our very own giving tree

Thanks to my mother's reminiscence about creating a 'fall tree' with me and my friend Scotty Devorin nearly 30 years ago (see her comment after my first post), we had the makings of a new project. Our own fall tree. Here it is:



My thinking had been that Gabriel would be able to participate and enjoy sticking leaves onto the branches too. Oh, was I feeling proud of myself when I went to bed the night I made the tree. I was imagining the two children finding this masterpiece in the kitchen the next morning, hugging me in gratitude, and getting right to work. Then I would, of course, actually sit down with my coffee, and drink the entire mug while it was still warm.

Fantasy! They did like the tree. Yes. Gabriel likes it too much. Turns out it is just as much fun to take leaves off the tree as it is to put them on. Our resident Destroyer discovered that in fact one can actually rip entire branches off with ease. Such fun! As you can imagine, some screaming ensued. I almost joined Frances in her protests, sad as I was to see my work defaced. It took me the entire broadcast of The World to make that tree, kid! At one point I calmly squatted down to his level, took his chubby little hands in mine, and gazed into his soulful brown eyes. With great feeling and solemnity I explained that this is a special tree and we like the leaves, we like the leaves ON the tree Gabriel, so please don't take them off, okay? Let's hug on it. And we did. And then he grinned at me and ripped four more off, crumpled them in his hands, and threw them up in the air.

So this explains why the topmost branches are the most leafy on our fall tree, and why I took a picture now - this may be as full and colorful as our tree gets. But - yes - this became another lesson in Valuing Process Over Product (tell me when these stories get old). We've been going on afternoon leaf-finding walks, looking for actual leaves to add to the construction paper leaves. It takes us about 45 minutes to go around the block. Sometimes we bring our maracas and sing on the way, we usually meet up with some neighborhood dogs (a thrill), and all three of us are pretty happy. We bring funny old lady purses from the dress up box and end up filling them with acorns and pine cones and the like, and now have "nature bowls" on our little craft table.

Yesterday our walk ended in the three of us sitting on a sunny acorn-laden spot of sidewalk, throwing acorns as high as we could in the air. Don't knock it; it's pretty fun! Our friend Chester rode by on his way home from the college and stopped to chat. Frances sang him 'Pollito Chicken' (off Dan Zanes' Nueva York album. WE LOVE IT.) and then soon after that Mike biked past and joined us and we all walked the rest of the way home together.

So, the fall tree gave us our new autumn nature walks. I can let go of a few branches for that.

Here are some recent playground pictures...fall here has been so beautiful, I can almost forgive Annapolis for being Annapolis.