Since moving north, fall has become even more
enjoyable with beautiful autumnal leaves and a more marked change in
the air (and a chance to wear all those sweaters that collected dust
when I lived down south).
I got married in the fall. Our wedding
pictures were taken outside with rust-colored leaves sprinkled
across the grass, and beautiful lavender mums in the background.
Flowers in hues of dark purple and burgundy dotted the aisle, and
even adorned our wedding cake.
While my Floridian relatives shivered in the
60 degree weather, and the ceremony moved inside because the harp
couldn't tune correctly with a chill in the air, I welcomed the
cooler temperatures that kept me from getting too warm under many
layers of tulle.
Yes, fall has always been my favorite season.
But this year, I welcome my old friend with some reluctance, and
even a bit of sadness to see summer end.
This summer marked the first summer that my
2-year-old daughter was mobile. She began walking last fall, just in
time for the colder weather to force us indoors for many months.
So when spring arrived, we had a serious case
of cabin fever, and were anxious to set up the outdoor toys and let
our little girl loose on the grass.
By the time summer arrived, we had logged
many hours on the deck, and had broken in the new sand and water
table my in-laws' got my daughter for her birthday. We had been
anxious to open the water table when it first arrived in early
March, but we stashed it in the garage to avoid temptation, and a
frozen toddler.
We even bought a swing set for the backyard
-- which my husband spent two long and arduous days assembling --
complete with baby swing and big girl swing, sandbox, climbing rope,
teeter totter, slide and even a fort.
When my daughter got up from her nap one
afternoon that weekend and saw the glorious structure through the
window, she thought she had woken up at the park!
She quickly developed a love for (OK, an
obsession with) her swing, and demanded to be pushed "faster,
faster" from the moment we strapped her in. I must admit, it
certainly has been more convenient to take a few steps outside when
the urge to swing strikes her, rather than packing us into the car
for the 2-mile drive to the park.
In addition to swinging, this summer she
could chase the dog across the lawn, run through the sprinkler, and
play hide-and-seek (she loves counting to 10 -- well, sometimes only
to 8, so she can hurry to find mommy and daddy peeking out from
behind a tree or the swing set).
This summer, she could climb down the steps
of the deck to water the flowers with her small, plastic, pale green
watering can, and take a bowl of water to the dog in the yard.
She could step into her blue, plastic kiddy
pool by herself, and walk across the stepping stones around her very
own lilac tree planted just outside the kitchen window. She could
walk up to the flower pinwheels and watch them turn in the breeze.
For the past several months, our backyard has
been an extended playroom for our daughter. She's spent hours
running up and down the "mountains" (actually small areas of raised
turf) behind our house, kicking her Dora the Explorer soccer ball
back and forth to daddy, and "driving" her red Cozy Coupe across the
deck.
With Labor Day now just a memory, I can sense
the impending cold weather and the end of our backyard playtime for
a while.
This past weekend, despite my daughter's
nasty end of summer cold, we spent some late afternoon/early evening
time in our backyard playground. We filled up the water table so she
could play with her boats and water toys for what could have been
the last time this season, depen
