Learning at home

The Eiffel Tower in our
basement! After this, Elise
saw Eiffel Towers all over
town, especially when any
radio towers were in the
vicinity. Also, one of the
good things about
homeschooling is that you can do
it in your swimsuit or your
nightgown.

Although not so much around here, a lot of people out there think that homeschooling is a strange concept. What? Learn at home? I thought that was where you watch television! You know, like Dora! It's educational! They're learning! At home! Oh, I get it.

This is not us.

Others think they would spend the entire day trying to force spelling and subtraction on their kids and generally making the whole house miserable.

This is also not us (most of the time).

Still others can't imagine spending that much time with their kiddos, and their kids spending that much time with their siblings, and believe that everyone in the house would suffer if such a thing occurred.

This is definitely not us.

Homeschooling, for us, is a grand combination of spending lots of time together, doing cool projects and activities, studying what we want (sometimes) and, oh yes, worksheets. We also enjoy sleeping in when we need to (those of us who are allowed to, anyway), participating in extra extra-curriculers since we're not too overbooked, and visiting the library several times a week, it seems.

Many people ask how its going, so here goes:

Kalina's first day of
Kindergarten, which soon
became Kindergarten/1st
grade.

August
We began the day the neighbor kids went back to school, because the kids were officially bored and squirrely from summer break. It was clearly time to do something. On our first day, I had all kinds of wonderful systems in place: systems for helping the girls keep track of the schoolwork and house work (even for Elise--we didn't want her to feel left out when it came to cleaning the sink!), systems for helping me keep track of assignments, systems for storing the stacks of books. I spent a lot of time managing the systems, a lot of time explaining to Kalina why we were doing what we were doing, and the rest of the time leading Kalina and sometimes Elise through various activities. We'd started with fun stuff: studying the book Madeline with help from a simple curriculum perfect for the girls' ages.

We learned about France, health, number pairs, art and much more. We read a lot of fun books while the baby napped. Yay, homeschooling! Look, I'm doing it! By the second week, we introduced some regular math activities, and began Language Arts. It got less fun.

Elise's first day of actual
preschool (not homeschool).

September
My nicely set up systems started to fall into "occasional" use, as they were hard to stick to (babies tend to throw a wrench in well-laid plans) and were not always convenient enough. I was disappointed, but not surprised: I am less organized than I look. I was glad I had purchased the system supplies from a dollar bin.

We took our first field trip to the St. Louis Arch and its pioneer museum after constructing a covered wagon out of a baby gate and loading it with supplies we would bring. Having forgotten to pack medical supplies and any food other than brownies and ice cream, the girls wouldn't have made it past the neighborhood.

Look, I'm homeschooling! And we're going to learn! I became a bit overzealous, and tried to teach a million things at once. I began to discover that there's a limit to the learning even a bright 6-year-old can do, and tried my best to back off. But it's all so exciting! We covered weather this month, and managed to track daily weather patterns for almost two weeks, including during a tornado warning. We tried to add plenty of activities to our worksheets, as although Kalina learns well from books, she is only 6, and her sister is newly 4. The girls therefore twirled around the family room like tornadoes to music that sounded like rain and thunder.

We happen to have a
large, famous structure
near us: the Arch! We
visited it instead of the
actual Eiffel Tower.

Also, Elise soon became super-annoyed that I was monopolizing the time of her favorite playmate. She spent our school time languishing in the recliner, counting the minutes until Kalina could play again, or snacktime, whichever came first. We all looked forward to preschool days.

October.
By October, we had found some homeschool friends to meet up with somewhat regularly, plus Kalina had joined American Heritage Girls. Preschool activities were in full swing, and Naomi was still perfectly happy taking two naps a day. We learned about Carnival of the Animals (even Naomi pretended to be a lion!) and then attended a Symphony performance, and did a mini-unit on instruments and sound. We learned about maps, and studied trees for a week (who doesn't study trees in October?) before getting a jump start American history to correspond with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, because there's a lot of American history before the pilgrims even at the kindergarten/first grade level. We also made it to several homeschool library programs that were enjoyed by all.

