Halloween

Ben just left with the kids to go trick-or-treating.  It's 6 p.m. and we couldn't hold them back any longer!  They were ready shortly after 5.  I stood on the porch and watched them go - my adorable little elephant and my big monarch butterfly.  (That's Monarch with a 'k' sound at the end, not a 'ch' as Rachel keeps saying!)

I watched them walk down the street, Rachel skipping ahead, wings bobbing up and down.  Then I realized that she is spreading her wings, both literally and metaphorically.  She's getting so big so fast.  Lots of someones warned us that this would happen, but we didn't really believe it.  And yet here we are, 6 years after her first Halloween, back in the same neighbourhood.

This is the first year that we haven't been all together for Halloween activities.  For the past two years, we've done Boo at the Zoo in Kansas City on the weekend before Halloween, as well as trick-or-treating during the day at Town Center Plaza.  This year I'm home handing out candy and Ben's off with the girls.

Originally they were going to go until their little buckets were full and then come home.  They just knocked on the door to say that their buckets were full, and could they please have some bigger bags!  I guess they've figured it out after all.  Anna is wearing the handmade elephant costume that I got for Rachel off of Ebay when she was 2.  She also has a matching monarch butterfly costume, but opted for the elephant at the last minute. 

The girls know full well that whatever non-kosher goodies they come home with will be donated somewhere.  I suspect that they'll still have plenty of junk that they'll forget about in a couple of days anyway! 

And for those who are wondering, we talked about Halloween as a family and decided that as long as we donate the non-kosher candy, it's ok to trick-or-treat right now.  We'll re-visit as they get older, but who am I kidding?  Cute kids in costume?  Yeah, we'll do that.

Books!

We went to the library's book sale at the Western fairgrounds today and it looks like Anna will be in the paper on Monday!

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2010/10/23/15804846.html

In other news, I think the above link might actually be clickable!  If so, this is truly a noteworthy moment as I have been unable to figure out how to do this before now, and I sincerely doubt that I'll ever be able to do it again since I have no clue what I did differently this time.

Another literalist

We went to a pumpkin patch near Waterloo today with Ben's cousin Sarah and a friend of mine.  The kids had a great time climbing the hay castle, playing in the park area, riding the "train" (a glorified wagon with a train-like engine at the front), riding ponies, seeing a huge cow up close and of course picking more pumpkins for our porch. 

The people at this farm are clearly geniuses.  They provided sturdy sleds to haul pumpkins back from the patch to the parking lot!  Only Canadians would think of that... hahaha.  The kids both had turns riding on the sled.  Anna rode with the pumpkins and Rachel rode without them.  I that that the weight was probably about the same both times!

When we got home tonight and I was getting ready to change Anna into her pyjamas, I told her that she was the cutest pumpkin in the patch, just like it said on her shirt. "No I'm not!" she answered indignantly.  "Yes, you are!" I responded. "No, I'm not IN the patch anymore!" she retorted back.

So long, Sucky. You and your buddies have definitely served us well.

We've been talking about weaning Anna off of Sucky.  A few months ago we restricted Sucky to naps, bedtime & "visiting" on her bed when needed.

Inspired by a friend's recent success, I decided to suggest to Anna yesterday that maybe she should think about giving Sucky to a friend who recently had a new baby.  I explained that Anna was big now, and Sucky could go to a new baby who needed it more.  (No, we wouldn't really expect a baby to use Anna's well-loved Sucky.  Yes, I feel the need to make that disclaimer clear!)

I told Anna that we'd be visiting these friends sometime within the next month or so (yes, C, it's you!  And no, Baby B does not have to use it or even ever see it, haha.) and that would be a good time to give up Sucky.  She replied that she would like to do it right now.  I was more than a bit taken aback.  To be honest, I was dreading how bedtime would go without Sucky.  Anyone who knows Anna knows Sucky.  Sucky and her predecessors have been with us since the very beginning.  Sucky gave me momentary blissful relief during those 8 months of nursing insanity.  Sucky helped babysitters actually get Anna to sleep for the night.  Sucky could fix all things.  Wait a minute... Sucky was on the verge of attaining idol status!  It was clearly time for Sucky to go.

