Happy Halloween!!

This is definitely the most fun Halloween we have had with Odessa. I don't think you can really blame her for the last two years -- she was just too little to be all that excited about traditions. It is a lot more fun though now that she actually kind of "gets it".


We have been talking about how, on Halloween, we get dressed up and go visit people and say "trick-or-treat" and then they give us candy. At the mention of candy, her eyes light up and she says "yay!" (okay, for sure my kid). I am glad that she is not yet at the "why??" age because the strangeness of the holiday would be difficult to explain.


The only problem is that she thinks the phrase "trick-or-treat" is like a secret weapon -- whenever she sees candy she looks up at me and says "trick-or-treat" expectantly. I can almost see her thinking "aha! Now I know the magic word!" Somehow "please" and "thank you" haven't made near the impact on her vocabulary.

Feeding the Ducks, Westmoreland Park, Oct 08

Princess Odessa

This cold, fall weather has made me yearn for hibernation...and cookies. Every day after work I feel like eating dinner and then hanging out at home -- reading or watching a movie. Odessa is not into my indie-drama flicks however. So I decided to rent the Disney movie "Enchanted", hoping that Odessa would enjoy the singing and dancing enough and that she would be okay with hanging out at home for the evening.

"Be careful what you wish for":

Odessa is now obsessed with princesses. I am one of many modern moms who would prefer stronger female heroes for Odessa than Cinderella or Snow White. I had foolishly thought that if we didn't encourage the whole princess obsession, then maybe Odessa would be left ambivalent.

I was wrong. I think that a love for all things sparkly and frilly may be encoded in the genes of many young girls (and some boys).

I hear the phrase "more princess" a lot nowadays. We have Enchanted on DVD and on CD in the car so we can listen to the soundtrack on the way to school in the mornings. Oh joy! It is a little crazy.


The other day I read this post on the Mothering website and found it very interesting, and a little helpful in relieving my princess-obsession encouragement guilt.

http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/childhood/a-little-princess.html

Pumpkin Patch, October 2008

Perfect weather for a day at the pumpkin patch. It was really busy there -- obviously not a novel idea -- but we had a really nice time! Odessa was very into choosing "her" pumpkin (I had to steer her towards the smallish ones), loved the hay ride, and at about a thousand grapes on the car ride home.

Let the new hat season begin!

Odessa, 27 months

Odessa, you are magically, wonderfully, lovably delicious. I have a hard time not wanting to kiss those cheeks all the time. I am constantly amazed by you. This may be the one of the most important parental roles: we all, at some point, have had someone just blown-away by exactly who we are.

I feel like your cognitive development and language have just taken off like a rocket in the last few months or so. You understand and say so much! You get humor (arm in sleeve trick), you know how to use a fake cry to get what you want, or put things behind your back that you don't want us to see. You are very good at communicating what you want and what you don't want ("no, night-night, no!") When you read books, you often see things that I hadn't noticed and often tell me what they are.

I do have to say that I curse Dr. Suess with all the whosits and whatsits and things that you can think. One of your favourite phrases is "what's that?" and you won't stop repeating it until you get a response that meets your satisfaction. Normally that is an easy enough task. But when you read Dr. Suess (over and over and over and over) I don't know what those non-sensical things are and you are not impressed with the repeated response of "I have no idea." Nor does my "thats a whosit, thats a whatsit, thats a thingamajigee" seem to impress you either. Eventually I just attempted to have a serious conversation with you about Dr. Seuss and his imaginative perversion, I mean genious, but it didn't go very well. So, a few books may be disappearing for awhile. You will appreciate this when you have a two-year-old of your own.

This afternoon we layed down for a nap. It was quickly obvious that you were disinterested in sleep. But you had been acting SO tired that I decided to stick with the plan of getting you to go to sleep. I am keeping my eyes closed but sensing that you are moving around. Ever-so-slowly you are getting off the bed. Your feet are barely touching the carpeting when I open my eyes and say "Dessa..." in, you know, that tone. You had a very guilty look on your sweet little face. Ever so sly, so say in your sweet sing-song voice "I love you" and then creep back onto the bed. A few minutes later the whole scenario repeats and this time instead of spouting off your love, you said "shake your body." Maybe that was just to throw me totally off track.

A post is not complete without an update on sleep: I am happy to report that 9 out of 10 times you wake up ZERO times a night. Again, a day that I thought would never arrive. I get better sleep now than I have in YEARS. What is funny too is that this lack of night-awakening happened very much spontaneously no coaching necessary. A couple months back you still woke up regularly through the night and now I put you down for the night and you are officially out till morning. Crazy.

And on that note, good night.

Auntie Kiki and Odessa at the Park

One Lonely Tomato

I think our tomatos were planted too late, so far we only have one small, red fruit to call our own. I think the fact that Odessa is obsessed with picking the green ones doesn't help.