today is the twenty-seventh of October.
Twenty-seven Octobers ago, I was in first grade. (I’ve skipped a lot of years, eh? The memory gets fuzzy.)

I don’t remember much about October of that year. I don’t even remember my Halloween costume, but I do remember the big Halloween carnival that took place in the front courtyard of my elementary school. I specifically remember the cake walk and the lollipop tree. I was always secretly relieved I didn’t win the cake walk, because for an elementary school kid, winning an entire cake was just awkward—what are you supposed to do with it the whole rest of the day? The lollipop tree was much more practical for a kid. You pulled a lollipop out of the tree and if the tip of the stick was blue, you got a “big” prize, and if it was red, you got a smaller prize, and if it was white, you got… well, the lollipop. My mother’s best friend always ran the lollipop tree, and she wore this witch/hobo hybrid costume with a blackened tooth. The tooth kinda freaked me out.

There was also some kind of fishing for prizes thing, which I didn’t do, but I remember being in that area one time and it was really crowded, and the guy running the game handed me a goldfish in a plastic bag and said, “See that girl back there? She won this—could you give it to her?” It was really crowded, and I was in first grade. I looked around, a lot, but didn’t see the girl anywhere. So I reluctantly kept it. It died rather quickly, and I felt it was probably some cosmic justice because it wasn’t really mine. Sorry, little fish.

In just four years, C will be in first grade. Yikes! I wonder what her first-grade Halloween will be like. In the meantime we’ve been enjoying two-year-old Halloween. Yesterday we went to a farm that has a huge fall festival—hayrides, slides, farm animals, pumpkin patch, free apple cider, cow-milking demonstrations, and so on. It was a beautiful day but windy and chilly! We had a nice time and munched on kettle corn on the way home.

Tomorrow is her preschool’s Halloween party. The kids will trick-or-treat around the church building, then have a costume parade, then they’ll have a program with some singing for the parents. Many video cameras will be whirring away, I’m sure. Then Sunday and Monday her cousins will be in town and they will all trick or treat together. They are really into Star Wars—the female J is going to be Padme and the male J will be Anakin. They are a little disconcerted that C’s cow costume doesn’t really fit into the Star Wars theme but surely there were cattle on Tatooine, right?

And pertaining to the other kid
Next year at Halloween, not only will we have two kids, but little “Gertie” will be almost a year old. Oy!

I have eight weeks until my due date. All is well. I’ve been tired, but that’s mainly because I’ve been staying up too late. Stiff back in the morning too, but it loosens up quickly. I preached last weekend without managing to sound too breathless, I hope. My rings still fit. I managed to wear them up until the end last time. My face looks basically the same. I have a huge basketball belly like before, although R says it is more torpedo-like this time. I was teaching the sixth graders yesterday and was writing stuff on the white board and one of them asked, “Could you maybe move to the other side of the board?” They could not see around my ampleness. Wherever I walk, the baby seems to arrive like 10 minutes before I do. In spite of the fact that I basically feel fine, I have just now recently hit the very tip of Ready to Be Done with This. But do we have a name yet? Nooooooooo…

Went to the midwife today and they continue to say that the baby is on the largish side, although I take that with a grain of salt. (C was supposed to be 8 1/2 pounds and she was 7 lbs. 10 oz.—and besides, what can I do about it anyway?) She seems to be head-down at this point. We also found a doula that we are happy with and who is willing to be on call at Christmastime. Things are coming together.

That’s all she wrote.