Love Train

I have written before that I started getting daily emails from Scott Noelle who does a parenting affirmation each day. Today's was on the Love Train:

:: Love Train ::Imagine you're in a train station awaiting the arrival of a most beloved friend or family member whom you haven't seen in years.You've been anticipating this reunion for days,activating memories of good times you've shared, and you *know* you're going to explode with joy when you finally meet.

The train arrives and people begin deboarding as you balance on your tip-toes, reaching for a glimpse of your cherished guest. You can barely contain the immense love and joy you're feeling.....

Now imagine that cherished guest is your child!Not some future adult version but your now/today child, coming off that train, just as eager to connect as you are.Imagine meeting your child with that same expectation of overflowing love and joy every morning as you rise and every time you reconnect throughout the day.

If you like this idea, imagine it often.Creation begins with imagination.

I have to say that this is the feeling I get each day when I pick up Lucas. I can't wait to see his smiling face and hear him say, "Mommy!" when he sees me. I get a big hug from him and he reaches up to take my hand. It is the best feeling in the world.

PUMPKINS!

I love pumpkins. No, really, I love pumpkins. I have no idea where this fascination came from but I find nothing happier than wondering around a pumpkin patch drinking in all the orange. Just so you have an idea of my illness, when I started playing Farmville on Facebook (yes, I am one of them), the first mastery sign I got was for pumpkins.

This year I was in pumpkin heaven-I grew my own!!!!

Yes, that is right. I planted mini and medium pumpkins in my upper garden plot. My goal was to grow enough minis to give to Lucas' daycare class but I only got 11 out of the crop. Still not bad! I decided to invite our neighbors Jen and Luke over to have their two kids pick some. I gave two to Lucas' teacher to use in their pumpkin class and we kept the rest. I only had two medium pumpkins grow. One was in our yard and the other one migrated to our neighbor's yard-LuAnn. It was under one of their big pine trees and somewhat out of clear sight. I kept trying to figure out how I was going to get it back over to our side and knew I needed to just go over and tell them it was there. They have a meticulous yard and I could just see the pumpkin rotting and then they would have a whole yard full of pumpkins in the future. It would not be pretty. Lucas and I ventured out to pick the last pumpkins this week and I was shocked to see that our traveling pumpkin was gone! They must have picked it. I will have to check their front door to see if they are actually using it or if they threw it in the trash-gasp!

Lucas and I were in Buffalo for Columbus Day and we went to a pumpkin farm with my mom, sister and her kids-Kelkenberg Farm. It was amazing! We were there as kids. When we paid our admission fee, they asked if we had even been there before. We all smiled and said yes and my mom told them of our previous trips. It is an actual working farm with draft horses, donkeys, chickens, goats, turkeys, ducks and apparently a cow but I didn't see it in the barn. We got there early enough to see them harnessing the horses for the hayride into the pumpkin patch. It was so neat. These horses are huge! And the workers were so friendly-telling us all about the horse (Chip) and how they get him ready. He apparently is a great horse but does not like to turn right out of his stall so they need to take him out and around the long way. Two other horses-Ben and Bella were not as cooperative. I told my mom that it was a good thing we didn't have them pulling our wagon!

Lucas was so excited to see it all-unlike our trip to the fair this summer. We loaded on the wagon and headed into the fields to pick our pumpkins. Because we were going on our family pumpkin adventure the following weekend, we only got some smaller ones. I could have stayed there all day just watching and petting the animals.

We went to our favorite pumpkin farm last weekend (Schramms) to get our big guy. I went in telling myself that we only needed one for carving. Between the ones we got in Buffalo and my own grown little guy, we didn't need many more. Well 4 pumpkins later we left! Marc got two big ones and I got another small pumpkin and the first for us-a white pumpkin. At this rate we could give everyone who is coming for dinner on halloween their own pumpkin.

Partnerships

When you are raising a child, you have lots of partnerships-with doctors, family, caregivers. And you would expect that those partnerships would be positive. Unforunately, our partnership with Lucas' current day care is becoming strained. When I was there for his open house, one of his teachers told me that he is doing well but at times will have his fits. His what? And then she goes on to tell me that they know about this episodes from the toddler room. Needless to say, I was a bit shocked.

At pick up, I don't regularly see his teachers. They leave us a daily sheet that lists what he did during the day but we have never gotten any notification that his behavior was an issue. He is at the age where he can understand what is appropriate and we can talk to him about things like this.

I asked her to please indicate on his daily sheet if things hadn't gone smoothly during the day so we could follow up with Lucas.

I am just really disappointed in their communication.