Halloween Night 2007

Here's the summation of the evening! Lots of Halloween fun for everyone! (And, yes, Toto didn't last long in that basket. Hee, hee!)
Earlier, we started a new Halloween tradition. You see, the homes in our neighborhood are so few and far between that it takes forever to get from home to home. Therefore, we find that we're never home to see our own trick-or-treaters. Instead (and so they don't have to walk up our insanely long driveway), we've always put a big bowl of candy in the middle of the driveway. This way we can go Trick-or-Treating as a family, instead of the usual Mamma-goes-out-and-Daddy-answers-the-door type of thing. Well, this year, we made a fancy sign with cloth and acrylic paint. Leia drew a picture on the bottom left corner, and every year Leia Rose and Annie will add another one. Then we'll use the same sign every single year. Fun!

While I was making dinner, Dorothy and Toto watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on our computer (because our DVD player is on the fritz). I think I smell yet another Halloween tradition!

I just love the dichotomy in this picture: Leia Rose carrying the huge basket, Brian carrying the tiny one. : )

This year we went Trick-or-Treating in Southern Village. Houses right next to each other, . . . but boy there were lots of stairs!!! This is the way Trick-or-Treating is supposed to be, though!!! There were hundreds of children milling about in costume. There were haunted houses with fog machines and bones strewn in the yards with scary music playing. There was one particular house that Leia took one look at and, . . . walked right by. Ha!
And there was this one guy dressed as the Grim Reaper sitting with a bowl of candy. Every time someone tried to take one, he'd jump at them. (But he was smart enough not to try that with Leia Rose. But she WAS brave enough to go back to exchange what she got! (I couldn't believe it, . . . this from the kid who is afraid of Yoda!)
Leia Rose was amazingly brave the whole evening. She was the most proud of walking through the "Sams Haunted House" (which honestly wasn't very scary). Leia called it that because she remembered seeing it in Sams last year, and was afraid of it then.

This is what Leia Rose was waiting for, and this was the reason why she secretly kept asking to go home (ha!): the night of chaos & candy eating! This is one of the two nights a year where Mamma lets Leia Rose have all the candy she wants and stay up as late as she wants. Woo hoo!!! In fact, the two sugar-high phrases of the night were as follows: "Look how fast I can run, Mamma!" and "Mamma, look how fast I can hop!" The candy rule this year was thus: only open the candy you are going to eat. (This rule resulted in Leia Rose spitting out/throwing away lots of half-sucked/half-eaten candy. Hey, there's no better rule!!!) Of course, eating the candy was "old hat" for our Leia Rose, . . . . . . But Annie wasn't sure what to do at first, . . .
. . . Until she met her first love: A Now & Later. : ) (A nice, chokeable, Now & Later. *sigh*) Her favorite thing to do the whole night was to take a wrapped candy, put it in her mouth, immediately take it out, and show it to Mamma emphatically. Hence the pictures.
(By the way, in case you're wondering, the pants had to come off and be washed because of an encounter with the acrylic paint on our Halloween sign.)

This whole "look-what-I-have-Mamma!" thing is so precious! It never gets old for me. Never gets old. : )

And Leia Rose and I had another special event tonight! I told her that we could watch something Halloween related tonight, and she chose The Wizard of Oz!!! So we made popcorn, snuggled in front of our big-screen TV, (fast-forwarded the witch parts), and stayed up way too late (for Leia Rose past 11)!!! Yikes!!! Her comment the next day after school? "I was tired today, Mamma." No surprise there. ; )

Artgarden's Halloween Party 2007

Every year Artgarden Montessori school has a wonderful Halloween party for the students, and the parents and siblings are always invited! Here's everyone intently listening to instructions. Just as a little aside though, when Leia Rose got to school late because of her surgery appointment, everyone gathered around in a circle and stared at her, . . . not because of the wig or costume, but because she was wearing makeup: some blush, mascara, and lip stain. Funny! All part of the costume, kids, all part of the costume. : )
And, no, you're not seeing double: there are TWO Dorothies!!! (But there were THREE T-Rexes, . . . so I guess it's good that Leia changed her mind.) The other Dorothy's mom couldn't believe that Leia Rose wore her wig all day. Supposedly, Wilson ditched her wig and her Toto in less than five minutes. (Honestly, I don't think Leia Rose felt like she was really Dorothy without the wig on. I bet that's why she was so intent on wearing it.)

Here's Leia Rose holding up her latest obsession: Wilson's Toto in a Basket. For some reason, Leia Rose was under the impression that Wilson was letting her "have" this item. Not so. Boy were there tears when we had to remove Toto from Leia's grasp, . . . with the insistence that "Isn't your sister a much BETTER Toto?" Answer? "No." Ha!
And as an extended day student this year, Leia Rose got to man one of the games: the ghost dropping game. She was to hand each student three ghosts one at a time. They were supposed to climb a step ladder and drop them into a bowl. Fun!

