It’s November 5, and when I was 16 years old, I would have noted in my calendar that today is the birthday of Art Garfunkel. It seems silly that I have that information, but I really, really (no, really) liked Simon and Garfunkel in high school, so I put a lot of energy and time into learning all about them as individuals, their five-album partnership, and the reasons behind their break-up. Then there’s the fact that my brain sort of freakishly holds on to details like dates and names. I remember a lot of birthdays, even of people from high school whom I would not label friends, but who visibly celebrated their birthdays at school with locker signs or balloons or whatever. Paul Simon’s birthday is October 13, by the way. He and Art have reached the milestone of 70 this year, since they both were born in 1941. Madonna’s daughter was born on October 14, 1996, and one year later on that same date, John Denver’s plane crashed into the sea. TWA Flight 800 – July 17. See, this is weird.
I’m not exactly sure, but I think I’m beginning this post with this information because in a way it illustrates how much brain power I put into things when I was growing up. Anything below A- was just a slap in the face, and an affront to my extreme effort to gain admission to St. Olaf (which I received early-decision on December 6, 1996…on which date Ellen was born 11 years later…yeah, that’s an easy one). Since I was so “THIS WAY” in high school, it is bizarre to me that I can’t keep up with blogging, or laundry, or making my bed. Did I burn myself out before my Glory Years (which I hope are still ahead, since I don’t believe I am very glorious these days, and I think my sallow skin and under-eye circles would agree.)?
Anyway, operating under the contention that Motivation follows Activity, and not the other way around, I am taking time this Saturday morning to share photos and regale you with some tidbits of Ingham life these past few weeks. We’ve only had one casualty, and it was the TV remote.
· Halloween. We didn’t nail down our costume choices until about a week before. Ellen wanted to be Huckle Cat, which is the star character of her favorite show, Busytown Mysteries. She’s actually displaying some obsessive qualities (a genetic gift from me, surely) over Busytown. I couldn’t get Huckle Cat together. Maybe with more effort, but, you know…(reference Cyndy’s Burn-out, above). Then I thought maybe she could be a tiger, which has the same coloring as Huckle…but that didn’t happen either (Ibid). Finally she found a Thomas the Train costume and was super pumped about it. Luckily Cecilia is still too little to care what she is for Halloween. In an ironic twist, she went as a cat. Not Huckle, though.
· Ellen’s preschool class put on the Pumpkin Parade at school, which involves the kids marching onto the auditorium stage in their costumes and singing a few songs (in between waving furiously to Mom and Dad, of course). I wouldn’t say Ellen participated with extreme enthusiasm, but she also didn’t suck her thumb shyly up there, which Dave and I considered as a distinct possibility. She sang several words, and gave a respectable “BOO” at the end. She definitely took ownership, though – when I picked her up after school, she said to me “well, how’d ya like us?”
· Cecilia is showing much improvement in the area of Food Consumption. She is a mac and cheese genius. She also enjoys dog food, and mud. She’s got a lot of words now – doggie, cheese, mommy (finally, though it sounds like bobby), bottle (ba), paci (ba-ba), Charlie (cousin), Ellen – to name a few.
There have been some good Fall leaf-pile jumping days. Also, we enjoyed a trip to Emma Krumbee’s with stepsister Amanda (Aunt Mimi) and cousin Walker. Racing trikes down the driveway was a favorite pastime when the weather was still nice. (Dave helped Celie). Cecilia thinks her big sister is the bee’s knees.
