Halloweenishness

First, some quotables:

From Henry -

Someone at the church party said to him, "Oh, what a cute little spider you are!" and you would not believe the storm clouds that came over his face and how he adamantly responded, "Me not pidah! Me bug." He says "pidah" in the same tone of voice Mammy told Scarlett she was going to be waiting for Missah Ashley, and he says "bug" in a very low, emphatic tone. So when you look at the pictures, don't even think that he's a spider.

This is not Halloween-related, other than it happened on Halloween, but Henry crawled into bed with us in the wee hours and laid there for the longest time, until I thought he might be asleep again. But then his legs started kicking around and he piped up, "Knock, knock!" and was tapping on my back. It made me laugh, so I said, "Who's there?" really quiet. And he said something like, "Henry, on your back!" and started giggling. That is the first official knock-knock joke at our house. Calvin has never really picked up on them or perpetuated them (yet), which I've been expecting, but Henry somehow has been introduced to the fun world of senseless knock-knocks. Very funny.

And now from Calvin -

He met a little girl named Tia at a company picnic in September and since then mentions her at least three times a week, wondering what she's doing, if she can come over, when we're going to see her again, and so forth. I think it's because she enjoyed digging in the dirt with him. What a girl! Anyway, we had an office get-together Sunday evening and the children all wore their costumes. Calvin was very excited about his, although whisker/nose drawing pencil (aka Mom's eyeliner) broke and he was sure no one would know he was a lion without whiskers and a nose. He pranced around proudly in his costume until his dad said, "I think Tia is here, Cal!" and then he started pulling his costume off and told David, "Take this off! I don't want her to see me like this!" (He did want to put it right back on when she came in dressed as a purple dragon...)

Calvin has this idea that a party is when there are cupcakes. It's very cute - make a dozen cupcakes and voila! instant party. We were having a little get-together last night and he has been dying to make some skeleton cupcakes that we saw in a magazine, so we assembled them together yesterday afternoon. At one point, I was handing him cupcakes one after another so he could put the skeleton heads on and he said, with obvious admiration, "You're like a conveyor belt, Mom!" Yep, that's me - the Code Yellow Conveyor Belt. (Total mystery how the child knows what a conveyor belt is, what it does, and how to say it properly. He's brilliant, that's all. And don't think it doesn't terrify me.)

We have the perfect neighborhood for trick-or-treating, very safe with no through traffic and lots of doors within a close proximity. And nice neighbors. We invited some of our friends (including Tia!) who live in apartment buildings (filled with mostly young single professionals who don't "do" Halloween), and Cal's favorite cousin Lily, so we had quite a little group. And totally perfect weather - temps in the 70s yesterday and a perfectly cool but not cold evening, lots of crunchy autumn leaves. Just beautiful.

So, without further adieu...







Oh, and here are Calvin's cupcakes.



And here are a few of them after we left Henry at the table while we went to say good-bye to some of our guests.



There you have it...Happy Halloween to all and to all a good night.

Happy November!