dear neighbors

enjoy your much handled banana bread.

signed,

Ally & the Richardsons

"by Liv and Ally, Bim Tom ... Oso Krista" (sic)

give me some liiiiiiight!

mom, i'm putting my hands like this so everyone will know that i love kindness.

Ally, the Benevolent

you can have a glow bracelet or a glow necklace.

decorating cookies

the farmer's wife (who cut off their tails with a carving knife)

this month i find myself relating to Hamlet's uncle Claudius. i haven't killed any of my brothers, but it is super dim in my house.

don't blame the house--it's almost 100 years old, and it is fall, and there are plans in the works to brighten things up. in the meantime all my pictures are blurry, or worse--shot with a flash. but on the bright side i can hide things in the dark, like clutter (and shame?).

we had a little party, saw some much-missed friends and met some new ones. we ate donuts from a string and apples from a barrel, and bagged a whole lot of candy from strangers. our neighborhood really gets into Halloween and they know how to decorate. one couple (the same couple that already baked us a cake) had toys for all the kids they know. i mean, come on. COME ON! i want to marry Long Beach.

and Ally wants to know: how many more days until Halloween comes again?

trapped in paradise

and now we live in Long Beach.

we're getting to know this place and finding we like it just as much as we expected to. Bim started work this week, Ally has been in school for a month, and i am making some lady friends at church and in the neighborhood.

Ally charges on with characteristic enthusiasm, great feeling, and an unflagging drive to impart information. this week she was very anxious to tell everyone in the drop-off line at school that, "Gesis luvs us efrywun forebr," providing a carefully lettered illustration. church/state lines are a little blurry at this age; one of my own early "embarrassing moments" was when i requested during singing time in Kindergarten that we sing, "I Love To See the Temple." Mrs. Cassidy gently suggested that i might be thinking of a song from sunday school, and that, in any case, she didn't know the words to that one.

Ally's teacher and i just exchanged bemused looks, mine saying, "I swear I didn't put her up to it," and hers saying, "Nothing about this is weird."

and i guess that's the take-away from this whole experience of moving our lives far out of our known experience, if not so very far geographically. everything about this is new, but it's all in keeping with the normal forward motion of life. if that sounds like a healthy outlook, it was a long time coming. i had something like a nervous breakdown when we first moved in--knowing that we'd chosen this willingly, but not remembering why. but i'm back now.

i think i'm gonna like it here. my favorite thing: the giant kitchen table in the middle of our home. it may be a little oversized for its space, but, my friends, it's love. and it's a good thing because we are here to stay.

Kindergarten X Two

while Bim was away at trial we girls commuted to Long Beach every day for the first two weeks of school. Ally was the youngest kindergartner (her birthday being the cut-off date), so we opted for the 2-year kindergarten program that lets her start out in TK (transitional kinder) and start real kindergarten the following year.

We met Mrs. Laramie and it was love at first sight. Small classes, happy kids, what could be better? 

But after a couple of months we learned two things simultaneously: one, that Ally was already proficient at everything they'd be teaching that year and, 2, there was a spot open at the best elementary school in town. We took it. So Ally got two first days of school this year. She had some tears about leaving Mrs. Laramie's class, but Mrs. Aimerito was the best thing a 4-going-on-5 year-old could hope for. Her class size went from 17 to 30, oh my! but for Ally, that just means more friends. 

sundowner

some of you know that bim and i are in the final days of buying a house. and it's a beautiful house. with each trip to the neighborhood, we felt ourselves growing more attached to the idea of living there, until finally we let our guard down just enough, and crazy people possessed our bodies.

we made an offer. they accepted! we had second thoughts and lowered our bid. they accepted! we asked the bank to give us a lot of money. they (gulp) accepted. we negotiated every little thing and made a general nuisance of ourselves as interest rates fell ever lower. no one said uncle.

and that's how i learned about sundown syndrome, and became a bonafide sundowner.

i was going to post a funny picture of a person flailing her arms, trying to shake out the crazy person inside her, but that would imply that this is funny, which it is not. i am *almost* fine during the day, and even get a little giddy for about 3 seconds at a time. but it gets less funny with every sleepless night...and now, friends, it is that time of the evening when i really start to stew about what we've done. because why? because kids don't buy houses.

my sister reminds me that this is not a real problem and that i should get a real life.

she's right, of course, but you know what? that's like telling a person who's afraid of dogs to get a great big, slobbery DOG. a real life? that's the problem.

stay

don't get any bigger.

don't want anyone but me.

don't learn the proper pronunciation of the word, "strong."

don't run steadily.

don't grow lean.

don't chew with your mouth closed.

don't figure out napkins.

don't count past 14.

don't give up rocking.

don't sleep without lovey.

stay afraid of toilets flushing, ocean waves, big dogs---and flies.

stay grubby and plump.

stay a little smelly.

stay gap-toothed and goofy.

stay slightly off-balance.

stay interested in bugs.

stay good at jokes.

stay softly curly.

stay heartbroken at harsh words.

stay great at dancing.

won't you?

PLEASE.

just stay.

the making factory

at bedtime i sometimes ask my girls the question my mom used to ask me as she tucked me in: what was your favorite part of this day?

today, ally was aglow with the light of invention, having just cranked out "a leader's flag," AKA pirate flag, "a stelloscope" {you know, for seeing things that are far away}, and a model of liv's lovey, which looked very much like it, and which was very warmly received by the lovey lover. all of these creations came out of a roll of christmas wrap that she'd found under the bed.

working in her "making factory" was thus her favorite part of the day. it topped a list that also included, impressively, a trip to the long beach school district office to meet one of her new teachers, a trip to the beach, a school uniform shopping expedition and mac'n'cheese at corner bakery--her favorite. you get an idea of how much she likes scissors and tape.

much of the play around here lately has been inventive by necessity. i have, ahem, packed most of their toys. it doesn't seem to be a problem in the least. let this be a lesson to she who loves new toys {me}. we don't really need them so much.