Kalina learning with a number balance.
She learns differently than many people.

November.
We all loved studying pilgrims (and Native Americans, and Christopher Columbus), thanks especially to the help of a couple books Kalina latched onto, plus a certain "pocket" book of folded construction paper that simply made everything more fun. Add to it the Magic Treehouse book about the era, the corresponding children's museum exhibit, and the national holiday, and we enjoyed the month quite a bit

I also realized that some tweaking was in order. The comprehensive Language Arts curriculum that I was so excited about ("I won't even have to think about it, I'll just open the book!") was a bit too comprehensive, such that Kalina was ahead in reading and comprehension, but needed a better introduction to spelling and handwriting (it's a second-grade-feels-like-first-grade course). And our math program, which I was trying to do cheaply without the teacher's guide, was boring and repetitive (probably more my fault than anything else--but we clearly needed something different). We tweaked, and things improved until we got to double-digit subtraction, which is a different story.

A cold, windy, fun trip to Cahokia
Mounds to learn about a really
fascinating Native American culture.

December.
I asked Kalina what she wanted to study leading up to Christmas, thinking we'd keep it simple. She chose Jesus, which I altered a bit into an over-arching study of the Bible, because I can't actually keep anything simple. Plus, if you type in "homeschool" and "Bible," you can find thousands of really cool crafts and activities to teach even about even the minor prophets, and it's all free out of the goodness of peoples' hearts. A song sung by chipmunks helped the girls memorize the books of the New Testament, and they had fun stumbling over the minor prophets in the Old Testament. A little too much fun--Habbakuk became Huckabadoxin, for example. We also visited the nature center to learn about winter animals and about woodpeckers, both of which we really enjoyed.

It was a mostly lovely month, but got a bit busy toward the end, as it did for the entire Christian world. Even the fact that another homeschool family had admitted, "We basically take the month of December off" barely kept me from dragging Kalina to the bus stop a couple days before our Christmas break was planned to start. Instead, we saved the rest of our Jesus materials for Easter and limped through math and language arts.

Our Russia work, including an original
Kandinsky imitation by Kalina, and
some Faberge imitation originals, too.
And a snowman Elise made.

January.
By now, we have curriculum and routines that work for us (although no magical systems), good friends we see regularly, a homeschool gymnastics class that doesn't mess too much with Naomi's nap to look forward to, and enough other programs and activities and such that I can't picture us getting bored anytime soon. Because two weeks off over Christmas were hard to come back from, we spent the first two weeks in January studying Russia and playing with my Russian souvenirs. Next, we'll be embarking on a study of the human body, complete with tons of activities, hardly any worksheets and some life-size human body cutouts--perfect.

Our current system of learning is to practice math, handwriting and language arts daily, and study one other subject for anywhere from a week to a month at a time. It works really well, as we all love diving into a "fun" subject, which is usually motivation enough for Kalina to stay on task with her drudge work (that isn't always drudgery, but often seems like it compared to determining how much oxygen one's lungs can hold). We make regular attempts at art, music (piano lessons help), character development and PE, and make chores, socialization, crafts and playtime priorities as well. And it works!

Elise, by the way, has learned how to either just rest patiently, join in a bit, or do her own thing while we homeschool. These are all important lessons, plus the amount of actual instruction is probably less than 45 minutes throughout the day (the rest is activities that Elise enjoys, or crafts and worksheets that need about 1 minute of explanation). She has become, of her own acclaim, "Supergirl," and "Crafter girl," and in this way has discovered superpowers in self-entertainment and gluing things onto paper. I am also learning to incorporate preschool learning, which Kalina also enjoys.

Amazingly (to me, but probably not to anyone else), Elise is actually getting excited about learning, and has been practicing writing all the letters of the alphabet, plus she practices reading whenever I ask her to and even sometimes requests more reading practice. She's quite good at reading, and was the only one in her preschool class who could read the words I spelled out using alphabet Cheez-Its the other day.

