Halloween Eve in downtown Putnam

Beatrice clapped and waved as 1/2 my school paraded down the halls with their handmade masks today. She also had her first taste of a KitKat, as well as "dirt pudding" and survived. This evening she donned her pumpkin outfit and we headed out into the throngs of trick or treaters on Main Street here in town, when all the local businesses hand out candy for a couple of hours. There was an insane number of families but we felt really proud of our town. The weather was beautiful, Halloween music was blaring, and everyone was having a great time. Believe it or not we only saw one other pumpkin! Beatrice took it all in stride and had fun using her boxes of DOTS as rattles for most of the night. The only treat she was interested in eating was a fortune cookie from our neighbor's restaurant, China Star. She had the most fun hanging out at the Victoria Station patio with cousin Anne-Helene. Tomorrow we'll continue the tradition that my mother did with me: decorate gingersnap cookies with jack-o-lantern faces, then we'll go pumpkin carving at Fulcos and have trick-or-treat/dinner with the Schultzes at Pepere's house in costume number two. I have more Halloween traditions than I ever realized and it is wonderful sharing them in a simple way with my daughter.

Cousins, Part II

Here are Anne-Helene and Arnaud, who have been visiting with their mom, my cousin Aude, from Paris all week, along with their cousins Daniel and Philippe, twin sons of my cousin Ellenore, from Sacramento, CA, and my cousin Marie's daughter Angela, from CT.

More photos from yesterday

My Mongolian Gnome

It is a beautiful New England fall day and Beatrice and I had quite a busy one. Sometimes I think I am just stringing her along through the day. I feel that way when we do errands and I do chores around the house, and other adult things that Beatrice goes along with. But she is just as content sitting in a shopping cart as she is sitting in her club house. She finds wonder in each experience she has. I admire that. I've been trying to enjoy each moment as well but my mind tends to wander into my To-Do List mode. I try to look at Beatrice for support when that happens. She smiles at me like she is saying, "Play here and now!" The here and now is, I guess, all we really have.

Costume Contestants-CAST YOUR VOTE!!!

1. Purple Bumble Bee Butterfly whose wings are heavier than my daughter and she is back-heavy when she walks!

2. Before I put it on her, I called this one "Leopard Prostitute," although I'm amazed at how beautiful it actually looks on her. The settings on the camera were funky, but I like this artsy shot.

3. "Witchy Cat"

4. Pink Butterfly

5. Jack-O-Lantern

Thanks for leaving a comment, even though my mind is made up. I've actually picked two. One for the town's trick-or-treat on Friday and one for a couple of houses on Saturday. Thank you Tita Lucy for all the great hand-me-downs! Two or three of these will probably still fit next year.

Picnic in the Park

Grease WAS the word

Baking soda did the trick and Beatrice's hair is now back to its normal state. She threatened to get into the Vaseline again yesterday and I promptly put it up in a high place, out of reach.

Another milestone snuck up on me with barely a notice. All of a sudden, my daughter can feed herself pretty well with a spoon and fork. She really is amazing. Seems like yesterday I was posting photos of her covered in oatmeal and now, only weeks later, she's pretty competent. Last night she sat at the dining room table and fed herself a bowl of butternut squash soup. It's only because I was too busy tending to my cousins who arrived from Paris yesterday to notice that it was "too thin" for her to feed herself, but lo and behold she did it. This morning she did the same with a bowl of Cheerios. She still switches off with handedness, but she is right-handed more of the time.

It's a beautiful day and we are getting together at Roseland Park with three of my cousins and their kids. We will have a 10-year old, a 6 year-old, a 3-year old, twin almost-3 years olds, and Beatrice, and hopefully Truman and Hank will show up too. Will post photos of the day later on.

Product

Well, it looks like the baking soda plan is on the agenda for tonight's bath/shampoo. SOME of the Vaseline came out, but not nearly all of it. The great news is I had no tangles to comb out. B's hair is still pretty much pasted to her head, so it made putting pigtails in really easy. Here she is in the studio playing with all sorts of things she shouldn't be playing with so I can get this post written. I just checked the weather today and 75 degrees is headed our way. I'll take it!

Mozart?

Or Beatrice at age 75? You be the judge. Here's what happens when our curious daughter smears half a jar of Vaseline into her hair this morning, after her daddy can't get it out despite a thorough shampooing, and when mama googles a cure. One possible solution (doesn't always work and we won't know until morning, because her hair was still wet when she went to sleep) is to comb cornstarch through her hair and then shampoo. If that doesn't work, we're off to plan B: a baking soda shampoo.

By the way, just look at that hair. Talk about cranking up some volume! It is amazingly gorgeous and full and getting thicker by the day. It takes about four rinses each night to get all the soap out (and even more when coated with petroleum jelly!!!!) Beatrice's hair was the very first thing Anthony and I noticed in her referral photo, and it was the reason we identified her immediately in the room full of babies the day we first saw her in real life. Her "whale spout" or "fountain top," or "pineapple" is her signature look, but she looks so cute and more toddler-ish with her pigtails. Anthony calls her "Elvis" each night as he kisses her goodnight while she's sporting her post-bath wet, slicked-back look, and "Paul McCartney" when it's down in the morning completely covering her eyes. She is so patient with me each morning as I comb it and style it for the day. She likes looking in the mirror when I'm done and beams with pride, yet she's equally happy when I come home hours later, after a couple of naps, and it's a rat's nest. I rarely fix it more than once in a day, since, tame or messy, dry or Vaselined, I love every strand of it.

There's No Place Like Home

I couldn't for the life of me add text to the photos below, so I'll just do it as a separate entry. Beatrice has finally busted into a size 3 shoe, and Auntie Mary Jane rewarded her with two new pairs: some pink and faux fur boots, and those pink with orange bow numbers that every girl should own once in her life. They are ridiculously cute on her, and go just perfectly with this sweater jacket that we'd bought years ago for Linden and just got back in a batch of hand-me-downs. It's been nice and warm for the crazy weather we, and much of the country, has been dealing with the past few days. It was in the 30's and 40's and rainy yesterday, with huge wet snowflakes falling at times. None of it stuck to the ground in our town, but places nearby weren't so lucky and even this morning a colleague of mine had to scrape his car for 15 minutes before heading out. At least we know we've won the fight against global warming! Looks like we'll be back to normal tomorrow and the rest of the week though, and 70 degrees is even in the forecast some time later this week.

On another note, Beatrice's cold is still hanging on, though improving each day. She had a few coughing jags and loads of fussiness last night which resulted in me yawning through a very busy day at work and needing an afterschool latte. Work has been unusually stressful lately. You can see from the photos below why late afternoons are my favorite time of day...

Garden Gnome

Halloween Countdown

I cannot believe how many people have inquired about what Beatrice is going to be for Halloween or if we're taking her trick-or-treating. Apparently this holiday is way more important to many folks than I ever imagined, and I've discovered that it is to be ingrained deep in the psyche from very early on. So, after a little debate, yes we are dressing her up and yes she will visit a few house of relatives and yes she will go the to insane madness that is our downtown's trick-or-treat. I found a mask buried deep in the toy chest today. Wish I'd remembered it was there for Tet Trung Thu! I put it on, expecting her to give a "no, no, no," which was her overwhelmingly most frequent response in the Halloween section of Target this week. Instead she smiled widely, touched it, and even let me put it on her. Maybe we'll get a chance to use all four of the costumes we've inherited if she loves dressing up this much!

Show Me Your Teeth!

Beatrice had her first dentist visit today. She was remarkably agreeable to showing off her multiple pearly whites and the hygienist had many seconds to do a look-around. Everything looks just fine. She'll go for an official appointment when she's three years old. Her cold is really out now and it would be abusive to post photos of her today, so I'll post some more from Linden's visit last week. Last December, we got pictures of Beatrice at seven months old that had me in tears. Her eyes were half shut and watery, she had a rash all over her face, and her hair was all over the place. I now understand that she must have had a cold in those pictures. I'm applying Aquaphor several times a day as the wipes of the nose and water from the eyes chaps her skin so quickly. Despite the misery I'm sure she's feeling, she's in a mostly decent mood, is eating well, and doesn't have a fever. Such a trooper.

On another note, today is day #2 of her putting herself to sleep for a morning nap. Anthony gave up on trying to get her to sleep yesterday so he laid her down and within 10-15 minutes she was out. Today I could just see that she wasn't going to sleep, so I asked her if she wanted to lay in her crib. She nodded yes, I gave her a kiss and patted her tummy and told her to have a nice sleep. She fussed mildly for a few minutes, then just sat up and played with her blanket quietly and was sound asleep shortly thereafter. In the past she screamed bloody murder if we tried this. Our social worker assured us she would let us know when she was ready to be alone, and it looks like she was right. Speaking of which, we have our final post-placement meeting with our social worker this afternoon. I'm preparing a pot of pho to share with her, a good choice on this remarkable cold November-like day. I remember so clearly one day when I was so discouraged with what seemed like an endless wait, and Christine told me "before you know it I'll be over here and a little person will be running around from room to room." I don't think I believed her when she said that, yet here we are. So soon.

Cold

Cousins

Eden

Sadie

Cody

Lacie Jeanne

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Linden

Truman

Hank