My cowboy and my monkey trick-or-treating at Baylor

We wore Halloween out this year here at the Smith house. For weeks on end the kids wore their costumes and Eliza Jane practiced trick-or-treating. Around and around the house she went, knocking on my door, saying trick-or-treat and thank you as I ooh and ahh about her monkey suit. I actually tried putting real candy in her bucket a few times, but this was not the right thing. A happy development: pretend candy is just as good as real candy to this 2-year-old.  

Some little kids have imaginary friends, but I really think Liza's "candy" is her substitute. She does a pretty elaborate pantomime with her candy, which seems to be a constant imaginary presence in her little fist. If her tightened fist appears when I need her to do something with her right hand like, say, brush her teeth, I tell her to put her candy down first. She'll open her fist over her drinking cup and put the candy in for safe keeping. Then if I try to put water in the cup before giving it back, she'll say "My CANDY!" We have to be careful not to squish her candy by sitting on it or spill it if it's in a little bucket. It's tricky though...she's the only one who knows that it's there : ) 

I asked her the other day what kind of candy she had there in her fist, and she replied, "Ice cream, and cake, and milk...and candy and pink and purple." So candy = all the good things. 

Trick-or-treating in our neighborhood

It's been such a delight to experience the development of Eliza's imagination. For a while it was all mommy and baby. EVERYTHING could be a mommy and baby: 

big horse and little horse: "mommy! baby!" 

two paint sticks: "I found you, mommy!" 

deflated balloon and half-eaten banana: "At last, baby hippo!" 

The imaginary play has gotten more elaborate of late. Now she hands me a stuffed pig and says, "You be the mommy pig, and I'll be the baby frog" or "I want lamby to talk to me, mama,"  The truth is, I enjoy going in and out of this world for most of the day. But there is a point in the day when she brings me a toy and my eyes glaze over as I panic just a little bit inside: this is my life for the next many years and I cannot escape!  

And Ben is not much help when it comes to making lamby talk. As the kids continue to develop their own interests I am left with just a tinge of nostalgia for the last year in which they played together almost constantly. They still play together quite a bit, but I can see their interests differentiating. While Liza makes up stories with her animals, Ben is studying his lego directions, engrossed in building a plane. While Ben is hunting for snails in the garden, Eliza is making the snails talk to each other. 

Ben always wants Liza around when climbing trees

Maybe I am feeling extra nostalgic this week because Ben took us completely by surprise this week by losing his first tooth--and then the second one just this morning! I really thought we had another year or so on that!

Can't you almost feel the warmth of this blanket right out of the dryer? 

These last pictures are from our trip last weekend to the Dallas Arboretum with grand mommy and grand dad. That place. Wow. Arboretum is a bit of a misnomer for this outdoor adventure garden. The children's garden was truly a wonder. We could have spent all day just in that little corner of the arboretum. 

little bird