Autumn

I love Autumn. I love how the air smells, and how the leaves are already starting to turn. I love that my brain, after being sluggish for the summer months, comes alive again. Last night Avram and I re-arranged our living room, because I got inspired on a whim, or as Avram likes to say, I had a bee in my bonnet. I also made up a list of every dinner we've eaten this last year, and organized it by category, so now I have a master list of menus to refer to when I don't know what to plan for menus that week (which happens every week).

Perhaps because my birthday is in October, perhaps because I love school, and school was always the harbinger of the coming season, but Autumn has always been my favorite time of year.
Meanwhile, Elisheva continues to become my most favorite toddler. The things she loves most in the world: food, shoes, and going places. Elisheva loves grated cheese, and has learned that if others at the table have a bowl, or spoon or whatnot, she needs one too. She now feeds herself, and delights in it. Elisheva has developed an attachment to shoes, and specifically to once she has shoes one, going outside, and going places. She loves to play in the dirt of my tiny herb garden.
When you take her shoes off at night, she usually cries. Also, once she has her shoes on for the day, and thinks we need to go somewhere as a family, but aren't leaving fast enough, she'll deliberately unsnap her jelly sandals, and then come to you for re-snapping, thus reminding you that we need to hurry up and go, already!

Elisheva has a few words, although she is a slow talker. She'll regularly say, "Mama," "Nana" (banana), "Shoes" (her favorite word, to no-one's surprise), "More Milk!" always said as a command, and occasionally she'll pop out with book, or water, or Lydia, or even Daddy. Today she said cheese. Mostly she uses expressive grunts to navigate herself through the world, which do work quite effectively.

We're visiting family in Tennessee in the next week, and then after we return school starts for Avram. Meanwhile, I plan to pull out knitting again, which I always put on hiatus through the Summer months.