This post was due yesterday, but we had a very busy day. I pushed myself to post at least once a day in October, and it felt lovely to have the option to go to bed early and leave this post for today.

1. November is a month full of excitement – my birthday, Thanksgiving, the beginning of the Christmas season, vacation days. I love everything about this time of year. Well, almost everything. I typically don’t love November weather.
2. Aria has started singing with me. We mostly sing solfege together, because she can handle pronouncing the single syllables (do, re, mi, etc.). She’s not exactly accurate with the notes, but she’s earnest and adorable about it. We’ve also tried some “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and some “Jesus Loves Me”. Tonight we started “Jesus Loves Me”, but she was distracted by the time we got to the chorus. That’s to be expected. I just picked up the pace and finished up by myself, “Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me…” Midway through Aria started singing her own song, “Baaby…no-ose….daaaddyyyy….byyyye”.
3. She’s also started watching television. We’ve been lucky with her, because until this month she’s showed no interest in the TV. Just this week I put on a kid’s show for her and she actually sat and watched it with interest. (I’ve tried this a couple times in the past, when I was sick and needed a break, with no success.) She’s particularly interested in “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood”, for the sole reason that it stars a “kitty!”. While I don’t intend for her to get much screen time most weeks, it is nice to know I can now use the TV as a babysitter when I’m desperate.
4. I’ve withdrawn from the fall concert. I hate to do that. It feels flaky. But, I had to miss too many rehearsals, and I don’t feel I can catch up well enough on the rehearsal time I missed. I’ll be in the audience, though, and I am looking forward to enjoying the performance!
5. My choir kids have four pieces this year. It’s the first time we’ve done more than three. The kids are doing well, and I don’t have a single kiddo who acts up, so we are minimally distracted and able to accomplish more. I may actually be my own biggest distraction. Ahem.
6. My husband is fantastic. He just had his annual review at work, and I was reminded what a great guy he is. Each year when he gets his review he comes home and shows it to me, and I feel privileged that he would so readily do that. Of course, it’s always a very good review, and I’m grateful he works at a job he loves and with people who value him. Another way he’s wonderful is how he helps me do things for others, even when I’ve volunteered him. <grin> This week he spent an evening making a double batch of dinner and a pumpkin cheesecake so we could take some to our friends who just had a baby. He didn’t complain at all that what I wanted to make were recipes he does most of the work on. Hmm…it probably helped that we kept some of the cheesecake.
7. Halloween was an extremely wet day around these parts, but we did a little trick-or-treating anyway. We also handed out candy, though there were few participants this year. It was just a nasty night to be walking around town. Our kids were a-dor-a-ble. Check them out: