Halloween Preperation

Lucy is very excited about Halloween this year. This Tuesday she asked how many days until trick-or-treating. She has asked again every day since.

Lucy is old enough now that she remembers trick-or-treating last year and is very excited to do it again. She also remembers the compliments she received on her costume last year (Candy Corn Princess) and how fun it was to see other people dressed up.

Of course before any trick-or-treating happens a costume needs to be decided on. As you all know this is a decision that many youth do not take lightly.

Figuring out a costume for Paige is easy. She was a pumpkin last year because that is what we dressed her in. She will be a cupcake this year for the same reason. Although she is too young to care about what she wears she is old enough to get excited about dressing up. It will be fun to watch her giggle and get excited about candy this year.

Lucy's excitement has her pouring over all of the Halloween catalogs we have received in the mail. She loves looking at all the options and often can be heard laughing out loud about some of the costumes. So far we haven't had the heart to tell her that there is a zero percent chance we are ordering the $78 magical mermaid costume that comes with a tiara for $14, a wand for $8 (almost like they are giving it away!?!?!), and sparkly cape for $48. Even if we won the lottery I don't know I could see myself dropping $150 on a outfit for one day.

Lucy was pretty settled on being a cupcake with her sister and having her dad dress up at a baker for the trick-or-treating walk around the neighborhood. Our neighborhood has a traditional of all the kids gathering for a group picture and then the dads taking the kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood while having a couple beers. The cool dads even dress up!

This week Lucy received a Little Red Riding Hood dress for a belated birthday present from her special great Aunt Suzie. Lucy is now undecided about what to be for Haloween. We will certainly keep you posted on what she decides.

While her costume is still unknown, Lucy does have one halloween item fully prepared.

She learned this pumpkin poem from Nona, Lib's mom, when we went for visit a couple weeks ago. Nona did a great job teaching it to Lucy and Lucy is glad to say the poem whenever the topic of Halloween comes up.

As discussed in the previous post, Paige of course have to give the pumpkin poem a try too.

Good luck to you on your costume selection and Halloween preparation.

Anything you can do, I want to do too

Regardless of the angle of the sun or the time of day Lucy always has a shadow. The shadow is her younger sister Paige. Ocassionally Lucy gets frustrated by having a constant follower or observer, but she does very well with it the majority of the time.

The best way to get Paige to eat a banana is to give one to Lucy and have Paige see her eating it. The same is true with getting dressed. Paige is typically content running around the house in just her diaper, until she sees Lucy putting on her daytime clothes.

While eating healthy food and getting dressed are productive examples of this game, there are multiple funny example of this too. When we brush our teeth, Paige uses the toothpaste you can swallow because that is exactly what she does...chews on the brush until she has swallowed all the toothpaste. Lucy knows the traditional routine of brushing, spitting, rinsing, etc. When Paige is done "brushing" her teeth she always insist that we hold her up over the sink so she can "spit". Paige's spit consists of her leaning her head down into the sink and making spitting noises. She aways pops her head back up with a look of accomplishment.

I am optimistic this monkey see, monkey do routine will be beneficial for potty training. Already Paige is asking to sit on the potty after Lucy uses it. So far Paige hasn't gone potty, but she has the rest of the routine mastered. She will sit on the pot, smile, hold her arms up to get down, and then lean over to get wiped. We have been amazed at the detail of her observations and ability to remember routines.

This sword cuts both ways of course. When Lucy is jumping on the couch, running around the house, trying to hang upside down off the swingset, not wanting to share, or not wanting to sit at the table to eat you can bet Paige is trying her best to do the exact same thing.

As much as we appreciate and enjoy when Lucy sets a good example it is important for us to remember she is only four. While being responsible and setting a good example are skills we want Lucy to develop, we don't want her to feel pressure to be perfect all the time.

Observing what is sure to be a lifelong friendship is ultimately a lot of fun. We also know that there may be periods of time in the future that Paige and Lucy might not want to spend as much time together. Until those days come Paige will continue to shadow Lucy and learn life lessons including: how to stand when dad wants to put sunscreen on you, how to plug you nose when you are by the compost pile, and that there is never a bad day to rock a birthday party hat.

Getting back on pace...hopefully

Yesterday I ran my first marathon. I am proud of my accomplishment and plan to blog about it more in the near future. Today my legs are sore. My fingers are not sore, so I am turning my focus to another goal: 100 blog posts this year.

While I trained and ran the marathon I spent a lot of time looking at splits and calculated my pace. For example, if I ran a 8:30 mile I would often think about how long a marathon would take at that pace. Through the running and pace analysis I was able to put together a reasonable plan to complete the race. Regarding the goal of completing 100 blog posts this year I did not make a plan and it shows.

So far this year I have completed 16 posts. My last post was July 25th. I have completed 3 posts since June 1st. This is the equivalent of crawling the first 2 miles of a marathon and expecting to finish at a reasonable time. To complete the goal of 100 posts in a year I should have posted 8 or 9 times per month. I am way, way off pace.

I have 89 days to complete 84 posts. In an unrelated story, there are only 82 more shopping days until Christmas!?!?! After crawling the first two miles of th 100 blog posts marathon I now need to stand up and sprint the last 24.2 miles. This is basically impossible, but as a poster in most elementary and middle schools across the country reads, "If you shoot for the moon and miss, you can still land among the stars!"

Before I click "publish post" tonight and get the ball rolling on posting spree from here until 12/31/11 (My family won't mind if I am posting during Thanksgiving dinner will they?), I want to apologize for a couple things. First, sorry about my over two month blog break. Thanks for sticking with me.

Second, sorry for posting probably my 3rd or 4th post about apologizing for taking long blogging breaks. Who wants to read a blog about a guy apologizing for not blogging all the time?!?!?

Finally, sorry in advance if you get sick of hearing from me over the next three months. My advice if you get sick of me would be to go get some Christmas shopping done or go for a run!