Halloween Pictures

This year, Hallie is all about holidays.  She's aware of the structure of the calendar for the first time (they are studying the days of the week, the months of the year, the seasons, and their respective holidays in her pre-K class at preschool this year and Hallie appears to be following along with the lessons quite nicely).  Hallie loves costumes almost as much as she loves chocolate (plain, nothing mixed into it, please!), so Halloween, the first real holiday of the fall term, is naturally quite attractive to her.  And I cannot help but think that somehow she knows that this was the first holiday that she spent with us at home after being sprung from the NICU on October 10th.

Four years ago, Hallie went as a baby dragon:

 

We chose this costume because Hallie sounded an awful lot like a dragon when she made noise (which was not terribly often, truth be told.  Little did we know that this was one very good indication that her vocal cord was paralyzed).  Not to mention the fact that the costume, which was essentially a little green and purple robe into which we bundled Hallie, was easily compatible with the tubing that went with Hallie's oxygen canister. 

Needless to say, Hallie did not trick-or-treat at all that first year.  She hung out and napped in her stroller while I distributed candy to other kids.  That was activity enough for our not-quite-one-month-adjusted micropreemie who weighed in at about seven pounds, soaking wet.

Four years later, Hallie still loves dragons.  But she didn't want to be one for Halloween.  Instead, like a lot of girls her age, her choice was Tinkerbell.   Hallie had been looking forward to this event for weeks and somehow we managed to keep her dress clean (there was a last minute run in with some chocolate ice cream that fortunately ended well) and her light-up wings from getting bent out of shape.  

Here are a couple of shots of her at the annual school Halloween parade (which, sadly, I had to miss this year since I was teaching on the freakishly warm--with highs in the mid to upper 70s--Thursday afternoon on which it was held):

 

 

Here's a shot of Hallie with some of her school mates:

It was a bit harder to figure out what Lea wanted to be for Halloween.  At least in part this was related to the fact that Lea does not really enjoy donning costumes.  She grooves on trying on other people's shoes and she can get into wearing hats.  She's even eager to dress herself in whatever laundry (clean or dirty) might be awaiting transport down to the washer or up to the bedroom for folding and stashing away.  But costumes are not her thing. 

We did buy her two, and she did end up wearing both.  The first--a fairy butterfly outfit--was more suited to warm conditions, but did not make Lea very happy at all.  This was the best shot of her that we got:

Much more representative of Lea's response to the entire event are these pictures:

Lea was no more thrilled to wear the second costume which we bought her, which was more appropriate to the very cold weather that we had on Halloween proper.

Here's Lea not enjoying being the Cat in the Hat:

Hallie, in contrast, really enjoyed posing with her cousins, Red Devil Hannah and Adam ("Anakin") Skywalker in advance of heading out to collect candy:




Lea perked up a bit when she realized that we'd be heading to the development down the road from where the cousins live in Lea's trusty Radio Flyer wagon:

She also became markedly more enthusiastic when she realized that trick-or-treating involved being given vast quantities of chocolate, of which she is very fond.

Here's a picture of Lea in cousin Sarah's arms.  We are pretty certain that she got extra loot for being so cute:

 

By the end of the evening though, it had gotten seriously cold, and Hallie was shivering in spite of the fact that she was wearing leggings on top of tights and a long sleeve shirt underneath her costume.  She took refuge under the blanket that we had brought with us (on the urging of Aunt Laura, who was smart enough to realize to know how cold it was going to get once the sun went down) and all you could see of her were her light up wings:

The kids were completely tuckered out on the drive home (though they each demanded and ate a bit of their chocolate).   And they're still eating their way through their stash (and will be for a while).

Well, at least it's still not quite Thanksgiving, so perhaps I can be forgiven for posting these pics so belatedly!

Hallie-isms

Hallie is extremely fond of a good metaphor.  Here are just two recent examples:  Papers fluttering in the breeze "look just like leaves on the tree."  The argyles on her socks this morning "look like diamonds; they are just like the kites flying in the sky."  So I suppose that we should not have been surprised when she came out with the following the other night:

Hallie and Sharon were in the bathroom for pre-bedtime hanging out on the potty.  Hallie let out a very loud fart and exclaimed, concerning the constipation that apparently was the underlying cause of this:  "Mommy, there's a traffic jam in my tushie!"  We found this hilarious and quite clever.  And also promise to delete this post from our blog before it can become a source of embarrassment to our poor kiddo. 