Babies love sunglasses!

Naomi is a different story--literally. By now napping only once a day, and for only a little more than an hour, she is often awake and participating in her own way in the learning. Good thing she loves books! The problem being that the big girls already know that a cow says moo (although they sometimes try to convince Naomi otherwise...), and that the bunny feels soft. So while the big girls are learning that Lake Baikal, in Russia, is the deepest in the world and also home to the world's only freshwater seals, which happen to also be the world's smallest seals, Naomi can usually be found attempting to claim my lap and my reading voice with one of her sweet little stories. Although the toddler and her books are adorable, they don't get to usurp every book I read to her big sisters--the knowledge of which usually leads to great distress, which gives rise to shout-reading, and then often the crumbling of the idyllic story time we'd all been looking forward to as I race toward a good stopping point. Occasionally Naomi does consent to sit on my lap and join in--as long as we stay on any page with a dog on it. Forever. Maybe we should just do a unit on dogs?

I didn't want to get too close
lest I spoil the moment, but
Naomi, wearing a toy chef's
 hat, is learning how to
slice wooden food.

She makes up for it, though. And especially in the cute little way she asks, "Where?" "Naomi, where is your puppy?" we ask her. And she looks around, puts her palms up and squeaks "Beah?" I will probably never be able to capture it on video, but I can't imagine forgetting it.

Naomi also continues to learn words, especially from her big sisters. "Who wants graham crackers for a snack?" I ask. "Me!" says Elise. "Me!" says Kalina. "Me!" says Naomi. She can also say, in baby language, things like raisin, bird, water, bubble, balloon and bath, including sometimes putting two thoughts together, such as when she says "rai," which means raisin, and points to her tray: "Raisin here, now." She meows, woofs and roars very well now. As I mentioned before, Naomi adores books and being read to, even consenting to listen to the entirety of some of her board books in one sitting. She loves finding the animals and making their corresponding noises. I think we could do that all day long, if it weren't for the pesky big sisters getting in the way (Naomi's thoughts, not mine! :) ).

For the sake of posterity, I should also note that Naomi recently had to relearn how to sleep through the night, preferring instead to wake up in the middle, call Matt or I in, and slowly, slowly fall back to sleep with us beside her, preferably standing. Now, she only requires us once, in the 5:00 hour to tell her it's not yet morning. She also likes the door left open, and possibly a nightlight. Whatever it takes, right? I guess Mommy and Daddy still have a lot of learning to do, too.

This Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas!

Naomi not happy that she has
to be in the kid picture without
Mommy, and Elise helping.

In a way, that's all there is to say. It happened! We were there! Yay! But none of our typical Christmas festivities can happen without a North Pole's worth of Christmas effort--and that's what we had this year. Here's the rundown:

Not sure why we dwarf the
poor Christmas tree. It was
small-ish, but so are all of
us.

Matt: Managed to track down the very last non-weird/yellow/busy white pine tree on the lot. It was an easy decision once the tree had been discovered. We like white pines. He also hung the lights (which the girls, for the first time, were a bit disappointed in as they surveyed the huge displays on other houses), made gingerbread with the girls and put up with all of my Christmas music.

Me: Decorated the house, helped the girls sing a few Christmas carols, sent cards, found the "perfect" gifts and pieced together a homeschool unit on Jesus at Kalina's request (if you type in "Bible" and "homeschool" you get enough results to open your own mini-university). I also headed up the frosted Christmas cookie project (I frosted, Elise sprinkled and then ate sprinkles, and Kalina sprinkled the rest), took the bigs to the Nutcracker, read a Christmas story almost every night, headed up a few family charity projects, and adeptly changed the subject when too many questions about Santa were being asked.

A note for Santa ("is rodowf Ledne
the slaey?"), cookies for him and the
Mrs., and carrots for the reindeer.

The true story of Christmas Eve.

