A Walk, the Weather, and a Joke

This morning, Miles decided that 5:20 was a good wake up time.  For over an hour we tried to convince him that he was wrong, but he won.  Since his early rising messed up my morning plans, as soon as I got Nolan to school I decided to take Miles for another backpack ride in the dark.  He was happy to go, so long as he could bring his Rubik's Cube.  He loves admiring all the neighbors' Halloween decorations- pumpkins and skeletons are his favorites.  For some reason this morning, Miles got bored (and it wasn't because it was dark- dawn breaks early around here!).  He was done with the backpack ride before I was half way finished with my walk.  To protest/amuse himself, Miles decided to start jumping up and down while in the backpack.  He found a place on the backpack frame where he could push off with his feet and land in the backpack seat.  As he'd land, the force would pull me backwards from the head to the waist.  Not falling was quite a feat.  Luckily, he grew tired of that as well, but he started amusing himself by picking his nose and slurping.  Seriously nasty.  The slurping sound was vile.  The amusing thing was that Miles didn't have a runny nose; he just has a bad habit from the 2 week long cold he just got over.  On my route, I pass by an apple tree.  Miles loves seeing the tree.  This morning, the tree had dropped some apples and I picked one up for Miles.  He was pleased.  But since the backpack ride was "boring", he started amusing himself by asking me, "What's that?" over and over and over again.  Evidently, behind my head he was holding up either his Rubik's Cube or apple and I was supposed to know what he was doing and label the item he was showing me.  Not a fun game.  By that point, I was ready for my walk to be over so I skipped the last loop of the route and went home.  He was angelic the rest of the day.

Miles told his first "joke" tonight.  Every night, Miles wants the same 4 stories read- Put Me in the Zoo, Are You My Mother?, Go Dog, Go!, and The King, the Mice, and the Cheese.  Truthfully, Dan and I are sick of reading them so to amuse get through the books faster, we try things like reading really fast or skipping pages.  We get caught when we skip pages.  Last night, from another room in the house, I heard, "Once upon a time in a far away country there lived a king.  The king lived in a beautiful palace.  He had everything he liked.  He liked hotdogs best of all.  His hotdog makers made the best hotdogs in the land.  Everyone in the palace could smell the hotdogs.  Everyone in the town could smell the hotdogs.  Everyone in the country could smell the hotdogs.  A mouse did..."  Evidently, Dan was amusing himself by changing the words.  Miles thought it was pretty funny as well; I could hear him giggling.  So tonight it was my turn to read the stories.  I asked Miles if he wanted the "King book".  He smiled and said, "Once upon a time in a far away country there lived a king.  The king lived in a beautiful palace.  He had everything he liked.  He liked Spam best of all" and then he started giggling.  Nice joke Miles!  So tonight I read about the best Spam in the land.

I'm loving the weather right now!  I've had windows open for over a week now, day and night.  It's the best!  As much as I love this mild autumn weather, I'm getting anxious for snow.  Not in the valley; not on my driveway; and I am hating the thought of the cold, but I'm anxious to go snowshoeing.  It sounds like so much fun, and will be, in a few more months.  Until then, I'll enjoy the fall and anticipate strapping on my snowshoes!