Fall is here. If I'm being honest, it's probably one of my least favorite times of the year. While the changing of the leaves is an inarguably beautiful sight for the eyes to behold, my allergies feel much, much differently. It always begins simply enough. A few sneezes here and there. The occasional sniffle and eye rub. Before I know what's happening, I end up battling a full-fledged cold. Not cool. Worse yet, Ethan's experiencing the exact same thing and it's definitely got the little man down.
However, that being said, we did have happier fall days before these colds reared their ugly heads. In fact, look no further than back to Monday which was the final day of Ellie's fall break from school. We had a pretty awesome few days leading up to Monday complete with trips to Fun Run, The Rush Funplex, and Pumpkins Etc. all occurring on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. With Monday marking the last day before Ellie headed back to school, I figured that we should probably just spend the day at home rather than doing anything big. Therefore, that's exactly what we did.
A few minutes after Bethany left for work, we got a phone call that we needed to go outside and look at the moon. If there's something you need to know about my kids, it's that they absolutely adore the moon. After a quick step out onto the driveway, I decided to ask them if they would like me to set up the telescope so they could see the moon up close. After an enthusiastic "YES!", we all ran inside and got dressed before heading back out to the driveway to check out the moon.
Despite the fact that daylight was rapidly coming, it didn't ruin our fun any as the full moon was very visible until it disappeared behind a streetlight. Honestly, it's a blast to look through the telescope with the kids. They are enthralled by seeing it up close. Ellie even took great care to describe everything about the moon to us later that night including her belief that there were astronauts up there. Not quite right but that's ok.
After we finished up with our impromptu astronomy party, we headed back inside to play games and read books for a while until the kids got bored with those activities. When that moment happened, I had a fun answer ready to go. I had been planning on letting the kids watch a movie on the projector in order to really celebrate Ellie's day off school. When that time came, I fully expected Ellie to ask for some kind of Disney movie or "Paddington." Imagine my surprise when she asked to watch the film adaptation of "The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island." While that might seem a little random, it's really not. She's been reading the book to Bethany and really wanted to watch the movie version again. Luckily, we were able to find it available on Peacock for our viewing pleasure.
Once we finished the movie, it was time for lunch and quiet times before our afternoon plans could commence. Truth be told, I was really excited about our afternoon plans. I've written many a time about the Humpty Dumpty statue that sits on a wall about a half mile away from our house. With the weather being nice, I figured it was a perfect day to take a walk to visit Humpty. Once we got there, the kids were stoked to find that he had a jar of fun-sized Skittles sitting next to him which we helped ourselves to. However, I had one more surprise in store for Ellie and Ethan.
Upon leaving Humpty, we walked to the corner where Ellie and Ethan began to turn left just like we do when it's time to head home. Instead of following them, I pressed a button on a crosswalk and stood at the light waiting to cross. Despite their confusion, the kids happily followed me across the street and into the Casey's General Store parking lot where the last part of my surprise came into view. Together, we went into the store and browsed for the perfect treat to enjoy together. Finally, we settled on a big root beer and a pair of Rice Krispie treats. Once we paid for our feast, we headed out to the curb behind the store and sat, happily enjoying our treat together.
As we headed back home, I made conversation with Ellie by asking her if she enjoyed her day off school. To my great joy, she proceeded to reiterate every great thing that we had done (as if I wasn't there for all of them!). Ethan, for his part, did the exact same. I have to say that I love creating special memories with Ellie and Ethan and a big part of that is allowing myself to spoil them now and then. #DaddyWrite
