Autumn is definitely my favorite time of year. This autumn, however, was like no other, filled with opportunities to unabashedly smile all day long. Pumpkin picking kicked off the season and was followed by Thompson Park Day and Halloween. Thompson Park Day is probably more appropriate for bigger kids, but I was still tempted to get the babies' faces painted. The weather made our time there short, but it was still great. I attended the Red Bank Halloween Parade for the first time this year. I had no idea that this huge event takes place a block from my house every year-probably because it occurs the Sunday of my birthday weekend- a day that was usually used for recovery. I coaxed Amanda, Eric and Tyler to walk in the parade while Lisette, Sean and Aidan joined as well. I was a little over zealous as a new mom and decorated my stroller as a garden to transport the little caterpillar and flower. I was maybe a little too disappointed to see that we did not get photographed for the local paper. However, the stroller came in handy for trick-or-treating with Mike, Beth and Ryan.
We also got to visit school this month, stopping in to see the students and teachers working on homecoming decorations. We tried to make it to the game but the weather, yet again, thwarted our plans.
Straddling my stay-at-home-mom life with my old life does make me feel a little schizophrenic at times, but I learn new things about myself every time I do something new or something new with babies. I still feel like a tourist in my own life-as if this is all something temporary-which it is, really, because the babies are always changing things up on me-but I still feel like I am trying to find that place of comfort, of home. Walking down Broad street with my crazy stroller, holding Bryan's hand definitely had that feeling, but making trick or treat bags at AC Moore with the MOM's group I joined had me feeling that somebody should surely check my passport.
** I started writing this post on Oct 21 and just finished it now. How sad is that!
