Halloween

This year Angie is Jojo from Jojo's Circus. She is completely enamoured with the costume. She wore it to Gymboree Music last week and spent a lot of time admiring her reflection in the window. She is a wonderful Jojo by the way.

Today she took a late nap and woke up shortly before trick or treating began in our neighborhood. Our first trick or treaters were an older couple (okay our age) with trick or treat doggies. Angie was initially frightened by the man's make-up. She saw the dogs as he left and kept calling for them to return.

So we asked if she wanted to wear her costume and she really liked that idea. We started to put slippers on her feet and she found that less than thrilling. She decided shoes and socks were okay though.

The second trick or treater was a girl dressed as a devil. Angie was again a little frightened until the girl said, "Happy Halloween!" Angie rushed forward, "It's a kid!"

She and Chas walked around the block while I apparently gave out too much candy. It was an adorable sight: Chas and Angie walking away from the house, flashlight in hand as they strolled down our very dark street. My thoughts were: "Oh that is so sweet. It is really dark out there. Boy am I glad Jojo wears a bright yellow shirt."

Chas reported that she had a wonderful time and did see the dogs again, still from a distance as they were across the street. Since Angie doesn't really like candy, they didn't trick or treat. Instead, Angie just enjoyed the decorations and the kids in costumes.

Chas is unwilling to go out and get more candy and is currently in charge of doling out the candy. Angie is still in costume and is walking around the study saying, "Happy Halloween Mommy. Do you want to try a trick or treat pretzel?"

Definitely a nice night.

Sensible girl

I am ill. Angie gave me some sort of illness and I am not well. Whenever I get a cold, I always pull out the tried and true Mentholatum so that I can breathe.

Tonight, Angie accidentally got some Mentholatum on her hands and busily tried to wipe it off. I said something like, "Angie do you have some goopy goop on your hand?"

Pause.

"No Mommmy. Fingers."

Signs of intelligence.

Angie has always had a slightly larger head than you might expect for one so small. She doesn't look disproportionate, it's just that her hat size is generally larger than her clothing size. Chas points out that she gets that trait from me, since I actually have a larger hat size than he does. I'm fine with that comparison, I just remind him that this means we have more brains than he does.

She has a Jojo costume for Halloween. We bought it at the Disney store and it is perfect. It has a little beret and the pants and top are one piece. The outfit is just a little bit too long. The beret, however, would not stay on her head. Disney overstuffed the beret and it simply will not stay in place. I tried using barettes to keep it on her head but no luck. Chas tried cutting the elastic but that didn't help.

We finally identified the stuffing as the culprit, in addition to her sizeable noggin. Tonight I removed the stuffing and asked Chas to measure her head while she was taking her bath so that I could determine if any other structural changes needed to be made to the beret.

He measured it and was stunned. My husband does not have a "stunned silence" mode by the way. He immediately started saying things like, "That's impossible. I must have measured her wrong. Let me try again."

In the end, he measured her head at least three times, and his own head twice. For fun, I measured mine too.

The results?

The circumference of Angie's head is 20 inches
Chas's head is 21 1/2 inches
Mine is 22 1/2

So she definitely gets it from me.

I told Chas he simply has a freakishly small head.

The other good news is that the beret will be fine. It is roughly twenty inches in circumference too.

Letting off her self-esteem

Angie is running through the house, in a towel, singing, "It's good to be me! It's good to be me! It's good to be me, me ME!"

Things you hear...

Angie is not feeling well and has this sad little coughs. She woke up and was sitting with me in the computer room when I noticed she looked a little parched. I asked her if she wanted water, to which she replied, "yuck."

I asked if she wanted an orange, which received a "yeah yeah yeah." Then she ran to Chas and asked for an orange.

Chas pulled the oranges out of the refrigerator and above the sound of Angie's coughs, I hear him say, "Angie, do you want Valencia or Navel?"

The silence for a moment was deafening.

Angie then spoke in the tone of a very patient parent providing important instructions to a child, "No I want an Orange Daddy."