Kalina: Wrapped a significant number of presents, wrote her own letter to Santa, set up the nativity scene several different ways (at one point the wise men were visiting a gingerbread house) and read a few Christmas stories as well. Kalina filled our house with the sounds of Jingle Bells and O Come, All Ye Faithful as she memorized them on the piano, and aided in decorating the heck out of our Christmas tree, which was about ready to fall over by the end.

Crafting with Grandma! Elise always has
to stand when she makes any kind of
announcement.

Elise: Queried, "Since Santa is so big and our chimney is so small, how will he fit?" She helped decorate by making a paper chain with me and bringing home some crafts from preschool. Elise was also often "tape girl" as I wrapped, and enjoyed choosing labels and stamping the occasional Christmas card. She sang loud and proud--and occasionally a beat or two ahead of everyone else--in the preschool singalong, a favorite tradition this time of year. And she managed to secure at least one tiny taste-test of every treat that came near our house--often, I imagine, without my knowledge.

Naomi: Didn't pull the tree over or unwrap any early Christmas presents, and woofed or roared at most of the animals in any nativity scene she walked by. She also sat nicely through Christmas Eve service, having succumbed to her Christmas dress and tights (but not the nice shoes). Naomi was happy to offer help unwrapping presents on Christmas Day, and played cutely with everything she opened.

Naomi imagines the
possibilities, made greater by
the fact that she also
received Christmas
goldfish in her stocking.

Christmas day was filled with fun--even a little too full, if you ask Elise (toys are getting cuter and cheaper/freer). She found a Rudolph in her stocking from Santa, and Kalina unwrapped a stuffed bear from the same jolly old elf--amazingly, they had written to Santa asking for these very items! Naomi found no less joy in her two new snack cups and small puppy, which were, from the looks of things, exactly what she would've asked for if she'd been able to verbalize her demands. 

Grandpa Tom constructed a pretty big hit!

The tree held lots of delights as well. As evidenced by all her new accessories, Elise's favorite gift was pop beads, and demonstrated by the fact that despite all the activity, Kalina had all her new sets completed by the time she'd been awake for an hour on the 26th, Legos were a favorite of Kalina. Naomi loved anything that woofed. We video-chatted with Aunt Nancy, during which time  Naomi was delighted to spot Poky once or twice on the screen, and enjoyed a meal with Uncle Tom and Grandpa.

And for the next week, all the girls played happily and nicely and nonstop. It was paradise. And they still are--which is probably the only reason I've been able to complete this blog.

Possibly the best part of Christmas was seeing lots of friends and family. This year, Kalina was extra excited about the aunts and uncles, geocaching with Uncle Tom and trekking through all kinds of rough terrain to find the caches, and hoarding Uncle Chris, Aunt Laura and Uncle Brian in her room as she regaled them with tales of her Lego animals, and a few actual books as well. This left room on Grandma's lap for Elise, who pretty much never left it, basking in the glow that is Grandma. Naomi was certainly not left out, however. Having decided that anyone named "Grandpa" is pretty great, she warmed up to Grandpa Les within a few hours and was soon pulling him all around the house and even allowing him to pick her up. 

Any grandpa will do, as long
as they read me stories.

Staying up till "midnight" New Year's
Eve!

Although we were all pretty tired out after our Christmas, we managed to stay up a little bit late for New Year's Eve with the help of some friends. The kids, who hadn't seen other kids in a week and a half, dressed in pajamas, spread out sleeping bags, microwaved smores and played their hearts out while the grownups tried to whittle down some of the desserts. At 8:30 the living-room clock magically read midnight (how does it do that???), and we loudly cheered in 2015. 

And with everyone's help, it's sure to be another memorable year!

Three very favorite gifts from Matt's
side of the family!

A lovely family dinner and all I can think
about is how darn cute Elise's hair is. :)

Naomi had a lot of fun
and Grandpa Les had a
sore back!

Three generations very intently
enjoying marbles.

The fireplace was so warm that we
wisely decided to bring the presents
to it. Nevertheless, Elise kept her snow
pants on. Naomi doesn't stray far from
Grandpa Les.

The Odegaard/Stoutenborough family
2014!

