I’m gonna keep this post quick but passionate. Enjoying the Small things, CONCENTRATED. Think caffeine-induced ramble.

K?

Ready…Go.

If I could enter a little sound clip, it would be a choir of angels.

October. I said October. As in, October is the foreward in the book of heavenly fall. Or maybe it’s Chapter 1. Either way…it’s spell-binding, and I can’t put the book down.

From here on out, it’s blessed madness…starting slow with cider (first gallon of the season in the fridge) and pumpkins and new candles that promise to bring the scents of everything I miss of home into our place…and then gaining momentum at the end of the month with Halloween parades and shipped-in leaves and asking the post office clerk if they have any prettier stamps for the holiday mailers.

A wee South-Florida-style cold-front arrived with perfect timing today, dropping 68 degrees this morning for a nice October welcome. We opened the sliders and breathed in the cool damp air as we sipped our coffee and hoped for more of these soon. And since today is the Fall Foreward, we celebrate.

We paint pumpkins.

‘Sup, little Rockstar.

And when I watch them together–my girls, my daughters, my creative comrades–I catch my breath and remind myself that the sisterhood I dreamed for them is so there, and what I see is just the appetizer of what is to come. Bring it.

Lainey finished her pumpkin with a heap of glitter, and I love it.

The costumes are finished. I made them this year…super simple and super fast. A little hint…

And on a different note, October is Down Syndrome Awareness month, and I’m so happy to announce the launch of an incredible new website for parents expecting a child with Down syndrome. I couldn’t be more honored to be a very small part of it. The individuals who created it passionately put their hearts and souls into something that is beautiful, informative and, I imagine, an incredible guide in navigating the intimidating waters of the first steps of acceptance. If you are involved in any way in helping parents with new diagnoses, please pass this link on.

http://downsyndromepregnancy.org/ A free complete downloadable pregnancy book is available (with photos!) here as well.

And, if you’re in the Naples area, we are having our FIRST Buddy Walk Saturday, October 16th. If you’re interested in supporting this incredible cause, we’d love to see some new faces! Info here.

A homey weekend calls. Pumpkin bread and cider and new cold sheets tonight. It’s all good, Baby.

I’d say goodbye, but somebody says it way better than I do now.

Pardon me but October and I have some wedding planning to do…’cuz I’m so gonna marry it…and have little October babies named Maple and Aspen and Oak. Me loves me some Fall…and that’s coming from a Florida girl. …Happy October.

I trekked a trail up the incline of a Missoulan mountain two weeks ago with a fourteen pound baby strapped to my chest and a backpack, likewise weighted, tightly secured to my back. A week later, I did it again, this time around the 2-mile stretch of boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp with my mom. The routine is the same. I slip Nella into the comfortable nook where she settles below my breastbone, securely strapped in the carrier, and then I hoist my heavy backpack over my right shoulder and blindly stretch to find the other strap until it’s all adjusted and I begin my walk with a victorious sigh.

“You’re gonna wreck your back,” my mom said.
“I’m fine. I’m a mom. Moms have strong backs,” I sassed.

Turns out I don’t know what I’m talking about and my mom does. Which is often the case.

My back is jacked. Pretty bad. Three days now. And it’s kinda funny because I’m in this constant state of contortion where I’ll bend and hunch and walk all cock-eyed just to keep it from slipping into *that place* where the nerve jolts and I gasp and reach to grab the first thing I can get my hands on to keep from falling. And then there’s the crazy things we do to make it feel better like downward dog in the living room or locust in the kitchen or sometimes hanging from Austyn’s chin-up bar in his room which just makes the boys laugh.

So, my sister says you gotta run it out. And I haven’t run in forever. But I lace my dusty shoes on anyway because I’ll do anything to fix this blasted back.

Tonight I run, a little bit crooked, a lot a bit hesitant, but at least I’m running. And I listen to my old running songs while my feet hit the pavement. Like Let it Rock. David Guetta. All the Euro techno stuff my friend Katie sends me that I secretly love. And I remember why I used to run.

It’s one of those things. Like church is to some people. Or getting tickets to the symphony. Or watching a sunset. Or drinking wine. It’s one of those things that opens up my senses, creates a zone, pulls me out into this bird’s eye view where, with every whoosh-whoosh of my breath, every thump-thump of the soles of my shoes to the pavement, every beat of my throbbing pulse…I’m in deep thought. About life. All the crap. All the good stuff. All the dreams and how to get there. And running–burning through that painful place where your sides ache and your breath is deep and your legs are screaming and yet you still pace through the strides–it’s a brilliant microcosm of the greater picture. If you can run? You can do anything.

It’s magnificent, really. That I-can-do-anything feeling that comes and stays and propels you to clean your house, to play with your kids, to pull plastic pumpkins out of attic boxes and smile as you dust them off thinking of just how fantastic you are going to make October for your family.

We made paper-chains. Fall-colored paper-chains. And we tacked them to the walls where they droop all festive-like and Brett has to stoop to walk under them. But they are wonderful.

We ate apples on a blanket under the big tree in the side yard that shades just right at high noon.

…and reveled in the adventure of doing absolutely nothing which, might I add, might be one of the greatest adventures of all time.

Yesterday, I let the bad back excuse take center stage. We stayed in our pajamas. We watched movies. We ate trail mix and crackers and cheese and nothing organic or good-for-you. And oh, it was beautiful.

Um, didn’t know until recently that Down syndrome comes with this insane flexibility. Can I just say it is the coolest, cutest thing ever? Hello, little acrobat. Someone’s gonna kick Mary Lou Retton’s ass.

