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When I was making him finish his carrots, “Mommy, you make my life sad.”

The computer died a week ago, and so we are switching over to Mac…so Halloween pictures will have to wait until it is all set up and we actually figure out how to use this thing.

“I have to take Kitty to the gym”

Dave: “What?”

“The gym.  Take Kitty to the Y.”

“The Y? Why do you have to take Kitty to the Y?”

“Well, because kitties don’t like doggies.”

“Ohhh.  Noah, do you want a dog?”

“Mommy wants a dog.”

Dave: “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Yes, Mommy wants a dog! So Kitty has to go to Y.”

“Do you think maybe you want a dog?”

“Okay.”

He has adorable, lovingly sewn dress-up clothes from his auntie. He has a crafty mom who carefully collected all the supplies to make his Philly Phanatic costume, which he swore he wanted for two weeks.  We’re also comfortably off- we could just buy a costume, if he was asking for something that was sold in stores. And the day before his Halloween party, he decided he wanted to be a tree. 

I don’t think I can buy that at Target. 

Hello, safety pins!

Reach the Beach was awesome! 

We drove up to New Hampshire and left Noah at our cousin’s house with his uncle and grandmother, and then met our team and drove to the start (Cannon Mtn) in our team vans to register at 9 am.  The course had last minute changes because Hurricane Irene washed out a bridge, so my van started at a new place at 5 pm.

I don't know why a toilet was running the warm-up. The first day was freezing! My first leg was about 8 pm- running with blinkers and a headlamp, I did 5 miles in a 9:30 time, which is really good for me, I was expecting a 10 minute mile. Our van was off from about 10 to 2, so we went and slept in the van in a school parking lot, then got up to run again at 3. I took another big nap in the van while Leslie ran her 8.5 mile leg, then I ran my longest (6.24 miles) at about 6 am. That was hard because I had just woken up and it was super cold- my legs were stiff and cold and I could tell my stride was shorter than normal (10:15 pace). It turned into a really nice day the second day, and my last run was a shortie (3.5 miles) through a residential area. I felt strong, about a 9:45 pace, though was having some stomach upsets from 3 days of driving and port-a-potties. But I finished really strong because I caught up to and passed someone right at the end, and she decided to fight back so we sprinted the last tenth of a mile- which means no pictures of me running, because my first 2 runs were at night, then I crossed my last finish line too quick to get the cameras out! Our messy happy van.

We actually missed our team finishing because we dropped our last guy off to run his last 6 or 7 mile leg, and drove straight to the finish line, but the traffic was so bad that he beat us there.

At least Noah got to run across the finish line... Then we drove up into the White Mountains and hike up to Zealand Fall Hut, run by the AMC, for an awesome easy way to camp. Zealand Falls

Here he is dressing up as the paper bag princess (they drew on the dirt smudges and the decorations on the crowns):

Where'd that dragon go?

His costume got shredded pretty quickly.  Turns out paper bags are not the best outfit for strenuous activity, plus it seems a little unlikely that a paper bag would have been the only thing that survived a fire-breathing dragon.

And here is Princess P, one of the superheroes on SuperReaders whose superpower is spelling:

tutu

Blue was also dressed as Princess P, but I didn’t get a picture of the two of them together. Noah’s princess skirt was made from the part of my wedding veil I cut off because I didn’t want a double layer- good thing I never throw anything away!

My friend lent me a couple of “official” Disney princess costumes, but he didn’t seem to enjoy them nearly as much. And they didn’t seem quite like I think of dress-up clothes, because they seemed to be designed to be worn as clothes, not over top of clothes. Noah does really need a proper Tickle Trunk- he has also asked for a red dinosaur costume and a pirate costume, but those are harder to whip up out of scraps and paper, so he generally settles for wearing his fireman helmet, sitting in a laundry basket boat with Blue, and using a toy golf club as his paddle.

In the car on our way to meet a friend (names changed to protect the innocent, because I think there was some untruth in this story.) “Ann is my friend. And Beth is my friend. And Chad…Chad…Chad…” I prompted him, “And Chad is your friend?” Noah: “No, Chad pushed me.” Me: “Really? Did Chad push you?” Noah: “Yeah. Chad pushed me down and broke my crown.”

After Dave put Noah to bed one night: “Help! Help! Help! I need my snuggles! I can’t get any snuggles with no people here.”

Putting Noah down for his nap, I said, “And if you need snuggles, you can snuggle with Blue.” Noah: “But I want people snuggles!”

A different night when Dave was still putting him to bed, I heard screams of anguish, “I want my booger! I want my booger! I want my booger back!” This was a 15 minute tantrum that is cuter in retrospect than while it was happening.

“Blue has paw prints. And Bear has paw prints. But I don’t have paw prints. Maybe we can buy some at the store.”

Walking to the playground, “Where’s Daddy?” Me: “Daddy’s at work.” Noah: “Why?” Me: “Daddy has to work to pay for our house, and our food, and all the things we buy.” Noah: “Daddy buy me a dinosaur? A red one.”

Every time we read Danny and the Dinosaur, and we get to the page where Danny sees all the dinosaurs in the museum, before one talks to him, “Maybe he pick the red one.”  ***SPOILER*** He picks the yellow one.  Every time so far.  ***END SPOILER***