Anyway, I got out an envelope and we put Sucky in and sealed it.  Anna decorated the envelope and "wrote" the baby's name on it.  I explained that we would "mail" it in our own mailbox since it was too big to drop through the slot.  We had also talked about Anna getting a new toy in exchange for giving up Sucky.

So after Rachel's piano lesson last night, Anna and I began the trek all over town in search of her desire: Duplo Thomas trains/blocks.  Apparently these are only available for exhorbitant prices on amazon.com.  I talked her into getting the Duplo bus and a set of Duplo "learning" blocks with numbers and animals on them.  (It was buy 1 get 1 half-price at Zellers, what can I say?)

When we got home, it was close to 8 p.m. and Anna was clearly exhausted.  She wanted to take her new bus to bed but kept telling us that it couldn't vroom in bed, only on the floor.  Whatever works, kid.  She fell asleep easily in our bed and Ben transferred her to her room later with no issue.  She woke up at 5 a.m.! 

Great, I thought.  That was easy.  Fast forward to tonight.  Anna refused to nap today and was a growly bear by late afternoon.  Since Ben was teaching, the task fell to me to return several times to our room to lie down with Anna.  She finally fell asleep clutching Ducky and her bus, but half woke up crying a bit later.  She went back to sleep quickly, and hopefully the rest of tonight will go more smoothly.

So long, Sucky.  You were a good and faithful friend.

I think you've got the wrong London

We had an email inquiry yesterday for a gig in November.  Skimming the request form, I picked up on the use of the 24-hour clock and thought to myself that I wasn't familiar with the event location.  Then I saw the .za extension on the email and the + sign followed by a string of numbers in the phone number column.  Since the form included a complete grammatically correct sentence with a reasonable request, I didn't think this was spam.

I googled the event location and confirmed that yes, it was for a banking company with offices in the UK and South Africa!  The employee had emailed me from their South Africa branch looking for musicians for an event in London, England.

Once I stopped laughing, I formulated the following response:

"Thanks for your inquiry about music for your event on November 10th.  Unfortunately, you've got the "wrong" London as my group is based in London, Ontario, Canada and I don't think you really want to pay to fly us overseas!"

I did mention that I might be able to find some local contacts for her, although after emailing that, I realized that I probably don't have contact information for any of the musicians I know over in the other London!

Her response this morning cracked me up:

"Oops! Just goes to show, never assume that there can only be one London!  Thanks for the insight, Jane. And yes, you're right - we're from the tip of Africa and cannot afford to fly people to Europe. Although I wouldn't mind doing that (were we able to afford it)."

Too bad, because we are free on the 10th of November.  Heck, we've even got valid passports!

Cello teacher not needed

Ben took Anna upstairs to put her to bed shortly before he was scheduled to teach this evening.  She was cranky and wanted him to stay with her as she was starting out the night in our bed.  He explained that he had to teach.  She didn't care.  He then said that the person coming wouldn't be able to have a cello lesson unless he went downstairs.

"If you stay, the cello would have to teach the lesson by itself!" she exclaimed happily.

Score!

Anna theoretically needed a nap this morning, so Ben and Rachel went to shul without us and we took a walk around the neighbourhood.  A couple of families were having garage sales, so we stopped to check things out.  I almost never find things that we can use at garage sales, but today was definitely a good day to have stopped.  We got a huge box of Lego including windows, doors, 2 dogs, 1 horse, several people and two little boards to build on for $6 and a complete box of Junior Tinkertoy for $3.  I felt bad that I only had a $20 bill, so I told the man just to give me $10 in change. 

When we got home and Anna was happily playing, I looked it up and found that the Tinkertoy goes for $20US at Target and I know that Lego isn't cheap either.  The sets were in great condition and the girls are absolutely thrilled!

