Happy Halloween!

Hey Christmas, it's still Halloween.  Step off.

Oh, Sandy Baaaaybee

Someday...when high-yi-yi school is done.  Someday, somehow, our two worlds will be one.  Love has flown.  All alone, I sit.  I wonder...why-yi-yi, oh why...you left me?  Oh, Sandy.

Phew.  I really needed to get that out of my system.  Eric does not appreciate it when I belt out Grease medleys around the house...especially when he's trapped here.  Madeline doesn't mind my singing, but the reference is lost on her.

Exactly a year ago we were sitting around our house by candlelight thanks to the Blizzard that Ruined Halloween.  I must say, it's a little unnerving to be getting such wild weather two Octobers in a row.

What gives Mother Nature?  Hot flashes?  Confused by John Travolta's sexual orientation?  Angry that nobody seems to be taking Global Warming seriously?  Aggravated by Target's early Christmas cheer?  Yeah, me too.  Why don't you sit right down and eat a Snickers?  That always calms me down.

This year, thankfully, we did not lose power during the hurricane.  In fact, we got through Sandy with nothing worse than a few downed twigs and a chip in our siding.  Very lucky!  Our relatives in the New York area woke up to much bigger headaches today.  We're thinking of you guys!  

However, after nearly three days of being cooped up indoors, we are suffering from a slight case of cabin fever.  Madeline ran up and down the aisles of the grocery store this morning like we had taken her to Disney World.   The sun seems to be coming out though, (told you that Snickers would work) so hopefully we can get Madeline outdoors after her nap.

This is how we kept ourselves busy during the storm:

We played in our tee pee.

 I started working on a quilt made out of Madeline's old baby blankets:

 We made some homemade play-dough:

 And made a "man"?

 I drank my weight in coffee:

 We stared our our electronic devices:

 And we topped it off with breakfast at  a local diner this morning to celebrate the end of the storm:

I'm sure we'll be back to business as usual tomorrow, and hopefully Halloween will not be cancelled this year.  I'm looking forward to bringing my little lawn gnome trick-o-treating!

Maddie Bear Says..

Getting Psyched for Halloween!

Hands

Madeline likes to hold my hand.  Not only when we're walking down the street or I'm helping her down stairs, but anytime we're sitting still.  Some kids have a security blanket.  Madeline has my hand.  

She does it so frequently that I don't even notice it anymore.  Madeline tugging at my fingers, twirling my rings in her hands, absently rubbing my palm...it's become a natural function of our everyday lives.  It's like breathing in and out.  

 So every now and again, when I look down to realize that my hand is being firmly grasped between two pudgy, toddler fists, it surprises me.  And the fact that this simple act of being near me brings my daughter so much comfort and security, is the both biggest gift Madeline could give me and the largest reminder of my responsibility to her.  I will always take care of you, little one.  Your life is in my hands.

Tangled Up in Tangled: Toddle Along Tuesday

"Oh!  I see the light!" Madeline suddenly gasped as she stared out the living room window into the darkness.

Eric and I tore ourselves away from the warm glow of our electronic devices to focus our attention on our daughter.

"Now she's here.  At last I see the light!"  Madeline began to sing, still gazing out the window.

She turned to me and smiled, "Da tower!  Rupunzel in da tower, Mumma!  Like dis!" And to illustrate her point, she dramatically rested her cheek upon the crook of her elbow.

 Returning her attention to the moon, she sighed deeply.  "Like Rapunzel.  Rapunzel in da tower," she muttered to herself as she stared out at the moon.

 In the opening scenes of Tangled, a toddler-sized Rapunzel stands just so as she gazes at the floating lights in distance from the window of her tower.  Madeline was pretending to be her.

I was amazed that Madeline had picked up on the subtle details of Rapunzel's body motions from this brief scene of the movie, but I guess I shouldn't really be surprised.  Madeline is Tangled obsessed!

It's my fault, actually.  I was the one who watched it with her the first time, and enjoying the movie myself, we watched it a second and a third time.  And when Easter rolled around last spring, I was the one to make sure the Easter Bunny left us a copy of the DVD buried underneath a pile of chocolate eggs and jelly beans.  I got my daughter hooked.    

Now, Madeline asks to watch it at least once a day.  It's really the only movie that she can sit and pay attention to all the way through.  She sings all the songs.  We bought her a Rapunzel doll for her birthday; she likes to brush her hair.  She laughs aloud about Flynn Ryder and his crazy antics.  She calls every horse we see Maximus.

I've shown her a few other Disney classics: The Little Mermaid, Beauty in the Beast...but nothing has tickled Madeline's fancy as much as Tangled has.  

Thankfully, it's a cute movie, so I haven't minded indulging the habit from time to time.  At this point, I think we've gone about two weeks without watching it.  That might be a new record.

I am slightly worried that the message of the movie seems to be to not listen to your mother because she might be a crazy, controlling hoe-bag in disguise...but it should be several years before Madeline starts to pick up on the subliminal messages at play.

Photo of Rapunzel doll taken by Madeline.

Then again...if she can mimic a ten-second scene perfectly...maybe she's picking up on more than I realized.

Maddie's First...

...Jack O' Lantern!

We didn't carve any pumpkins last year because the of the freak blizzard that ruined Halloween.  And two years ago around this time we were running on very little sleep, so sharp objects were out of the question.  Therefore, I was really excited to pass on the pumpkin-carving tradition to Madeline for the first time this year.  

Unfortunately, she was not as excited as I was.  She was pretty "meh" about the whole experience actually.  Fist, she slept through half of the pumpkin selection process.  When she did wake up, she was more interested in picking up rocks than in the pumpkin patch.

Not impressed.

She couldn't have cared less during the actual carving.  To humor me, she glanced in my general direction a few times, but mostly she just used the opportunity to steal my IPhone and take pictures of the ceiling fan in the kitchen.  About fifty of them...  The rest of the time she played Little People with Eric on the kitchen floor while I hacked away at our pumpkin.

So not impressed, she'd rather just lie on the kitchen floor...

Oh, well.  C'est la vie.  Maybe next year she'll be more interested.

"What you doin'?"  

On the up side, once Jack was finished, she liked him a lot.

As soon as she saw him, she did this funny face that I've been unsuccessfully trying to capture on film ever since.    She sorta wrinkles up her nose like she smells something bad, grins, and half-growls-half-coos at the pumpkin.  I don't know what possesses her to do that every time she looks at it...but it's pretty hilarious.

I ended up not carving our other two pumpkins.  I might tackle the other big one next weekend, and I think I'll just let Madeline paint the smaller one since I know the gal loves to paint.