***

On an unrelated matter, Hallie apparently has apparently embraced the roles that Sharon and I have carved out for ourselves (by design or by necessity).  The other morning, Hallie was talking about an upcoming visit with friends and family (loosely based on a melding of a real impending outing with an imagined one fashioned after an episode of Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse).  She was describing how she'd be taking a choo-choo train and said, "I'll sit next to Hannah and Adam and right near my friends Eliza and Taylor.  Mommy will be in the diamond car."  I innocently inquired:  "where is Mama going to sit, Hallie."  Hallie pointed to me and stated, emphatically:  "You're staying here Mama.  You'll be in the kitchen, cooking."   I guess she notices that I do all the cooking around here, no?  Given Hallie's relationship to food, however, I am not sure whether this is a compliment or an insult.

***

The outing that we went on, to a local farm/orchard/pumpkin patch, was organized by our friend Anne, mom to the one and only Eliza Grace.

The farm hosted a small array of barnyard animals, a wagon ride around the stable, some toy tractors and John Deere trikes that the kids could toodle around on in the yard, pumpkins to pick and to decorate, and pony rides.  Our kids loved the animals the most and Lea was thrilled to have a chance to ride the horsies.  They also got into painting their pumpkins and listening and dancing to the band.

Halloween has long been one of Hallie's favorite holidays.  I'm not sure if it's the dress-up aspect (she loves clothing adorned with witches, and pumpkins, and ghosts, etc, as well as full-on costumes), the controlled spookiness of it all (Hallie has been talking about goblins and other scary creatures of late), or just the chocolate (the kid does love her chocolate, but only the plain stuff).   Or maybe it's the fact that she came home from the hospital ten days before Halloween and this is the first holiday of the year that she spent with us?  Who knows.  Whatever it is, it's great fun to see her so happy.  And since Hallie's happiness is infectious, we all end up smiling a lot this time of year, too.

Hallie astride the biggest pony at the farm:

Hallie and Lea dancing around and being silly.

Lea taking her turn on the pony.

Me giving Eliza Grace a ride.

 She also rode a pony and looked good doing it.

And of course the kids had fun clamoring on a miniature John Deere tractor.

A great time was had by all.  Unfortunately, Hallie did develop the sniffles by late in the afternoon.  In retrospect, she appears to have been developing a cold all week (hopefully not a result of the flumist.  Now that she had her bout of pneumonias, I do think it's time to return to the conventional flu shot instead).  But she began to seem run down by late in the day yesterday and has gotten worse throughout the day today.  By tonight she was running a fever of close to 101 degrees.  We're hoping that preemptive flovent and albuterol will keep the junk out of her lungs.  Please cross your fingers on this one since we really cannot (or at least do not wish to) return to the cycle of pneumonias that plagued our kiddo for the better part of last winter and spring.

Halloween Season 2009

One of the wonderful things about the fall/winter holiday season is that the holidays fall in such proximity to one another that it prevents those of us bloggers prone to bouts of procrastination from doing so indefinitely. Anyway, that's the motivator for finally getting this post up and running and, in contrast to a couple of the most recent posts, this one is going to be heavy on the pictures and light on the commentary.

Halloween season got off to a roaring start with a visit to the Please Touch Museum for their members-only Halloween event. We went at the gracious invitation of Hallie's friend, Alex, who was extremely excited to have her little buddy with her for the occasion. The museum was packed with kids and, at first, Hallie found the whole thing a bit overwhelming (and overstimulating). But, after a bit of adjustment, Hallie settled right in. She began her visit with a fun carousel ride, which was of course fitting given her costume choice:

Then, after some time at a few of her favorite exhibits, Hallie, Sharon, and Alex and her mom, Sheila took in a puppet show. We weren't quite sure whether Hallie would enjoy the actual show as much as she liked the idea of it, but, as it turns out, she had a splendid time and talked about the puppet show for days. The characters included a pirate, and that's always a good thing. Hallie loves pirates and likes to walk around covering one eye with her hand or a spoon and saying "Ar Matey!" while holding her telescope up to the 'working' eye. I think there may have been a duck involved, too. I'm not sure because I was speed-walking Lea through the museum while she napped. Anyway, the puppet show was grand and then we repaired to the Please Eat cafe where we grabbed a dinner of pizza, apples, and juice boxes. Hallie did eat some, but the highlight of her evening meal was collecting the trash--all of ours and some of other patrons, too--and throwing it out. It was nice that she felt so comfortable walking up to strangers and asking them if she could toss out their garbage.