Forging a path to a geocache!

Naomi the puppy (Or, the Non-Adventure of Hedgie)

Coordinating outfits, all in
the same picture!

Everyone has their thing, and especially 1-year-olds. For Kalina, it was always animals (preferably kittens or cows for the longest time). For Elise, we had the color purple. And now, for Naomi, we have dogs. Also known as woof-woofs and puppies.

What causes this phenomenon of latching on to something so specific at such a young age? It always happens between the ages of 1 and 2, and can make for some very unique second birthday parties.

Should Naomi really even know what a dog is, and what it says? In truth, she's an expert, as she'll gladly show you. She can find any doggy (or near-doggy, such as a goat or bunny) on any page of a book. She remembers which books have the best doggy pictures and will flip to her favorite pages. Naomi frequently mentions that doggies say "woof-woof." She perks up when she hears them outside, and emphatically points them out when we are lucky enough to actually see a real one. She walks around the house tuning into anything that looks like a dog (even a pattern in a pillow), and then points in the general direction of her crib to let us know that she, too, has a couple stuffed doggies. But perhaps most endearing of all, Naomi regularly gets down on all fours and crawls around woofing like a sweet little puppy. Once she pointed at herself, said woof-woof, then crawled around to demonstrate. She has also been known to do this with regards to bears (which kind of look like dogs, to a toddler). Cuteness overload.

Naomi really wanted to feed Poky
a bottle. Her own idea.

Over Thanksgiving, Naomi was particularly thankful to have a real, live dog visiting us! In our house! All the time! A dog to pet whenever she can get a hold of it--so long as the dog didn't get too annoyed and try to slip away unnoticed. In her defense, Naomi was actually a phenomenally gentle petter, something that I think surprised the dog as well as the rest of us.

The pooch in question was Poky, Aunt Nancy's sweet little doggie, and she endured Naomi's (soft) pats and the big sisters' constant willingness to help feed the dog very well. Actually, Poky may have wanted to go along a bit more with the big sisters' helpfulness, but was not allowed due to a recently discovered allergy.

Although Poky is, of course, a star in all our lives, when it comes to her dogs, Naomi is not picky and unafraid. She will toddle quickly up to a large, intimidating one as readily as a small yappy one. Will we have a puppy party for birthday number two, which is fortunately a long way off still? The big sisters are making predictions in that direction.

My two little Native
Americans and their
"Thankful Mayflower."

[As an aside, why do we teach our kids animal noises first? Why not U.S. presidents? (George Washington--white hair! See? Big white hair! Abraham Lincoln. Taallll. Any takers for president flashcards for 1-year-olds?) We fritter away some of their most receptive months burning brain cells on "oink oink" and "mooooo." It's cute--but at what price? Shouldn't Naomi be saying E=MC squared instead of "woof, woof" all the time? I mean, if it's all the same?

A librarian once informed the "babies and books" group that animal noises encourage early literacy. Unfortunately, Naomi doesn't actually speak "Farmyard," or "Jungle," for that matter. But I suppose from "Baaaa...." it's an easy leap to "Baaaach" and from "Mooooo..." to "Moooon." "Oink" still seems irrelevant, but we would hate for piggies to be left out, wouldn't we?]

In fact, I had recently been thinking that Naomi's beloved Hedgie was a bit of a misfit among the stuffed doggie toys Naomi had wrestled away from her big sisters, and the one she desperately covets but has not yet been able to secure--to the extent that Kalina is keeping that particular stuffie on a leash at all times.

Aunt Debbie and Uncle David
visited for Thanksgiving!

And then we had an adventure, or actually an un-adventure, that set me straight. It being close to the end of the calendar year, Matt is using up some of his generously apportioned "use-it-or-lose-it" vacation days to spend some quality holiday time with family, and get a few projects done, too. And so on Friday morning, he accomplished both by taking all three kiddos to Lowe's and Petco in the pouring rain (when you're Matt, those two stores go together: build a cage, but a pet in it, build a bigger cage, repeat--or something like that). In the meantime, I cleaned the girls' rooms reaaallllyyy well just in time for Christmas, a chore that works better without an audience.

