High Expectations--A Prelude to the Halloween Post

A bedtime conversation between mommy and Ella…
M: Have a good sleep, because we have a big day tomorrow. Tomorrow is Halloween.
E: Hooray- I get to wear my duckie costume!M: That’s right. You get to wear it to school and then to trick or treating.
E: Where is my duckie costume?
M: The feathers and the orange felt for the feet are in the bag in the living room. I am going to make your costume now.
E: How will you make me fly?
M: Well, we’ll put some feathers on your arms and you can flap your wings like you are flying.
E: But I need to really fly.
M: Halloween is all about pretending, Ella. Everyone just puts on costumes to pretend for fun. Caleb will pretend to be a clock, and you’ll pretend to be a duckie.
E: But Caleb is not a real clock. I will be a REAL duckie for Halloween.
M: It’s just going to be a costume with pretend feathers. You’ll look like a duckie, but you’ll still be Ella. So you can’t fly, because Ella can’t fly. Can you fly for real?
E: No.
M: So we’ll just walk around and say, "quack quack, trick or treat," and you can pretend to be a duck but really underneath you’ll be Ella. Right?
E: Right. (long pause) Except for real I will be able to fly.

Uh-oh. J Maybe the yellow feathers glued on to an old tank top won’t cut it after all…And maybe we'll still be really afraid of masks this year.

More on how Halloween goes coming soon

Reading Buddies

Ella has recently taken to reading to Dewey. And surprisingly, he has taken to being read to. He's a patient boy. And she's reading a book about animals. Obviously the dog would enjoy a book about animals.

A Big Bad World

Ella has been going to a new pre-school for about a month. She is the only two-year-old and most of the kids are 3, 4 and 5. She likes it a lot, is perfectly happy when we leave her there, and never comes home sad or troubled by her day.

Today I got a little insight into the daily goings on. We were talking about "school" at dinner and here's how our conversation went:
Me: Do you play with anyone else besides Claire?
E: No.
Me: You don't play with any of the other kids besides Claire?
E: No. And sometimes Claire doesn't want to play with me.
Me: Then what do you do?
E: I play by myself.
Me: Is playing by yourself fun?
E: YES. No...not really.
That just breaks your heart, huh? Because you can't be there for that moment when she ends up alone and before she finds something to do to keep her happy and make that moment fun. The world is big and bad and we are only just beginning the fun. And she comes home happy each day and loves school. So it'll be OK, overprotective dad.

And then, in true form, we finished our conversation with a laugh...
Me: Do you ever play with your teachers?
E: No. They don't play.
Me: What do they do?
E: Some of them sleep and some of then don't. During nap time. But they all rub our backs.

On to the next activity.