A few updates...

Josh really likes to be naked, and sometimes in the evening I'll take off his shirt or even his pants. It's as if his clothes aren't really comfortable, though even sweats and a t-shirt are inferior in his mind to just being free. The other day I noticed him going into the bathroom and followed, suspecting foul play. He protested a little, but when I agreed to just look the other way and read a magazine he permitted me to stay. He stripped down but then wouldn't sit on the little potty chair. Instead he washed his hands for five minutes under cold water. Now, he likes to line up cars and trucks in long lines, but I think there's ample evidence he doesn't have OCD. After that he started messing around to get my attention--playing with things like the toilet paper, which he knows I'll object to, so he can get my attention. Works! I ejected and clothed him soon thereafter.

Here he's wearing his new rain boots which he's very excited about. As are we, since now he can stomp through puddles without our having to dry his sneakers in front of a fan overnight. 

Sam's started piano lessons! His teacher was recommended by Juli Elliot and is at Eastman. The only slot he has available is 5:30 on Fridays, so we rush down and meet there, and then I follow Josh around while Susan sits in on Sam's lesson. The first lesson was a success--he's an affirming teacher and said some positive things about Sam. And Sam not only enjoyed the lesson, but also enjoyed practicing the last two days--even thanked God for piano practice during bedtime prayers. I'll have to remind him of it in a few months when we are having to chain him to the piano and the bitter resistance threatens the household peace.

For now, anyway, we are enjoying it. :-)

While he was in his lesson, Josh and I wandered to the adjacent Kodak hall at Eastman theater. I was a little worried about wandering up and down the practice-room hallways, since Josh is anything but quiet. Kodak hall was free of performers, being in between rehearsals, with roustabouts clearing chairs off stage, so we could wander and make noise all we wanted.

It's a beautiful theater and Josh really enjoyed it, as did I. And we got some exercise!

It's been a year or two since Sam had music classes at Eastman. I had forgotten how amazing it is to wander around. Dinnertime on Friday night, and the practice rooms were full, with gorgeous music drifting out from under the doors; a classical guitarist playing in a stairwell of Kodak hall; two harpists playing a duet in a hallway of the main building of Eastman. If that just indicates that they don't have enough practice rooms, we were happy to get the beneficiaries of their lack.

It doesn't hurt that toddlers bring out the best in just about everyone has a smile for a toddler. In a place where even those who aren't in fierce competition with one another are still working their hardest to prove themselves, seeing a toddler must bring to mind both childlike joy and a nurturing environment where you don't have to worry about whether you are good enough--you are because you are loved, and that's enough.

Okay, now for a change of scenery. Last weekend Sam got to go to a birthday party of the other Sam in his class. It was at Wickham Farm, which has mini golf, a corn maze, goats and chickens you can feed if you like, and a very large bouncy pillow thing, which Josh and Sam enjoyed.

Amazingly, Josh suffered no injuries.

Sam wasn't the only peanut-allergic boy there, and the parents of the other Sam were very careful about making everything nut-safe. It was a rare treat not having to bring a piece of cake from home for him to eat. (Which we had to do yesterday for his best friend's party at, get this, Chuck-E-Cheese's. If I never spend another minute in C.E.C. I'll count myself lucky. This time the cops even showed up to break up a fight. (Last time there was a nearly a fight but no cops.)  The 18-year-old hostess looked like the experience of running the party would be enough to keep her from having kids for a good decade.

Last weekend we also went to the Rochester Museum and Science Center. It's not a world-class museum, but it has some nice spots, and the hour before closing on a Saturday is a great time to get them all to yourself. One of them is a ball pit. On the back wall of it is a list of simple machines which seems to have nothing to do with the ball pit, but must make the curators feel like it's educational enough for them to include it.

For my money the best part of the museum is a few dark corridors in the back of the second floor with native American artifacts and dioramas depicting Indian life in various parts of North America. Contrary to your recollection of dioramas from grade school, these are extremely evocative and really help you imagine a totally alien way of life. Sam and Josh seem to think so too.

We also made a trip to the Play Museum the day before. (Why so many museums? Susan was out of town, so I was happy to find any way to wear the boys out and keep them from going stir crazy.) Started our visit with a ride on the carousel. Rochester has a huge number of carousels. I can't think of even one in Columbus. Must be an East-coast thing.

Busy week ahead. Have to decorate a pumpkin to make it look like a character from a book; have to prep for Hallowe'en, and find a costume for Josh; have to carve and decorate pumpkins before Thursday and put out decorations; have to drive out to Schutt's Apple Mill Wednesday to buy six dozen of the only nut-safe donuts we've ever found to take to the Fall Fun Festival at church which the youth group puts on for the younger boys and girls; have to work with Sam on an art project which he's doing voluntarily as part of a state-wide art contest (everyone's work gets displayed, and some win awards). And in the midst of it all Susan has deadlines Wednesday and Thursday and I have a dry-run for my conference presentation Thursday just before trick-or-treating. Say a prayer we run the gauntlet successfully!

