round up: early fall

Clockwise from top left:

Oliver's Spanish is getting good after only two months in immersion preschool;

David and I made a point of getting breakfast together last week;

the clean part of the kitchen;

late night touch-ups to the last of the original fleet of peony piñatas before I sent it off.

There are a lot of photos of Oliver in here (and me, alone, going mad). I've adjusted to having him away for four hours a day at preschool, but what I haven't adjusted to AT ALL is how much having him in preschool has shredded my day. Shredded. There is just no time to get anything done when you're working with a half-day preschool schedule. He's loving his school and is picking up Spanish rapidly. His comprehension is amazing and he is volunteering to speak it now, not like in the first few weeks when he insisted his "body wasn't meant to speak Spanish". So that's awesome, and so is his school, but I'm still reeling about how little time I have as compared to how much I thought I would have. I need to work on a solution before I go crazy.

I'm feeling a little guilty about not spending as much quality time with him of late either. I have to keep on working when he gets home a few afternoons a week, so he keeps himself busy, but I am starting to feel bad. My "work" is going really well right now, but my childrearing skills, and as always, exercise, are taking a hit. Oliver and I are still spending time together, but I don't have a lot of bandwidth in my brain right now so we're not doing projects, we're not putting our heads together on things lately and I feel super remiss. This has to change a.s.a.p.

I had a sort of big announcement to make but I thought I'd put it off a few more days as I really don't want this blog to be one big promotion of my new career in paper. So, more photos from our fall! My apologies if you've seen these already on Instagram. I've been picking up my camera less and less around the house, but I'm hoping to change that, too. Instagram is just so forgiving on my tired eyes, my ruddy complexion and my one zillion freckles, so it's hard to quit!

Ollie in a nest;

pan de colores made with milk paint at school;

walking through the Panhandle in the morning;

Oliver at Handcraft Studio School.

Every Sunday night I work all night, every Monday afternoon we nap;

piggyback ride after school;

one of three giant flowers for a bat mitzvah in Maine;

Oliver gets air.

At the bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park;

riffing (en Español) with his favorite school friend;

headed home from school for Stella's surprise party;

the tangled web game waiting for them at home.

Instagram won't tell you, but I'm trying to grow out my 90% grey hair;

shots from new Etsy listings (couldn't leave the paper totally out of it).