The group arrived home, we had lunch and put Naomi down for a nap, at which point we realized that Hedgie was missing. While not as much as a tragedy as missing Pink Bear would be at this point (none of us would sleep), we were concerned. We grilled the big sisters, one of whom had a motive (Naomi had splashed fish water all over her), and learned that most likely Hedgie was lost at Petco. we called. I went out and searched, putting three store employees on the job, too. No luck. Had she been left in the cart? Tossed somewhere obscure in the store? Thrown out of the van just before the door closed? Kalina and I both bemoaned sweet little Hedgie lying wet and dirty in a parking lot somewhere, as I still can't shake the feeling that stuffed animals are alive, and she lives by the idea.

Kalina lost a tooth! On
Thanksgiving! The Tooth
Fairy brought her a $1 coin,
a tiny note and a sweet
tooth-fairy pillow she'd made
herself, because the Tooth
Fairy is just that amazing.

Fortunately, Naomi seemed content with her pups, and the big girls are really, really good at not saying words that are "triggers" for Naomi--things like "strawberries" and "outside." Mum was the word as far as Hedgie was concerned, and if we really needed to, we could refer to it as it's code name of "Bushpig," which Kalina enjoys doing anyway.

So, what to do? Do we hope Naomi will forget about the sweet toy that was her snuggle buddy for so many months? What about the picture displayed in our house of Naomi with Hedgie, that Naomi enjoys pointing to? What about long into the future when Naomi asks, "I really loved that hedgehog puppet. Where is that now?" Or worse, when she has to endure years of therapy as an adult because she was prematurely separated from her special lovey. No, thank you. We must track it down, in any way we can.

As luck would have it, my sister and I had discovered a nearly identical hedgehog puppet out when we were shopping during her visit. I dashed off to the store as fast as holiday parking could carry me. An hour later, I was nearing the front of the checkout line. This shinier, nicer-smelling, softer, slightly pointer-nosed version cost a small fortune, but I reasoned I would keep the tag on until we really needed it so I could return it (after the holidays) if Hedgie #1 turned up.

Elise and Pink Bear got married. This
was their wedding cake, including some
wedding treats that Pink Bear could eat,
so she could celebrate, too. Pink, of
course.

Naomi only seemed to want Hedgie at one point during the day, just before bedtime, at which time Matt explained to her that Hedgie was missing. I'm sure things wouldn't have gone well if I had been the one to break the news, but Naomi took it stoically and consented to go to sleep without it.

The next day Matt again scoured the parking lot and visited Petco, possibly as much to prove himself innocent of letting Hedgie get lost as out of love for his daughter. No Hedgie. Back at home, just as we were going out to get our Christmas tree, the moment we were waiting for actually happened: Elise accidentally said the magic name in front of Naomi. Naomi perked up, pointed, and screwed up her face in preparation for a wail. I knew the time had come: I grabbed Shiny Hedgie and snipped the tags, presenting the animal to Naomi with its characteristic prickle-effect fur first--after all, the nose really was a bit pointy.

Naomi and her Hedgie, together
again, kinda.

And what a reunion! Considering Naomi was actually doing okay up until that point, she sure  was thrilled to have her favorite stuffie back in her arms (and her mouth). And then she took a good look at Hedgie, particularly the pointy-ish nose, and then another look, and another hug, and another look, and fortunately accepted the toy as her own, with lots more hugs and cuddles. So much that we all waited a bit before loading her into the car because we didn't want to interrupt her sweet reunion.

Then, Matt went to put on his hat and found Hedgie #1 tucked safely inside. What?!? A mass of confusion followed as Kalina and I laughed, Elise gleefully tried to stuff Hedgie #1 into Naomi's arms, Naomi looked a bit bewildered ("I knew that nose was too pointy!") and Matt managed to get Hedgie #1 back into the hat and away before Naomi, at her tender young age, could really clue in. Kalina and I both agreed we had tears in our eyes when we realized sweet Hedgie #1 was safe at home.