And tonight, while running, I saw it all so clearly. Our messy, crazy, intricate life with all its bumps and bruises. It is good.

These past few months have been crazy. Since Nella has arrived, so much has happened. Grief and learning to deal and digging into parts of me that needed to be discovered. And the blog took off and so much good has come from it. There’s an amazing community of people here, of all walks of life. And we embrace it. But yes, it’s eye-opening and as a mama who’s always loved to write, there’ve been times I’ve had to swallow and ask myself what’s happening. I do think about it all…what I’m willing to expose, what I’m not. What’s good, what’s too much. And tonight, I have rediscovered my voice. Uninhibited. Remembering that I’m doing what I’ve always done and I will continue to do it. I will continue to do it.

“We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. When your writing blooms out of the back of this garbage compost, it is very stable. You are not running from anything. You can have a sense of artistic security. If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.” ~Natalie Goldberg

I am excited–in that I-can-do-anything, shoes-hitting-the-pavement and breath-fast-and-heavy kind of way. It is amazing how much the human soul can be fueled, inspired, ignited by other human souls and, in turn, reignite the passion, the drive. Like superheros.

And all good superheros need a nice cape. Which brings me to our new sponsor. We totally dig Pip & Bean. We have four of their superhero capes, and we wear them in the house, out of the house, for breakfast, for naps, for running barefoot in the driveway when the sun sets.

Lainey even fanaggled Brett into wearing one.

I’m thinking superhero-themed birthday party. I’m thinking a saved rainy day. I’m thinking how cool I’ll feel whipping these out the next time Lainey’s friends are over for a play-date. I’m thinking I want my own. What will it say? Hmmmmm.

Check ’em out!

Thank you, every one of you…for your shared passion for life and all its paths. I picture you all in capes.

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all. ~Richard Wright, American Hunger, 1977

Thank you for the beautiful echo.

Downward Dog calls.

The cool thing about craft-making and cupcake-baking days is that it doesn’t make you feel quite as crappy when you have days where you’re frazzled or you snap at the whining or the T.V. runs too long or you’re just not feeling it. And we have them, but there’s a strange beauty to those days too. Sometimes, at the end of those days is when I have my best moments. When I sidle next to sleepy bodies in bed and whisper in their ears that today didn’t go exactly like I wanted, but tomorrow will be better and that I love them all the same. Ah, the beauty of Balance. I learned it here and here and, well another time here.
Ebb & Flow, Baby.

We’re a bit crazed with some chaos right now, but it’s beautiful chaos…like the unorganized dissonant tones of instruments as they tune before a symphony. It’s all in preparation of something good, and soon the maestro will tap his wand and all will fall together in lovely harmonies…at least that’s what I tell myself.

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Labor Day had us setting out for a little drive up to Gasparilla Island where we met my friend, Rebecca and her husband Jon at her parents’ house and enjoyed a day of beach-basking and catching up.

This girl smiles in her sleep all the time.

Lainey’s totally in love with Aunt A’Becca.

…and so are we.

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Ballet is now one of my favorite moments of the week, and in just these past few weeks, I am quite certain I have acquired new wrinkles from all the smiling I’ve done.

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Today, we met sweet Ethan whose mama and daddy won a giveaway here awhile back for one of Poppa’s vacation rentals. Nella was smitten, and we got a kick out of not only watching the two of them together but Lainey and Beckham having a ten-minute pow-wow on the cold tile in front of the front door just lovin’ on him.

Jessica & Justin, hoping the rest of your week is relaxing and perfect and just what you need!

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Our Nana Kate is not only our borrowed grandma, across-the-street neighbor and a dear friend of mine, but she is locally known as the Naples Nana who works at Baby Gap. She’s worked there for years and calls all the babies that shop there “my babies.” Recently, she worked hard to get Gap corporate to approve an idea she had to have photos of all “her” local babies as the Gap models in our store here, and I love that her passion for this idea and the genuine love she has for the babies that shop there got approved.

…especially because my babies now grace the walls.

I had my old camera this night and some horrible lighting conditions but you get the picture…that my mama heart was swellin’ and that my girls’ pride was matched with Nana Kate’s who treats us like her own.

Kathleen, we love you and you are so freaking fabulous.

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And that brings me to the last two lovelies, the first being that September from now on is just Christmas on a cracker. Family arrives tomorrow and there will be love and much of it this week. Next week, I am taking my girls to the Montana mountains to finally meet my dear friend, Nici. We’ve been blogging friends for three years now…e-mailing, texting, talking, Skyping and dreaming of the day we’d finally meet. And Friends…it’s gonna be good. I cannot wait to see our girls together and fetch eggs from the chickens and take walks under blue sky kissing Montana mountains. And these Florida girls will get to wear tights. That’s a bonus. My mama comes down to finish off the month with more love and that? Well, that’s just heaven.

Finally, I am so proud to announce our new sponsor, Tina Steinberg Designs. Her fingerprint jewelry is beautiful and unique, and I can’t tell you how many times I reach up during the day to rub my fingers along the edge of my pendants and feel the fingerprint impressions of my babies.

For a special promotion this month, enter the code “smallthings” at checkout and receive 10% off your September order. Orders over $100 (after discount) also receive a silicone ‘i am not afraid. i was born to do this.’ bracelet. (I feel powerful when I wear mine. Like Wondertwin Powers Activate! kind of power)

Check her out!

And now, I must go whisper sweet-nothings to the babies. They hear you when they’re sleeping, you know.