Look, I know it’s Fall. I can see my breath already, and I even brushed my teeth! And unfortunately, Zeus and his little … Zeusettes? have also noticed the change in the seasons and have begun causing a bizarre, yet pervasive phenomenon whereby water droplets condense in the mid- to upper atmosphere over a wide range, precipitating along a course dictated by gravity towards the center of the Earth, only to be stopped upon the surface, where they congregate in forms known as “puddles.”

Yeah, but what are you gonna do about it? Well, if you’re at all like my mother, who was wont to spiel forth with the words “go outside and play” in weather that would keep a polar bear indoors, you shove your kid’s feet into breadbags (in case of soaker) shove the plastic-wrapped for freshness feet into rubber boots, wrassle the kidlet into a raincoast, preferably the kind with the very satisfying snaps like a real New Englander’s, stick a floppy plastic hat the size of Prince Edward Island on her head, and shove her out the door with a cheery, “Be back at six!”

Then you pour some vino and go watch your stories for a few blissful hours while the neighborhood children solemnly play Noah’s Ark yet again with their sodden teddybears and long-suffering Maltipoos.

Oh, it’s a Philip Larkin tale for sure!

But since the sun may not come out tomorrow or, where I live, until next June, we might as well do what we can to brighten the miserable, leaden gloom. Otherwise our children will all grow up to be Goths, right?

Nobody wants that, my friends.

So, to stave off a precocious fondness for Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and black nailpolish, we present the unmistakably brilliant Children’s Color Wheel Umbrella from MOMA Online:

You could even get a full-sized one for yourself, should you feel a nostalgic appreciation for The Cure coming on.

The Munchkin’s teacher has handed out a sheet which outlines an activity to do with your child every day of the week.  We are to pick two of the activities per week, and mark down which ones we have done.

We had already done the “if you had a magic pencil box, what would be in it” question, which led to some entertaining flights of fancy.  These things are meant to be bonding activities which encourage you to discuss things with your child and do things that might normally be a bit out of your comfort zone.

So tonight I thought I would have him complete this sentence: “If I could learn one thing this year, it would be…”

Could he want to learn about quantum physics?  How to dissect a frog?  How to build a robot?  There are so many things my bright boy would want to discover, and I was smiling in anticipatory glee.

The Munchkin paused for a mere second and replied with all the earnestness a five year old can muster, “How to not have to go to school anymore.”

Sigh.

It’s going to be a long decade or so, isn’t it?

Family.com, a Disney site, is sponsoring a contest in which you can actually win a prize for being badly dressed!  Well, when you were a kid, anyway.  Or maybe you can cash in on badly dressing your own child.

I’m thinking back to my own childhood, and for a while, my mother was dressing my sister and me like twins. Uh, except we were almost six years apart. I remember one year we were particularly resplendent in matching red Christmas outfits of scratchy polyester with peter pan collars and white rickrack trim. Good times, good times…

Photos Courtesy of Family.com

from TheSun