The innocence of children

A couple of weeks ago, we were reading the kids a book while they were having a snack.  The book included something about a bris, so Rachel asked us what a bris was.  I told her that it was a circumcision and that only boys have that done.  We explained that she and Anna had naming ceremonies instead.  She then asked what circumcision was, so I told her.  (Ben didn't appear to be ready to volunteer this information too readily!)

She thought about it and then said she was glad that only boys had that done.  I thought the conversation had gone rather well until a moment later...

"Do they have to do it more than once?  Do they keep doing it?" Rachel asked.

As Ben crossed his legs and cringed, I explained that it was a one-time deal, and no, the foreskin does not grow back.  She was relieved to hear that as she thought that it might hurt.

We totally get parent points for not cracking up during this conversation, right?

I find this amusing

Now that I've made this blog private, it asks me to log in every single time I want to post something.  This continues to happen despite my checking the "Remember Me" box when I log in.

I guess I should be pleased that the security features are working. ;)

Fall

Have I mentioned before how much I love the month of October?  Yes, it's started out rainy and cold, but I don't care about that.  October is just awesome.  Crisp, cool air.  No need for air conditioning.  First frost will come soon, and with that, the death of allergies for the winter.  Jeans & hoodie weather is the best kind there is. 

And the kids would expect me to add that October means it's also pumpkin time.  Anna is quite excited about this.  I have yet to break it to her that I don't think the Superstore will sell the little pumpkins with faces painted on them that can be found throughout the store.

Neither kid has asked yet about trick-or-treating or costumes.  I'm curious to see whether or not it will come up.  We have enough stuff in the dress-up bin that I'm sure they could find something to wear, whether we just stay home and hand out candy or go to an event somewhere. 

And of course now we are back to celebrating Thanksgiving in October.  I've somehow roped myself into hosting a large dinner next Sunday evening.  As long as I can get the kids in bed early, that should be just fine. 

So many things to say

I'm impressed that we managed to escape the Jewish holidays with only Anna and I getting minor colds this year.  Usually someone gets sick and it's not pleasant.  This year the only unpleasant aspect of the holidays was trying to fit all the usual hustle and bustle of September in around them!

Anna has turned into a little ham.  She's quite funny and knows it.  A few weeks ago, we were driving home from somewhere and from the backseat we heard, "I want to be a pirate.  Then I could EAT you!"  We have no idea where she got the concept that pirates practise cannibalism.  She also occasionally says, "I'm going to bite you!" but has (thankfully) not followed through with it.  We did have to warn the preschool teachers that she says it though!

We've been checking out a lot of library books lately.  Last week after storytime, I asked Anna if she wanted a Franklin book.  She said that she did, so I picked up "Franklin Says I Love You" without knowing the plot.  It turned out to be a story about Franklin wanting to find a fancy present for his mother's upcoming birthday.  I did not choose this book on purpose, despite what the other members of the family think!

Rachel has been going around trying to pretend that there is some great secrecy and intrigue surrounding my upcoming departure from the 25-34 age demographic.  She has been asking me whether or not I would like certain things for my birthday and I have heard her shouting frantically, "Change the subject!" whenever I enter a room in which she, Ben and Anna are chatting.  It's pretty funny.  Anna just asks me if I want a fancy present, for which I clearly need to thank Paulette Bourgeois, author of the Franklin books.

I said a long time ago that we would gladly take whatever children showed up by the time I was 35 but by then I wanted to be done.  Now that that's only 10 days away, I'm more ambivalent about it than I thought I would be.  Of course, I never expected to find myself dealing with secondary infertility.  I sometimes wonder how it would have gone had we been able to conceive sooner after Rachel was born.  The girls are starting to actually play together more now, and we've seen Rachel really blossom in the role of big sister.  And yes, that role definitely includes plenty of complaining about how Anna is in her way, in her stuff, and not doing things correctly, but it also includes more helpfulness, positive interaction, and genuine concern if Anna is upset about things.

We'll see how things pan out.  I can't imagine wanting to start over again with another baby if it doesn't happen soon, but I've been surprised by other things in our lives so I guess that we'll just have to play the good old wait and see game.