Just a reminder that even though fall comes every year you'll still manage to get sucked into its melancholy drawl.  Happy fall y'all.  You'll get out the boots, the scarves, the long coats and chunky sweaters and darker jeans and you'll sip that spiced coffee (just once this year because the idea of it is always better than the actual taste).  And then the leaves will go from pretty to drab in almost a night. You'll go to bed after showing the little boy how to push them all into a pile, how to run and then jump, and the next morning you'll wake up to that steady sound of rain and the crunchy, leafy dreams of yesterday will be a soggy mess.

This will happen without fail every single year in the great pacific northwest.  It will rain and rain and rain.  It will feel like the days of Noah.  You will be so glad you bought another pair of waders for that same little boy because you tell me how to raise a two year old inside and I will do my best not to get hysterical.

But a bigger, more important reminder: you'll figure it out.  Daylight savings will happen and that's probably when your shoulders will slump the most (an extra hour used to be such a treat, a lazy gift!  Now it is a whole week of crunching stats and numbers and analyzing the timing of naps.  It is no. joke.)  Eventually, you go from three cups of coffee a day to two and you'll settle in to this season.  You'll figure out how to put on real pants with real zippers again, how to get out of the house without a stroller (you'll remember how to drive! You'll listen to that blasted veggie tales cd a thousand times before winter is through.)  And you'll taste the bittersweet grace tucked into this season again.  You'll slow.  Have people in, cook warm filling things, and you'll age in ways you needed to.

Because fall, if anything, is the best time of year to root down after the flurry of summer.  And after your seasonal pout, you'll sigh with relief.  Happy Fall, y'all.