Falling

With fall ending in 3 days, it’s time to look back at the season.

In my family, it’s been an autumn of dramatic change.

The season began with Brother Johnny and sister-in-law Jodi returning from their honeymoon in Europe after a late summer wedding on Vancouver Island.

Brother Mike has a new woman in his life, Janine, and Oliver and I were happy to meet her on our whirlwind visit to Ontario two weeks ago. She’s very nice, and an excellent match for Mike.

And Brother Steve has a new city, Montreal, in his life. Mom and Dad made the drive out to Saskatoon in late October to pick him up, and they drove back from Saskatoon to Ontario at 80 km/h towing a U-Haul trailer behind an ancient Honda Accord. If you’re in Montreal, you can hear Steve reporting for CBC Montreal now.

Meanwhile, here in Charlottetown, Oliver is entering the heart of his “twos” and, at least so far, there’s no evidence of terribleness. There is, however, something new every day. This week he learned how to growl like a bear. Last night, while on the phone to Brother Steve, he learned how to click his tongue. And he now has paroxysms of joy every time Santa Claus is spotted, which mystifies us, but perhaps proves the power of the media to carry cultural viruses (not that Santa is a particularly bad virus to catch). Oliver’s “Santa” sounds more like “Dante,” and he has started to use the word to describe both Santa and me. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not.

Christmas gifts have been arriving all week from across the country (we caught Oliver trying to unwrap them last week and I had to explain to him the concept of “later”). We will be making excellent use of Canada Post this week to send our own parcels winging west.

All in all, a good fall.