Even Annie got to have a turn! She dropped the ghosts so nicely! And all three of them almost went in. : )
Mrs. Schnell did a few Halloween rhymes with the children.

And then it was time to listen to a Halloween book on tape.
Here's Hermione (Maddie), Dorothy (Leia Rose), and Tight-Rope Walker (Jessica) receiving their treats from Super Knitter (Mrs. McDowell). : )
Now, you wouldn't know it from these pictures, but Annie wasn't too happy during the whole party. (Lots of tired whining.) Wouldn't you know it, she chose this day stop sleeping until 10. Glad to get her back on schedule, but . . . now she was tired right at the time the party was supposed to start. There were quite a few times when I had to high-tail it to the stairs (the dirty, stairs, by the way) in the foyer to let her crawl and get her wiggles n' whines out.
Declan joined us for a bit out here. Is this the definition of "puppy" love, or what?!? : )

Surgery . . . Again

Quite honestly, there's nothing that makes me more sad than seeing these pictures. I have no idea why I took these. *sigh* My sweet daughter in the waiting room of a surgeon. Oh, our poor little Dorothy. This'll be the second time in her life she has to go into surgery. The first was because she stuck a birdseed into her ear past the point of no return, . . . and this time it's a hernia. As you can tell from this picture, we're really playing it down for her. She feels like it's "old hat" because she's done it before. She's such a trooper!
Anyway, this morning was Halloween morning and, because I wanted to get Leia to school on time, I had her dress in her costume for her appointment with Dr. Von Allmen (a pediatric surgeon) at 8 AM. Well, she was the highlight of the day for many of the hospital staff! There were even people taking pictures (other than me, of course)! : )

When the surgeon came in, there was no doubt in his mind that it was an inguinal hernia. (The diagnosis didn't surprise me because Grandpa was so kind as to already diagnose it for us.) What did surprise me is that Dr. Von Allmen said that he worries more about this type of hernia (one that is fairly small, coming out and going back in all the time) than a hernia that is so large it stays out all the time. He said this type is much more likely to get "twisted" or "pinched" and that's when you have an emergency situation. He also said that, because Leia's a girl, he was concerned that one of the times one of her ovaries could slip out and get "twisted" or "pinched" as well. He also said that it would have to be regular, intravenous anaesthesia this time (because the operation lasts for longer than 15 minutes). Yet another surprising thing: he said that hernias in children were totally different than hernias in adults. While, with an adult, a hernia is a weakness in the abdominal wall, with a child it's that part of the abdominal wall never grew together in the first place. So, most likely, Leia Rose had this hernia already when she was growing inside of me. And supposedly, there's a high probability that she also has one on the other side, so Dr. Van Almond is going to do some laproscopy over to the other side just to be sure. Everyone assured me that kids just bounce right back from this surgery, . . . totally different from when an adult has it. I am happy to say, at least, that I am very confident in the surgeon himself. He seemed wonderful, and had a personal recommendation from Dr. Stephens at that. Meanwhile, Leia Rose was thrilled to get a little doggie from the UNC staff (who, in Leia's mind, quickly surpassed Annie in regards to being Toto).

Silly me, I didn't bring my calendar or my questions. (It's been a hectic October around here.) So we scheduled the surgery for November 19th, . . . we me not realizing that was Thanksgiving week when Artgarden has parent visitation and we would be traveling for the latter half, . . . so the date might be changed. I also need to ask about the recovery time for our little Leia Rose. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to sitting there praying in that horrible waiting room after leaving my child in the company of a scalpel. No time passes slower.

Carving Pumpkins

Leia Rose had a definite image in her imagination about how she wanted pumpkin carving to be today. She wanted to do it with Daddy (and Daddy only). This was very important to her, and I suspect that's because they did it together after Annie was first born. She also really wanted it to be at night, and on our little sidewalk. I guess we made her wishes come true today. : ) I'm finding that, as long as Leia's vision is made real, she is happy no matter what happens within that vision. This is true of all her imaginings, . . . not just pumpkin carving. As for Annie, there were three main things that made her happy during this event: 1. Throwing this little painted pumpkin that the farmers gave us today.
2. Banging the scooping spoon.
3. Reading Happy Halloween, Biscuit! Annie has fallen in love with this book so much, that we decided to carve her pumpkin just like Biscuit's pumpkin. : )
This is the THIRD year in a row that we've used this kitty cat stencil for, . . . guess who's pumpkin. : )

Here's Leia Rose "helping" to carve the pumpkin. Thank God for our pumpkin carving tools! Never, ever try to carve a pumpkin without them!
Got to love that I actually have a piece of pumpkin on my nose! : ) Evidence of the mess!

