Today was a good day, mostly. Samantha went down for a nap around 11am. I got to rake the driveway so my car won't slip on the leaves. I also got to rake the patio in back so the leaves are all in a pile and Ella will not be confused about where the lawn begins. It felt good to be outside. I got a lot of other stuff done too, and made a nice lunch. I woke Sam up around 1pm so we could go to the park. It was pouring off and on all morning, and had finally seemed to lighten up. Ella was wandering around all morning whining to go run and play and driving me insane. I fed Sam her lunch and we all hied off for the park. It was foggy, that sort of spitting rain but not quite raining kind of fog. It was unearthly in the woods. I know the paths really well, but they were still hard to recognize with all the leaves down and the colors so different. The sound was off too. Noise really is different in fog, amplified. The phrase "I wandered in vaulted silence through the pines" kept running through my head. The little brooks had gone down a bit. Not many birds out in the rain. I felt like I was the only creature left in the silence. Ella was a comfort with her exuberant presence. Samantha was asleep almost immediately in the backpack. She looked really uncomfortable and had a big red spot on her face when we were done, but it didn't keep her awake. She slept a lot today. Probably because she slept so little last night!

Samantha loves tissue boxes. She finds one and just starts yanking the tissues out and throwing them up in the air with great abandon. I am torn between laughter and frustration, a state of being I am experiencing quite often lately.

Any tight spot seems to be a magnet for her. She gets stuck, though, and yells for me to rescue her. I left the box from her stroller on the floor and she has started to go in there and squirm around a bit. She also seems to like banging on the cardboard. It gives a nice loud boom when she hits it. All in all, the box is good for some great entertainment.