The next day we paid a visit to the Johnson Farm with Hallie's preschool. I don't know why I thought this--perhaps it was the homeyness of the name?--but I thought we were going to be going to a relatively small working farm with a little pumpkin patch and a tiny petting zoo, all scaled to the size of your average three to five year old. Instead, we got this. I should have known that any locale with a spiffy website and that sells its pies online would be the opposite of homey. The place was buzzing--with people and bees--which makes some great sense the weekend prior to Halloween. The huge hayrides were very full; the pumpkin patch was enormous; and there was a performance area set up that featured locale country acts; 4H dance troupes and the like.

It was also very very hard to find the other members of our group (we were, admittedly, a bit late, as is par for the course with us. The part of Medford, NJ where the farm is located is a great deal further than we thought and we needed to stop and pick up a pizza for Hallie's lunch). We did finally meet up with our fellow YCCAers--a few on the hayride and in the pumpkin patch and more at lunch time.

Anyway, the experience was pretty overwhelming for us adults, but Hallie seemed to have a pretty good time.

Here are the girls on the hayride en route to the pumpkin patch:

Here's Lea in the pumpkin patch:

And Hallie:

Here's Hallie trudging alongside Sharon, who was in search of the perfect pumpkins (more on this later). This took entirely too long and the kids were all a bit antsy. It didn't help that Hallie kept tripping over the pumpkin vines on the ground.

You can get a sense of just how big the pumpkin patch was from this photo.

And here they are on the way back:

After lunch, Hallie was excited about jumping in the bouncy house (she LOVES these):

And she proved just as excited about visiting the animals on the farm. I'm pretty sure, given how many times Hallie returned for large handfuls of corn, that the pigs were quite overfed that day:

She also found the playground area to be pretty grand and had a wonderful time sliding through the PVC piping tunnel that they had set up for these purposes:

When we got home, it became abundantly clear to me that all that time that Sharon had spent in the pumpkin patch assessing the individual merits of each pumpkin really paid off. You see, she was on a mission. A couple of years ago, Aunt Laura had given us pumpkin decorations that she had made when the two oldest cousins, Sarah and Megan, were little. Even though Megan grew up not watching Sesame Street (since Sarah was too old for the show by the time Megan came around) and hence thought that Big Bird was in fact Big Yellow Chicken, she definitely knew who these two guys were:

Hallie had a blast making them. We were very impressed at how much power of concentration and attention she brought to this art project. School is really paying off in this respect. Hallie was very proud of the final project. She was proud to pose the little finger puppets in front of their pumpkin likenesses:

Lea also got in on the action:

I think this is a fitting tribute to Sesame Street on its 40th birthday, don't you?

The next week brought the YCCA Halloween parade (see my Pumpkinhenge post above for more details on this...) and the main event, the big day itself.

We were thrilled because our friends Anne, Eliza Grace, and Bessie (Anne's mom and Eliza's Nana) came down to join in the festivities.

When Eliza decided at the last minute to jettison her Native American garb for that of a ballerina, Hallie followed suit. Soon, our two little dancers and their entourage were ready to hit the neighborhood:

The girls both proved to be very quick adopters of the trick-or-treating ritual:

Here's a nice shot of Eliza and her Nana trick-or-treating:

While collecting candy was definitely fun, what's even greater about Halloween in our neighborhood is that there's this one block where the residents close off the entire street and everyone, regardless of whether they have kids of trick-or-treating age, gets into the holiday spirit. Not only do they give out vast quantities of candy, but they also set up craft tables where kids can decorate their own gourds; color pumpkin or witch or similar cut outs with markers; watch as their balloon animal of choice is blown and twisted; or oversee the production of pom-pom spiders. Our girls had a blast doing all of these things:

The whole group had a grand time and we got home to our place in the nick of time to avoid a major downpour. After a nice visit, our friends headed back to New Jersey.

The next day, Hallie sampled some of her loot. It turns out that, though she doesn't eat much at one sitting, she very much enjoys chocolate (Hershey's bars, Kit Kats, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups all pass muster, even if she takes a few small bites of each before moving on, and Hallie's fairly willing to sample--or at least open--anything that comes in a wrapper that might pass for junk food). She also finds cheese balls (but apparently not cheese puff sticks) quite delicious and has a fondness for bats-and-jacks pretzels. Now if you could only pass off green beans as junk food by giving it a pretty colored paper wrapper...

Anyway, that about sums up our Halloween fortnight!!! But even though the holiday is over, costume-, pretend-play and some candy eating live on (though not much this week, since Hallie's been home sick and not feeling up to eating much; probably it's H1N1 but we'll never really know for sure. Whatever it is, the fever is down and has been gone a whole day now and we've gotten away without any respiratory issues whatsoever, so we're pretty happy right now. Just two days of vomit, likely due to antibiotics to treat a suspected ear infection. So we're now up to 230 days without vomit this year for those of you still counting).