Naomi fixing herself a snack.

All this begs the question: how in the world did Hedgie make it into Matt's hat? Matt certainly hadn't put it there and even Kalina can't imagine Hedgie alive enough to crawl in by herself. Our next query was directed at Elise--the younger of the two bigs, and the only one who'd had any kind of a motive around the time when Hedgie went missing. But it was not her, she insisted--and she would've admitted even a harsh truth. As Naomi couldn't have reached the hat on the shelf, there was only one person left to ask.

Me: Kalina, did you put Hedgie in the hat?
Kalina, smilling: Yes.

She even gets a bowl and puts
her snack in. All by herself.

An outright confession! But why??? She just bundled Hedgie into the hat--an explanation that makes perfect sense to those of us who get teary-eyed imagining stuffed critters, no matter how un-alive, in wet parking lots. That still left us wondering: why can a 6-year-old suggest to look in Lowe's and Petco, but not in the hat that she put the missing object into? She had simply forgotten. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one.

Since then, I have carefully explained to both big girls why it's very important Naomi never know that she has two Hedgies. Because what if one gets lost again? And because Mommy would go crazy taking care of twin Hedgies in addition to her other fluffy charges.

Meanwhile, Hedgie #1 will enjoy a good bath, and Shiny Hedgie is already on her way to becoming a little less shiny after being mouthed, grimed up during mealtime and dropped on the floor in public places. May we never lose either one again. Everybody is happy, duo-Hedgies included (neither of which has been relegated to wet-parking-lot status), and the whole experience sure did make for a good story, didn't it?

Tricks and treats!

Halloween has come to our house, and brought out the mischief in a couple of little girls. That is okay. It's just one day of the year, right? And in truth, the "tricks" couldn't be much sweeter.

My tricky trio!

I should start by saying that I've never met anyone quite as tuned into treats as my middle child. (She, um, takes after her mommy.) Elise remembers treats for years, and commonly throws up in anticipation when expecting one ("Oh good, now I get Sprite!"). This backfires by delaying the treat until we can be sure she doesn't have a stomach virus, but the occurrence is common enough that we really only put off normal activity for about 15 minutes now.

Elise is soooo tuned into treats, in fact, that I bought a bag of candy corn and am doling them out in pairs once a day per big girl just so I don't have to answer, "Can I have a treat?" a hundred different ways every day. I'm not sure what we'll do when the candy corn runs out, but now we have hoards of Halloween candy so I'm sure we'll muddle through. While Kalina often saves her treats until afternoon, or forgets about them altogether, Elise's are generally gone shortly after breakfast.

Our pumpkins this year were from
Grandpa's garden! We have a unicorn
(Elise), a hedgehog (Naomi) and a
smiley face with hair (Kalina, who
adored playing in punpkin goop!).

For Naomi, of course, a treat is also known as a Ritz cracker or a raspberry, but the fun for the big girls started on Tuesday when all the girls in Elise's ballet class exchanged goodies. Oh, goody. 

As a treat for the parents, the girls were allowed to wear their costumes, and then performed a Halloween dance. I was distinguished as the only parent who was greeted by an exuberant and loud, "Mommy!!! You're here!!! We're going to do a dance for you!!!" upon entering the room with the other parents. Aw!

Elise, before the class and with great excitement: "And all the girls will say, 'Look at the princess! It's princess Sofia!'" Fortunately, it didn't cross the girl's mind that only two girls in class weren't princesses for Halloween (Elise, however, was the only Sofia!). "And then, if they know Sofia's name, but don't know what she looks like, they can just look at me! And if they do know what Sofia looks like, they can still look at me and say look, Sofia is here!" Elise was too distracted by the treats she was receiving to realize no one except her adoring mommy and sisters were watching her--but we really were watching her very adoringly. 

Princess Sofia was soooo
ready for trick-or-treating!

