Just like that.

Average height, average girth, nothing extraordinary that would make it stand out amongst the other deciduous trees that line our yard. Early in the fall, I noticed that this one particular tree was the first to turn color. It was the first to signal the changing of the seasons. It was practically the next day when I was parking the motorino in the driveway and looked to see the tree was singing with color.

It was changed. And then it was changed again, just like that.

I am walking through some changes just like this. Flash! Blink! Change. I don't generally mind change that I have willed. But the changes that our children will, even if we're on board with them, have surprised me with how staggering and irreversible they can be.

Take potty training. Let's go there. Little Man just willed potty training, like so many bazillions of children have, and that was that. He enrolled, he learned, he graduated. Bam.

And here I am, just sort of waiting to pick him up from Safety Town and he's all, Mom! I'm over here! See me walking across the stage and grabbing my college diploma! I'm done!

He's changed. He's on the other side. And I'm standing in the empty space in his room where the changing pad and the diapers and and all the other accoutrements that signal BABY ON BOARD used to be. How?

How did I bemoan all these bottles and unctions and wish for an advance to the next phase? Of course. Because I was "done" with it all. Like someone who had big plans for the space that would formerly be known as the diaper changing area.

The leaves have fallen. The diapers are gone. A new season is here, advancing advancing, not returning, only standing tall in the midst of the discard pile. I rejoice and then I mourn. I try to remember how bright those leaves were. I trace through the pictures of those babies, their cheeks like nectarines, whose diaper changes once ruled my days.

I will likely never change their diapers again.

They will never stop changing me.

Movember

I cannot emphasize the sheer volume of fecal matter spewing out of life's hydrant at our little family right now. It would almost be comical if it were not so depressing. What non-specific thing I can tell you is this: it is going to be okay. All of it. In the meantime, our punks dressed up for the American tradition of sugar canvassing. They both really got it this year. Walk to the next house! Scary music, ahhh, too scary, let's go to the next house! Oh goodness, more candy! More smiling people! Let's walk, no, let's run! More doorbells to ding! More candy to gather...TRICK OR TREATING is the BEST IDEA EVER!

Pregaming

Fairy

Pooh

Gang

2 alarm fire

Dearest children, Something happened tonight that was a little heart-stopping.

I think the world actually held still when I realized that I had left a pot holder in the oven by accident.

And that the oven was cranked up to 450 degrees.

So, the pot holder was aflame inside the oven, which is highly ironic when you think about the fact that a potholder is supposed to protect your hand from getting burned.

Instead it was doing a really good job of being totally flamboyant.

Because this wasn't just another stop off on your mother's hot mess express train, like how she gets dressed for the gym in the dark every day so she arrives wearing yoga pants inside out and two different shoes--No, it turned a shade more serious rather swiftly.

Little Man, you emerged to watch your mother think fast as to whether the house was equipped with a fire extinguisher or was that a house at which she babysat in 1994?

You saw her take a cloth diaper out of a cabinet and use the cloth diaper as a POTHOLDER to remove the potholder aflame in the oven.

You said, "Fire! Oh, fire! Oh, gonna call the fire trucks! Fire trucks coming!" but you didn't get hysterical which was a boon to your mother's ability to extinguish the fire from a potholder with an ad hoc potholder.

Little Man, you then stood frozen as both smoke detectors in the kitchen started mouthing off yelling, "WOMP WOMP WOMP WOMP WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE"

You watched as your mother regained her senses and held the two potholders under a running faucet and managed handily to save the kitchen that does not belong to her, even though burning down the house would totally have gone along with the theme of this past year and damaged property. Hah. Just tryin' to be thematic I was!

After your 4'10" mother somehow got the smoke alarms on the ceiling to shut their big mouths, you looked at me with some tears in your eyes and I thought you were scared and maybe you were a little, but really it was more probably the smoke irritating your sweet little brown eyes.

Baby Girl, I'd just like to thank you for being unflappable as well, and by that I mean I want to thank you for sitting in the other room and turning two deaf ears to the smoke alarms and panic attacks happening in the next room, staying completely and absolutely occupied on your mother's laptop, probably picking out Cinderella's outfit for princess pilates on DisneyJunior.com. I know it was hard to stay that focused and not be tempted to come and see if everyone was okay, but far be it from me to say you weren't taking one for the team.

I still love the guts out of both of you and am glad we and our kitchen escaped this culinary crisis fairly unscathed.

Love, Mama *** Little Man by my side

Baby Girl gaming with her boy Tiny C.