Amanda Amanda is a married 30-something with three kids. She previously worked full-time as a clinical social worker in a homeless shelter for young mothers. She earned her masters degree while commuting to school and learned to share parenting and conflicting parenting styles with her husband. Now she is learning to manage her career, marriage, kids, and personal time. Amanda is also a writer, a continuously-trying-to-start-again runner, reader, cook, novice pianist, terrible housekeeper, and amateur juggler. She hates laundry. Contact Amanda by emailing mumblingmommy@mumblingmommy.com.

Autumn or fall, depending on your word preference, is my favorite season.

The air is cool enough to wear a heavy sweater, but you can still get away with sandals and shorts. The kids are back in school and the usual routine is a welcome change from the free-for-all chaos of summer. Our local ice cream stand has my favorite pumpkin custard and, for diehard fans, pumpkin-flavored everything abounds! Fall is cider mills and doughnuts, walking and jumping through crunchy leaf piles, apple picking, and sleeping with the windows open.

I can cook and bake again without worrying about heating up the house. Chili and cornbread are perfect accompaniments to the cooler weather. Kids come home sleepy from long days of school and activities, and shorter days means less fighting about early bedtimes.

It’s not too hot and not too cold, but as Goldilocks would say, “It’s just right!”

During the fall, our heating and cooling systems get a break as the weather is near perfect temperatures. At night, we pull out the extra blankets, just in case.

On top of all this, fall has the best holidays. Halloween and Thanksgiving! Costumes, candy, scary movies, pumpkin pie, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, and turkey for days. Plus, I started a personal tradition of having leftover pie for breakfast the weekend after Thanksgiving. Obviously, I look forward to this all year.

Winter is too cold and dark, spring is too wet and perky, summer is too hot and there’s no routine so the kids go crazy. During fall, everything is as it should be.

Really, New Year’s should be in the fall because that’s when everything resets.

Our favorite television shows are all premiering and sports fans amongst us can revel in football’s return! Hot cocoa once again makes sense with the cooler weather, which is an excuse to pile on the marshmallows. We no longer have to worry about our beach bodies, so we can add some whipped cream, too!

While I used to pride myself on my laid back type B personality, either age or motherhood turned me into a schedule- and routine-loving person. Fall is my season to get everything orderly and in the right groove, setting the tone for the school year. In fall, freshly minted with hope and optimism for the year, clothes are ready the night before school, lunches are prepared for the week on Sundays, and meals are cooked and put in the freezer for busy activity nights. Honestly, this all kind of falls apart near the end of winter.

It’s nice that once a year, I have it all together.

Kids get to see school friends they haven’t’ seen all summer, my friends and I get together to enjoy lazy back-to-school brunches after school drop off, and at night I can relax with new episodes of my favorite shows. This may seem a bit much to those who don’t love fall, but for me, it feels like everything is as it should be and the best treats of the year are finally ready for the taking.

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Category: Fall

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