And all this time, Kalina is the patient, indulgent big sister, even though she started asking the tough questions of, "But what about when Elise eats her treats, will I get any?" I assured her everything would be fine, and my trusting Kalina trusted me. 

I was counting on the fact that Elise is usually generous, so after I called her attention to the fact that her big sis didn't bring home a bagful of treats, she kindly shared equally every time she indulged (once a day, plus the two candy corns--this was really adding up!). Elise may have also noticed that Mommy might just allow a tiny bit more "yumming" when sharing is happening at the same time. She has started to attempt to use this to her advantage but the concept does have its limits.

Also:

Elise: Mommy, is popcorn healthy?
Me: Sure, it's pretty healthy.

Elise: Then do you mind if I just have this popcorn ball?
Me: No, Sweetie, you just had your treat!

Elise: but remember, it's healthy.
She copies the earnestness and inflection I use to convince everyone to finish their green beans.

Our sweet butterfly! I love
her resourcefulness!

Poor girl asked so nicely! But the answer was still no. 

Throughout the day, all three took advantage of my promise that they could jump out and scare me as much as they wanted on Halloween. "Boo! Boo! Boo!" I'm hoping it's out of their little systems for a while. On the plus side, we didn't spend a dime on our costumes this year. Yay, us!

Elise also had a Halloween party and costume parade at preschool. Kalina enjoyed spotting and waving to Elise, as did we all. Fortunately, the treats sent home were on the slightly healthier side, and Elise didn't seem to notice as she again shared equally with Kalina. I should also note that Elise made most of our Halloween decorations this year, including a very serious-mouthed ghost and a serious-mouthed monster. They were seriously cute/scary. Thanks, Elise!

But the holiday isn't all about Elise, of course. Sweet Kalina pieced together her costume all by herself, and a lovely one it was. She changed her mind a couple times, but settled on butterfly wings given to her for her birthday, a "pixie pigtail" headband for antenna and pink pants, pink shirt and pink socks for the body of the butterfly. Although we had to cover up the pink shirt with a purple coat, it matched wonderfully. Lisa, her stuffed lamb, also dressed up in a pink fairy outfit.

Naomi wanted her picture
taken by the door, too.

But poor Kalina! Mere hours before trick-or-treating, she spiked a fever and hit the couch. We debated a bit, then perked her up with ibuprofen and took her out to a few house, cautioning her to be careful who she breathed on. 

And Naomi! We snuggled her into a warm bunny costume (Princess Sofia happens to have a pet bunny named Clover, although Naomi would've been a bunny regardless) and gave her a glow stick.  She also insisted on raiding our own candy bowl, and held a Twix bar in her little fist during the entirety of our trick-or-treating. It was shaped funny when we finally pried it away (thankfully, still wrapped!) for her bath.

Naomi wanted a glow stick,
too.

It was a coooollld Halloween, but we managed our usual route. Elise rang the doorbells she could reach, and launched into her joke without hesitation (jokes are an area tradition). Elise had been practicing her joke, "What's a vampire's favorite game? Meatballs!" and delivering it rapid-fire for about 11 1/2 months. Kalina hadn't yet thought of one, and we were too sick to push her, but people get kind of frowny when you don't tell them a joke (weird, right?) so we encouraged her to just use the "panda ghost" joke from last year ("What's a panda ghost's favorite food? Bam--BOO!"). She delivered it perfectly every time and got lots of smiles. 

Naomi's joke, as created by Matt: "What's a bunny's favorite kind of music? Hip-hop!" And he'd bounce Naomi as he said it, which made her smile. Sheer preciousness. Naomi, for her part, never seemed too jealous of the treats, possibly because she had a shiny gold-wrappered treat already clutched in her hot little paw.

Upon arriving home, Elise practically ran into the family room to dump out and sort through her pumpkin full of treats, to which she added the others she'd collected throughout the week. I think I actually heard her complain, "We'll never get through all these treats!" more than once, but I assured her we'd manage.

Naomi's trick: raiding the treat bowl!

And so the tricks were not too tricky, and the treats were very sweet this year. Happy Halloween!