Confession

I have a confession... I am getting sick of summer.

(excuse me while I duck to avoid the newly ripened peaches being thrown at my head...if only virtually).

I know!!! I waited all winter for the long days of August and here I am counting them down. I feel their are some reasons for this poor attitude of a seasonal ingratitude. Primarily my new "worked my butt literally off" figure was able to adorn much more fashionable looks last summer. It was a small bit saddening after my hard work to pack them in a box this year called "I will miss you!" and drag out a box marked boldly and menacingly "MAT CLOTHES". Hmm. Goodbye cute t's hello flowing mu mu's... don't get me wrong I am THRILLED to be pregnant but I was a little discouraged to be in maternity clothes just about ten minutes into said pregnancy.

Secondly I am hot. Even when it is 22 degrees in the coolest summer I can remember I. AM. HOT. It must have something to do with the whole two people in one body thing.

Finally I do love the fall. I really love the harvest fruit and vegetables, apples and turnip and those mini squash that invoke in me a love of the root vegetables (an ode to the place of my birth perhaps? I understand you can take a newf out of the rock but you can't take the rock out of the newf...).

I generally start neglecting my summer flowers by now so they will die in time for Mums from the market. I love the orange and burgundy of these fall flowers, depressing as it is watching them take their final frost before the snow finally hits. I love apple pie and pumpkin everything! I love Halloween and my little boy who will be overjoyed at the ritual this year. I love thanksgiving and stuffing. Oh how I love stuffing(Can stuffing alone be one's favorite food?). I enjoy the ritual of the pumpkin patch and the apple orchard. I love putting on a sweater in the evening and the crisp smell of leaves burning somewhere down the street. I can't help but anticipate the first morning I put on jeans (albeit the elastic waist kind...not the size 8's I so proudly zipped up last year...) and put Ben in socks with shoes, taking one last look at his sandal tan. I love getting the duvet out and fluffing it over our bed for those crisp nights in October where you just never know.

And the trees. Oh the trees! The first morning I look out the back door to the forest behind and see that hint of red is a filling one for me. In the days and weeks to come that red will spread and explode into Autumn wonderment. Of course it never lasts long enough. But then it wouldn't be anything special would it? I have to say I don't mind covering up the BBQ finally for the next few months and replacing it with a crock pot permanently affixed to the fall counter top in readiness for soups and stews.

I have enjoyed my summer with Ben. We have played hard and got dirty. We have visited every park in the city and have become splash park aficionado's. We have walked the stroller out and eaten our share of Vita Mix sorbet. I am ready to settle down now...ready for a slower pace and shorter day. I am ready to wear socks again.

In the last days of Autumn when the final leaves are clinging to branches fighting a swirling wind and the deck is baron of patio furniture tucked away in the shed we can curl up in front of the fire, sip apple cider and remember the summer that went too fast and the long winter that looms ahead. I will curse my past self then for writing what I do now, but since I have the taste of stuffing in my head and I have no regrets!