Festive eatings.

Whatever, if Joel's at the last minute not going to be home for supper, I'm just going to make a giant pumpkin skillet pancake (I cannot call it a 'Dutch baby,' that feels weird). 

How is that treating you, Eleanor?

(Can't talk. Eating.)

Meanwhile, Geneva has become almost unreasonably beautiful. 

You would not believe the amount of food that gets into that neck, though. 

Our front stoop is ready for Halloween

Hey Eleanor, what's in your pumpkin?

GUTS. 

Alright, reach in there and pull them out. 

HAWWWWWWW. 

No, really. You do like this.

Like this?

It's slimy. 

Please can I have a spoon?

Pumpkins gutted, Eleanor bedazzles the shit out of hers. 

I go after mine with jewels and a power drill. Pumpkins in the light...

Pumpkins in the dark...

Fast forward twenty-four hours. Joel is home, Geneva is asleep. We have covered Geneva's pumpkin in alphabet stickers. Joel is the only one to take an actual literal knife to his pumpkin. 

Eleanor pulls out a pretend knife, does some pretend chopping. 

Chop chop chop. The pumpkin seeds come out of the oven and we get into our jammies and have snack-chats while Joel finishes his pumpkin. 

Pumpkin family. 

Nobody Halloweens like we Halloween

Halloween is almost upon us, I'm not sure you're aware. We love Halloween in this house. LOVE IT. A few weeks ago I went to the dollar store and grabbed anything Halloween-activity-ish that would fill the hours. We have been Halloweening hard. Ghost ornaments!

Porcelain vampires and such!

Jack-o-lantern magnets!

I found a bunch of figurines and spooky houses at the dollar store and made myself a little Halloween village. At first I told Eleanor she could only look at them, but she's such a careful little person and whatever, the entire thing cost me like four dollars, so now I let her organize them however she likes.

I also gave into her keeping a couple of skeletons that I couldn't find decorative places for, and she has been putting on her wicked witch hat and making them into soup.

One chilly afternoon we put Geneva in the cauldron and made her into soup.

She was like, Yes, whatever, this is fine.

I am totally getting my $2.50 worth out of that wicked witch hat. We have been wicked witching ALL OVER TOWN.

Sometimes Eleanor puts the skeletons to bed in Geneva's car seat and covers them with 'the steam.'

Speaking of decorative skeletons that I have found a place for. You might remember these fancy bitches from last year. 'Reginald, darling, do we know that chimney sweep over there?' 'Goodness, darling. They all look alike to me.'

This enormous spider remains my best dollar store purchase to date.

Our front entryway has an infestation.

And of course, we have costumes. This enormous pink sweater is not a Wilbur costume, momma.

*cuts off arms and ruffle, stuffs tummy, glues spare bits of fabric to butterfly headband and milk jug cap, adds everything pink Eleanor owns* THIS IS A WILBUR COSTUME.

Geneva is wearing four pairs of tights, and a dress, and a dollar store hat that I glued some googley eyes on to. She is a Charlotte.

Joel is on call tonight, but we have pumpkins to decorate, about more which anon.

What are YOU Halloweening as?

Maaaaiiiiizzze

Joel has been doing his rural rotation in Rosthern, so you'd think I'd heard about the Rosthern corn maze from him, but you'd be wrong. It was from some other random dad at the clinic when I was taking Geneva in to see about her head. 

So we went to the corn maze today. The MAIZE maze. I am never going to not think that joke is funny. Anyway. It was aMAZEing (can't stop. Won't stop). 

The donkeys and sheep and goats were just...around. Like, there was technically a petting zoo, with llamas in a pen and things. 

Hullo, llama. Do you want pettings, she says?

But there were also just ANIMALS. Eleanor was in her element. 

We went in the Little Stalks entrance of the maize maze, and got hopelessly lost and wandered around for fifteen minutes and ended up back at the entrance.

We are not good at mazes. But we ARE good at bouncy castles. 

And caramel apples. 

Thems is hard work. 

'What was the best part of your day, Eleanor?' 'The horses! I fed them some CORRRRRNNNNNNS.'

You did. Splendid day. 

Babies be giving you grey hairs

Ok first of all, it was like 21 degrees today. THAT IS LIKE 70 DEGREES ALICE I SERIOUSLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU CAN'T DO YOUR OWN GOOGLE CONVERSIONS. It is past the middle of October. And here we are.

So in other news. A baby's soft spot is supposed to be flat to their skull or a little indented, and if it's really sunken that means the baby is dehydrated, so Joel compulsively checks Geneva's soft spot, and like two weeks ago he was all, I don't like how her soft spot is distended a little.

And I was like, Is this a thing I should be worrying about and he was like, Nah, it's fine. But then I'm up googling things at 2 am when I'm feeding the baby and the internet is all, MENINGITIS! HYDROCEPHALY! And I'm like, Well she clearly doesn't have that first thing and probably not the second one either. And the internet is like, WELL BRAIN TUMOR THEN.

And in the light of day we were both like, Ehhhh, it's probably nothing. We'll keep an eye on it. But a week passed and it didn't go away and you'd feel dumb if you had to be like, No, we totally noticed this worrying symptom, we just didn't do anything about it.

So I took her to the walk-in clinic and the doctor was like, Well, if she wasn't so lively and thriving, I'd send you to the pediatric ER right now. But we'll get you an ultrasound in the next day or two, make sure nothing is wrong.

And then I started to panic, because babies. And I panicked hard for two days until we had the ultrasound, and no one sent us for a CT scan or called other doctors in for consults and I started to relax.

And last night, the clinic dr phoned after I was in bed just to make sure someone had contacted me, and to let me know that my baby is fine. Her brain is fine. We don't know why her soft spot is distended, but it could just be the way her head is shaped. We'll keep an eye on it, but for now EVERYTHING IS FINE.

We are greatly relieved.

Knees for days

Geneva is super into her knees right now.

She's always grabbing them.

Always.

I think it's because she's fascinated by her feet

but can't reach them, on account of her ham hocks.

So knees it is.