Watch this video.

Oh please, watch this video! I know you are busy. Me, too. But my dear friend Claire sent the link over — she’s also the one who showed me how to embed video! — and I was dumbstruck.

So lovely.

I’m a sucker for a title, and “Autumn Story” fits today perfectly. Yesterday summer cracked in half and drenched this city with rain and hail and it might not last but today is pitch-perfect and I broke out the black tights in celebration.

I considered dusting off the cowboy boots, but decided the message was a little too strong for the parent/teacher conferences I have this afternoon. So I’ll be conferencing in patent leather clogs (a bit rebellious, still, I suppose) — apologizing to Annabelle’s teacher for daring to ask which math group she’s in, and having a heart-to-heart with Sophie’s teacher
about
just
what
to
do.

Lately, I can almost feel Sophie’s downward slide in a physical way. Her red folder of Important Papers has been making it home only in her backpack only a couple days a week. Last night, it was in there but her math homework wasn’t. I sighed, then flipped through a large pile of work returned by the teacher — most of the worksheets are blank. Sometimes Sophie’s drawn hearts and love messages to her friend Sarah on the back. Sometimes her name’s on the top, sometimes not. She’s lost.

The other day, Sophie told me that second grade is distracting. I think she meant that she gets distracted in second grade. Sophie’s solution: She thinks she’d do better in Annabelle’s fourth grade class. Probably not the way to solve the problem.

A lot more to discuss than will fit into a 20 minute conference.

That’s my Autumn Story. So I was grateful for someone else’s, particularly one as beautiful as this. Watch it.