Halloween & Birthdays
It seems that late October and early November are always a big blur. That is likely because Steve’s and Katherine’s birthday are almost a week apart, and then there is…Halloween!
Steve’s birthday was a low key event this year, with a dinner at his parents house and then an evening out with the kids. Funny enough, we went to Todai for dinner – and the kids just ate up a storm. Steve held Allison during dessert, pressed on her big belly, and she burped! Yes, Allison continues to eat, and Katherine continues to grow!
Following his birthday was four days of Halloween festivities. First we had a potluck party where the kids just had a blast. Then we went to the Trilogy Halloween party – more fun. The following day, Katherine went to the Space Needle with her Bush grandparents to celebrate her birthday in advance. Finally, both kids had parties at their schools the day of Halloween followed by some very chilly trick or treating.
To keep things low key, we decided to take the girls around to half a dozen or so houses in the neighborhood. They activated their little light sticks, grabbed their pumpkins, jumped in the red wagon and we took off. At the first two houses, Allison tried to go in the front door when the neighbors answered (very logical eh?). Then she learned from her sister that she was supposed to stick her hand in a bowl to get candy and put it in her bucket. Finally she learned that most kids in the neighborhood were walking. We ended the evening with Allison tripping over her bucket every few steps, as she insisted on “waaa”lking from house to house. She even cried when we entered our home – knocking on our front door as if to say “we need to go to more houses!”
These Halloween pictures show the girls after trick or treating, investigating their buckets and playing with their grandparents as they waited for others to arrive at our house. When that happened, Katherine and one of us would jump up, Katherine would insist on holding the big bowl of candy and tell the kids “take two pieces please!”
I should also explain their attire and outfits this year. Katherine decided that she and her sister would be Minnie Mouse this year. To that end, I ordered some outfits from Disney.com, and they arrived a couple weeks before Halloween. These outfits sort of worked out for Halloween. It turns out that it was close to freezing that evening. Both girls wore long underwear (hence the pink shirts); Allison wore a full body Hanna pink fleece under her Minnie outfit. Katherine wore pants and her shirt under her dress, and her winter coat over it. So, it really wasn’t clear what they were, but they had a great time nonetheless.”
No sooner had we recovered (sort of) from Halloween and Katherine’s birthday party arrived. I decided this year to have it at Emerald City Gymnastics, because it would accommodate a large group of kids and appeal to boys and girls. Katherine’s initial inclination was to invite her entire class – which is virtually impossible unless we went to an inflatable party. So, we scaled it down, with a close group of friends from school attending as well as other friends and cousins.
Aside from one injury, the kids had a great time tumbling, jumping and burning energy. Within 90 minutes, they had a fun workout, ate cake and ice cream and ripped open presents. We’re going to try and achieve some semblance of normalcy tomorrow and get everyone ready for school on Monday.
Allison’s Developments
I’ve been delinquent in reporting her progress on the site, so let’s see if I can summarize. In short, Allison’s vocabulary has blossomed. We have a list of written words on the fridge that she uses – in total I’d say she has a vocabulary of 50-75 words in English, Mandarin and Spanish. She’s able to clearly communicate what she wants to those who understand her sounds/words and understand her needs/wants. Allison is regularly singing too. We sing many songs together, and she tries to warble along with sounds that mimic the words in the song. Songs include Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABC Alphabet, and several songs from Kindermusik. There is one song that we sing in class that involves dusters and we sing, “dust dust dust.” She loves that song. It’s really safe to say, without explicitly comparing word counts and such, that Allison is just as verbal as her older sister was at 18 months.
Allison has several nicknames: “Danger Girl,” “Miss Panipa,” and “Barnicle Girl.” The first and third are well deserved because she gets into EVERYTHING and likes to cling to me. Katherine calls her the second for no good reason at all. The funny thing is that if this nickname sticks we have no good explanation for it!
What does Allison call Katherine? She calls her “shisher” (sister) and very rarely Katherine. One of her favorite past-times is point to something that belongs to someone in the house like a big shoe and say “Dada!” Allison’s sense of humor is developing nicely – she cracks up at funny songs like one that she learned at Toby School. It goes like this: “I’m stirring and stirring and stirring my brew (x3)” “Tiptoe Tiptoe Tiptoe …. BOO!” We did this over Halloween, and she would scream with laughter. Other funny examples are putting her little foot inside other people’s shoes or boots and making a beeline for the pink booster in the back of the mini-van.
While distraction works, we are a point where we do have to say No to Allison sometimes when she climbs or egregiously tries to take her sister’s stuff. She gets so mad and screams or yells a few times before moving on to something else. The good news is that she recovers pretty quickly (fingers crossed she stays even tempered when she’s older.