Thought I'd end with a panorama left over from the weekend we closed up camp. This is a view of Arbuckle from the water transfer station:

Closing up camp for the winter

For Columbus Day we went up to camp to close up and drain the plumbing: drive up Friday afternoon, drive back Sunday afternoon. It was sunny, and the temperature climbed out of the 40s in the morning to 70 by noon. Friday night it was clear enough for me to take the boys out to the water after dark to look at the Milky Way, and even see a few shooting stars. As we were nearing camp on the way up Josh realized where we were going, and started talking about Nana and Grandad's House, and we had to let him down that he wasn't going to actually get to see N&G. 

The best thing about October at camp, though, is the quiet. No constant hum of a nearby highway, no trains in the distance, even. Just quiet. The loudest sound was leaves hitting the ground. Most of the camps around Higley are empty by now, and aside from a wave to Dick and Judy as they drove by in their antique car, we ran into very few people. 

The weather being so ideal, we spent most of the Saturday at Higley Flow State Park. The ranger station tollbooth was closed up, and the park and trails open dawn til dusk. We did spot some other hikers, and they waved back, surprised and glad to see someone else.

At the state park we hiked a little, but mostly spent our time at the new playground. It was inundated with bumper crops of grasshoppers and ladybugs. (Strangely, I got bit twice by ladybugs.) Josh tooled around on his tricycle, and we all went down to the water to throw stones.  That evening we had a family movie night. Sam watched Hotel Transylvania, and when it became clear that was a little too scary for Josh, he and I went off and watched Finding Nemo in the bedroom.

Thanks to Dad's generous efforts at the last minute Friday getting me the text of the the closing-up manual which I'd misplaced, closing up Sunday morning went well. Even got Sam to play pack mule and carry cargo up to the minivan, for which I was grateful. When we left Josh wept, saying "No home! Cabin!"

Enjoy the photos below and think of the camp settling in for its winter hibernation.

Sam at the Dorans'  bulkhead

Josh, looking for stones to throw into the water

One of those grasshoppers

Stump Bay from the north point near the playground in the state park

Sam and Josh resting during the brief Pine-Trail hike

I experimented a little with panorama shots on the state-park playground

Fall campout, et cetera

Sam is in a club like boy scouts, except run through our church, so that it's something like boy scouts plus devotions. Cadets has campouts in fall and spring, and a winter overnight in a cabin in Webster.

I have photos from the fall campout, but first two Josh photos to share:

Josh is already eager to help mow the lawn. Bless his heart.

This is Josh on the way to picture day. 

Now, photos from the fall campout. It's at Poag's Hole, a little out-of-the-way piece of land on the side of a wooded hill, owned and generously lent for the purpose by members of our church. Poag's Hole is known for a dirt-bike contest in which contestants ride their bikes up the sheer side of a muddy hill.

Fortunately we didn't do any of that. Those guys are nuts. But down the road in the Poag's Hole valley, just before a private camp ground and halfway up a hill, is the place where we camp out each year (known by the inhabitants as "The Land").

It was warm, but the chance of rain was 30-50%, and for at least two hours this morning I'd say it was 100% where we were. It started gently around 7 am, and by 9 am was pounding hard just before it let off. During the worst of it I advised several cadets, who were by then too wet to send to their tents, to shelter under a camper, which was as yet dry as a bone, and spacious enough for several of them.

You can't see the rain, of course, but trust me, it was pouring.

Here's the concrete evidence for the heavy rains. Once it let up I got Sam in clean clothes. When we were packing I asked Susan to pack two pair of jeans, two pair of shorts. "Two?!" she said. Yes, two! :-)

We went to the nearby Stony Brook state park. It's really lovely, especially with the fall colors, on a foggy morning. Also has a nice playground the boys enjoyed.

Here's Danny, the cadets leader, delivering a devotional message about thankfulness.

The main trail in Stony Brook runs along a gorge. (Sam, second from left.) They are looking at a little hollow which in the summer gets blocked off so it fills up with water, and is used as a swimming pool. :-)

Love these old stone bridges!

We hiked up the gorge, then back down again along the rim. The whole hike was about 1.5 hours.

A good example of the dangers of poor punctuation. Should *we* not throw or kick stones? Or are we just being informed that the good-natured hikers below don't throw or kick stones?

Back at The Land there is a disk swing on a nice, long rope. This year it was the main attraction for Sam and his cohort.

There's a nice zipline the kids did as well.

One of the boys was running through the woods, stepped on a stick, and up out of the leaves popped the skull of a young stag, prompting Sam and me to do a little bone walk of our own.

Another annual tradition is some pellet and BB gun firearm training. This culminates in target practice on a used can of expanding foam. They start with the youngest shooter and proceed to the oldest. Last year everyone missed the target until the dad in the group who is a police officer took his shot. This year Sam went first and hit it right off!

Thus ends the campout photos. A very good time was had by all. A final photo of our kitchen blackboard, which has gotten pretty full: