Mr. Pinata Head

Brad attended the Halloween parade and party at Zander's school. Somehow after the festivities, he ended up wearing the pinata as a hat. Somehow the children started referring to him as "Mr. Pinata Head." Somehow after volunteering at both the library and computer lab, the children in the class have come to know me as "wife of Mr. Pinata Head." Nice.

Pridemiliation

Brad here. This new word is best defined with a brief story:

Brad: "So I have a theory about why the....blah...blah...blah.... Well, do you agree with my theory?"

Zander [slightly sarcastic]: "Daddy, you mean your hypothesis."

Brad [trying not to sound too amazed that he knew the difference between a theory and a hypothesis]: "Wow, you're right. Where did you learn that?"

Zander: "The dinosaur website I have been going to."

I was schooled by a 5 year old. I'm so proud!

Shrek and Fiona

Halloween was so last week, I know. But, I thought this too good not to share.

We have these friends who go all out every Halloween. I'm talking about spending weeks creating costumes from scratch and then competing in multiple competitions. They came over to our house before one such competition on Friday night:

Not shown:

• the stilts that Shrek walked on;
• older child who was the dragon; and
• younger child who was the prince.

The Requisite (but Cute!) Halloween Post

Cassandra's costume was made by my sister-in-law Erin. (Same sister-in-law who made this.) The costume has been worn by both my nephews (Ben and Nathan), Zander, cousin Zoe, and now Cassandra.

Here's a short clip of Cass crawling skunking around the office complex where she is in daycare and where Brad works:

Minor in the grand scheme of things, but sticking with me nonetheless

This is so minor in the grand scheme of things, but I don't feel like I'm going to get over it quickly: Cassandra burned her hand yesterday. I was cooking reheating in the kitchen at the time.

A few weeks ago we checked to be sure that the oven door didn't get hot in case she was playing in there during just such an occasion. But, we failed to check the recessed inch between the oven door and the drawer under the oven where little Cassandra chose to stick her hand.

She screamed and I went right over to her, thinking at first that her hand was stuck (and also maybe getting burned). By the time I got her up, I couldn't figure out which hand it was and whether or not she was crying because it had been stuck or because it was burned. So, I ran both under cold water and tried to soothe her. She calmed down pretty quickly, but continued to cry. Two of her tiny, sweet fingers developed blisters soon after -- 2nd degree burns. Do you know how painful those kinds of burns are?!

She is so much more active than Zander was at this age. I've been meaning to write a post about their differences just because it's so interesting. At 10.5 months, Cassandra has crawled up the stairs many times -- Zander didn't even know we had stairs at that age. I know part of this is a function of how different we are with Cassandra, but part of it is also her personality and that she is the 2nd child.

Anyway, as I said, in the grand scheme of things, this burn is nothing. Her fingers will be fine in a few weeks and we will forget about it. Mostly I feel like an idiot letting her crawl around in the kitchen at all and I can't shake how much worse it could have been.

The Mud Pit

As mentioned a million times before, Zander attended an nature-based preschool called Discovery Woods. He still goes there on "early release" Mondays when his elementary school closes at noon(ish). The photos below were taken last Sunday at an expansion site of the preschool while we were attending a family gathering.

Before:

During:

After:

New meaning to the phrase "puddle jumping"

Here is Zander making the most of a rainy Saturday. It started out as puddle jumping and soon became puddle splashing and then developed into puddle get-as-wet-as-I-can-ing.

As I said, this was Saturday. Sunday was the mud pit. Photos tomorrow...