Annie's Biscuit Pumpkin
Leia's Kitty Cat Pumpkin (Again)

The Bad News about Annie: We have a child who is a truly a bear when she's tired. Annie spent lots of time crawling and crying this evening even though she was warm enough (which I suspect was the problem at the farm yesterday). We have a first-born, of course, who is truly a bear when she's hungry. What a fun combination!

At the Pumpkin Patch

Adoring Sisters

Farmer Waller Had a Farm, E-I-E-I-O

Today was the Artgarden Montessori field trip to Waller Farm. (Which was a perfect opportunity to change the words to "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" to "Farmer Waller Had a Farm," which I did all day for both Annie and Leia Rose. : ) Anyway, this morning, Leia Rose was all about Maddie. Not sure why. They would hug each other and then fall crashing to the floor again and again (which after the fifth time really started to annoy me). Anyway, she came out of the schoolroom insisting that she was riding to the field trip with Maddie. That was not in the plan, and when Leia Rose found that out, she screamed. The mom actually did have an extra seat in the car (which may have been where the idea came from), . . . but I generally never give my children what they want if they behave in that way. Well, in order for my child not to look like a screaming banshee in front of the other parents, I gave in. Lots of my parental faults are in public. *sigh*

I'll just say this first so that I can get to the fun of the day, . . . . Quite honestly, it wasn't my favorite field trip mostly because of the behavior of my children. Leia Rose, as you could see from the beginning, was disrespectful all morning. Why she chooses to act this way mostly in public, I have yet to determine (except that it may have something to do with me paying attention to other parents/children and not Leia Rose 100%). Here she is freezing her buns off on this cold morning listening to Farmer Waller. When I approached her with a coat, guess what, she screamed. I actually had to pick her up and carry her back to the car and tell her that we were going home if she couldn't improve her behavior right now. Not fun. Plus, I MADE her put her coat on. (She was still freezing.) Well, at least Annie was in a good mood, right? Hmmm, that quickly deteriorated as well. She cried a lot this morning, and I ended up giving her a sticky-sticky lollipop to placate her. In hindsight, even though it would have killed my back, I really should have put Annie in the snuggli. Tough to push a stroller around a farm. Still, at least there was lots of signing of farm animals (mostly by me). Now let's get to the positive aspects of the trip . . .
Farmer Waller led us on a tour of his farm. Here we are passing the vegetable fields and the strawberry patch, where he was explaining the tiny plants would lay happily dormant all winter.
Annie enjoyed seeing the chickens more than any other animal today, I think.
And Leia Rose did too (she was still in Maddie mode), but I yelled at her for trying to poke one with a stick. Luckily, this was the end of her misbehavior of the morning.
Look at how Leia Rose is looking so lovingly at James here. Leia Rose was THRILLED that James and Tanielu came for the field trip today with Mamma (Mrs. Apasai) who was Leia's original Montessori assistant teacher last year. She had a new baby named Parker with her, in a sling. It was nice to see them all. It was interesting that Leia Rose no longer associates the two boys with school anymore, however.

A few things Farmer Waller said made me laugh. He was really intent on talking about how the animals are killed. Ha! Leia Rose knows all this already. (She could answer most of his questions on the subject if asked, I'm sure.) It doesn't bother her. But he did continually talk about chickens getting their "heads whacked off" and pigs being "bacon with their tail chopped off" and cows being "beef and hamburger" and goats being "the newest meat industry." Many parents were a bit disturbed. Sorry, but it just made me laugh. It's a farm, for goodness sake. That's what farmers do. : ) And, um, farmers also aren't historically known for their tact, either. ; )
There was also lots of stand-here-while-Farmer-talks-to-you-for-fifteen-minutes type of stuff, which the littlest kids really couldn't handle, and even Leia Rose balked after a while and ran to the pumpkin patch to play "jump over the pumpkins game" with Jessica. They had a blast!
Annie was pretty much beside herself by this time (and sticky with lollipop). But the one thing that would quiet her was exploring Mrs. McDowell's pumpkins. : ) Mrs. McDowell, by the way, said she had stayed up way too late last night completed her latest knitted creation. This fabulous green hat!!! Wow! I'm just really impressed with her work. Okay, Sarah, now I'm going to have to add a hat like that to my list, . . . to match the gloves, . . . that you may or may not make for me. : ) Hey, maybe you could just teach me how to knit? : ) "Give a man a fish, . . . " You know. : )

Now, this is my favorite picture of the day. : ) Annie and Goat regarding each other. : )

As we were exiting (never mind that Annie was quietly crying in the stroller), there was a great turkey-in-the-straw type of picture-taking opportunity. And Brian says I'm ruled by the camera. Ha! (He's absolutely right.) : )