame and trying to keep the phone steady. I showed the picture to Elizabeth at home and her response was, "Oh. That's what you were doing!"

The dread pirate Robert

Overheard:

Robert: Nonna, I had orange juice with lunch today.
Nonna: Oh yeah?
Robert: Yeah, so now I won't get scurvy!

On a related note, Robert is really looking forward to the next Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Last great day of the year?

We had a great time today on what may well be the last great day of the fall. Just anticipating the worst as winter approaches in a few weeks. Took a quick trip to the library to exchange read books for unread ones, then headed over to a D-III football game at Macalester, where we stopped for lunch at the St. Clair Broiler beforehand.

The kids and I sat in the bleachers for the first half, then went down to the field so I could take some pictures of the game and they played around in the grass. (Not here, on the artificial turf.) Robert was insanely curious about everything on the sidelines, even talking to the Macalester kicker about his practice tee and net during overtime, while the guy was preparing for what could be a game-winning kick. (He said he wasn't bothered but I hustled Robert along anyway.)

All in all, a good mix of patience, running around and goofing around on a beautiful, 70-degree day.

Try it, you'll like it!

Our oldest daughter is adventuresome in some areas, hesitant in others. And that's OK. She's done some things in the past couple years that I wouldn't have anticipated, trying new foods, for example, and she's enjoyed them more often than not, of course.

This week we nearly had a throwdown over Elizabeth's participation in chess club at school. Robert has been enthusiastic throughout (I mean, come on, it's a club!), but Elizabeth wanted no part of it. And with Cate out of town this weekend, I was jumping into an already-existing conversation without much of the background. But I had my orders: on my to-do list was writing a check for their enrollment, and the prescribed amount covered two.

So that was it. She was going. Even though she got all dramatic and scratched her own name out on the enrollment form.

This was Tuesday night. Wednesday morning I sent the form in -- with Robert, not with Elizabeth -- and asked Mom to check Robert's bag right before they went to the bus stop to make sure Elizabeth hadn't sabotaged it. Wednesday and Thursday night I heard nothing about it. And today she sneaked into the room behind me after I dropped off Robert. So I gave her her space and didn't embarrass her.

My theory? She found out exactly how many kids actually take part in chess club (there were about 40 today) and who some of them were and she realized that it indeed was going to be pretty cool.

After I said good-bye to Robert, I hung around upstairs and watched. She had a great time.

To nobody's surprise.

Daddy's little helper

Was kind of a tough day. Got home and had to finish making and serve dinner. Colleen was asleep on the couch and needed to be woken up so she wouldn't be awake all night.

Robert needed a shower. Elizabeth's homework needed to be checked. She also announced she needed something from the store for school tomorrow. (I haven't told her that I am not going out tonight and we'll make do.)

Empty the dishwasher. Fill the dishwasher. Move the laundry over. Put the kids to bed. And since Colleen was not so tired, that took a while.

But Colleen was my savior tonight. She helped me empty the dishwasher, including drying the dishes that needed extra drying. Then she got the plates and silverware from the table and helped me refill it. It actually was helpful, unlike sometimes when a kid helps and it actually slows the process down.

That was a nice pick-me-up.

The clinger

I would say it's been so far, so good but since I've been at work most of the time, it's hard to tell. Cate left Tuesday morning to go visit her mom in Pennsylvania and we weren't sure how that was going to impact Colleen.

Over the past month or so, Colleen has been very clingy, often literally. There are times Cate hasn't been even able to sit in a chair at the kitchen table without Colleen on her back, trying to share the chair, etc. So I was worried that bedtime was going to be painful for the three of us (Robert and Colleen share a room). But so far, it's been pretty painless in the evenings.

Mom has the days while I go to work. Yesterday appeared to be fine. Said mom:

Just a quick note. Colleen and Amelia are sitting on C's bed and she is showing the Lego book to A and singing, "Are You Sleeping." Hope things are going well for you and your mom and Jeanne.
Donna
PS Now Colleen has her arms around Amelia and they are sitting in the sun filtering through the blinds.

Here's hoping. I'll be working from home tomorrow and Cate comes home Sunday morning. Wish we could have given her more time in Philly.

Being a godfather

Neil and Alicia's daughter Amelia was baptized today in a nice ceremony after Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle. It was nice because she was the only one being baptized and while Elizabeth was one of a group of six when it was her turn, apparently St. Thomas has baptized as many as 12 at a time.

So Amelia got all the attention from Fr. Steve, just like Colleen did when he baptized her three years ago.

I don't wax poetic about my beliefs and Neil even less so. But everyone had a good time. Robert really enjoyed being put "in charge" of Da's camera and delivered some great pictures.

So in the end, I don't have much to tell you that actually goes with the title of this blog post. I guess I'll figure that out in the years to come.

Something winter this way comes

Temperature in the low 40s this morning. Hard to get out of bed, plus haven't gotten a lot of sleep lately because I'm doubling as the news editor at work for two weeks.

Pulled the winter coat out. It definitely kept me warm but I wonder how many layers I'll need a month from now.

Our old car, the one we were worried wouldn't get all the way to Minneapolis, is doing great with the colder mornings since I replaced the battery. I'm fairly proud of the original battery getting 109,000 miles but it had two bad mornings earlier this week and it had to go.

Meanwhile, in this weather, Elizabeth is still biking to school. We got her on a new bike this weekend and she loves it. It's a 21-speed that she only uses as a 1-speed at the moment, but it's a good size for her and hopefully she and I can get out and ride together before the end of the biking season.