It's our Thanksgiving miracle.

We lost Snuggles today. I mean, we have two, which is both the problem and the solution. We were walking to the mall to see how long it would take, and it's 3 kilometers so I let her bring Snuggles in the stroller because we have two. I've gotten cavalier.

But then we got to the mall and she was like, H'nuggles? And I was like...Oh. And she was like, At de house! Waiting for you! She meant waiting for her. Her pronouns are still pretty hit or miss.

So I was like, Sure! Because I knew that when we got home, I could produce a Snuggles. So we went to the mall and played in the play place and kept asking about him and then being like, Oh right, he's at home, and some hours later we headed home, and I'm trying to remember the route I cut through the parking lot and to peer down each aisle, just in case, and we got to the first crosswalk and HA!

And at first she was just like, SQUEEEEZE

and then she was all, Never leave me again

and she couldn't stop rubbing him on her face and cooing and lar lar laring at him, it was basically the first time she met Susan all over again.

And I knew I should stop her because he was kind of dirty but she was just SO HAPPY.

Skeletons ERRRRRRRWHERE.

So, it turned October earlier this week, and when Eleanor went down for a nap I STREW the house with skeletons. This guy is a new acquisition. He's trapped in his coffin.

Glower No Evil, Smirk No Evil, and Shriek No Evil you may remember from last year.

As well as Alphonse and Marie du Bones. Take your coat?

My large, lovely spider, the most expensive thing I have ever bought from a dollar store, and my grandmother's silver ewer.

Rosencranz and Guildenstern (still dead).

This is the Kitchen Ghoul. He lurks and hovers and questions your dietary choices. 'Don't you want to look like meeeee?' he says. I don't, so I have nachos for lunch.

And then, of course, tiny skulls.

Like, everywhere.

Sam Skellington is obviously out and about.

And I don't have a tiny cauldron for my eyeballs, so I piled them in my immensely heavy stone mortar.

Not like they stayed in there for very long.

Eleanor is constantly improving her eyeball-mardi-gras-beads-measuring-tape soup.

Needs more crumpled pink paper!

Needs more I'll Teach My Dog A Lot Of Words!

Ha. Perfect.

She's enjoying this Halloween business, on the whole.



Taking costume suggestions. Must be cold-weather friendly or adaptable to same.

Weather depending.

Summer is officially over now, and WEATHER has started. When we lived in Calgary, there were maybe three days in which we didn't leave the house. But our house in Calgary was tiny and you HAD to leave it or lose you mind. Our house here has more options for indoor roaming.

BUT. So I promised myself I'd try to leave the house every day, even just for half an hour. And then the very next day, it rained. Eleanor didn't mind.

We went to the park and she collected water droplets off of the railings.

She also tripped in her boots, and slid along the sidewalk for a bit on her face.

She minded that part.

The next day, IT WAS STILL RAINING. I needed, I don't know, bread, so we walked to the Shoppers, and usually, walking anywhere with Eleanor is a total headache because she's like, Oh look, a rock! A flower! An ant! That rock I was looking at a second ago! But that day she was all *stride, stride,  stride* Behold, puddles ahead that I must stride through!

Every puddle. Little puddles.

Comically large puddles.

She just...she loves it.

Today dawned bright and clear, so we went to the Pumpkin Festival at a local farm. They made us pay $10 for parking, and I would have gladly spent $10 on a pumpkin and maybe some pumpkin-based eats and/or activities AND have been less put out about the whole thing, but paying for parking made us miserly. No pumpkin bread or catapulting for us. BUT they had a handful of free activities, like a tiny hay maze.

And the big one. Eleanor kept tearing on ahead and then being like, ARE YOU GUYS COMING OR WHAT.

Then we doodled over to the pumpkin patch and Eleanor was not down with all the dead vines crunching underfoot. We wandered about three pumpkins deep and then she was like, No thank you, vines? So we wandered along the periphery

and stopped to pet a pumpkin

and hug a pumpkin

and sit on a pumpkin.

But every time she stepped on a vine she'd be like, NOPE. And head back to the dirt.

It's supposed to rain again tomorrow. I'm trying to lure a friend over to my house so I don't feel so badly if we just stay inside all day. Eleanor loves visitors.

In Which Eleanor Tries To Enjoy A Club Soda Because She Thinks That's What Grown-Up People Do

*sip*

URGH. I mean...acrid. I mean...dry?

*sip*

With hints of...mosquito bite in the mouth.

*sip*

*gargle* Aghhhter taghhhste oghhh...*swallow* varnish.

*sip*

HAHAHA but seriously, you guys slipped me a joke can, right? This isn't what it actually tastes like.

Right?

Sometimes you just gotta snuggle through the day.

We love having house guests, but there's always a bit of a letdown when they leave, even if we aren't also sick immediately afterwards. We have to spend a day or two just hanging out with the two of us, enjoying each other's company. Wherrrrre's Eleanor?

Peek-a-loo.

Sometimes she puts Snuggles on her head and walks around looking like a Pharaoh.

Like, for a while.

Sometimes she just shuts her eyes while she's eating. Like an extended, 10-second blink.

Sometimes you gotta lay on the kitchen floor in unflattering pants and have a read.

Sometimes you go to the library and just read the entire thing.

Tante tante tante!

Eleanor's tante Tina came for a visit. Eleanor was leery for about five minutes, like she does, and then she was wildly in love. 'Tante hold a hand?'

'Tante sliiiiiide!'

'Tante wear a sunglasses!'

'Tante lay down!'

'Tante read it?'

'Tante read it more book?'

'Tante ALL healthy!'

Eleanor is not, however, all healthy. She's been running a fever since yesterday, and after Tante left, she went from this

to this

to this

in the space of one Disney's Robin Hood.

If our track record is any indication, we are allergic to family. There has to be some sort of inoculation against this.