Philly Is The Place To Be On Halloween

My favorite month has arrived. Not only do I have my BIRTHDAY and Thanksgiving to look forward to, but my parents are coming to visit! Two weeks and one day until the party begins--I can’t wait!

Josh survived his first round of finals. His last exam was Wednesday evening. Thursday morning he started his new classes. Friday he was involved in putting on the Energy Conference at Wharton. Tomorrow he has a finance mid-term. Honestly, who comes up with these schedules!

On Friday night we were supposed to take the girls to our babysitting co-op, but when Josh walked in the door the girls were so excited to see him that I couldn’t bear to take them anywhere. Jane sits on him and says “rmm rmm” which means she wants to play motorcycle. Then it is “gin, gin rmm gin.” Kate was going a million miles an hour trying to show her Dad a week’s worth of art projects, tell him all her stories, and play five different games all at once. I hadn’t realized how much they were missing their Dad until I saw their reaction when he walked in and they were actually still awake.

We had a great Halloween. Kate and I got up yesterday and started the day off by carving our pumpkin. Kate was not too thrilled with the “guts” so I had to do all the dirty work, but she sat there watching me the whole time. When it was time to carve the face I drew some options on a paper and she told me exactly how it should look. We must make a pretty good team because it turned out to be a great jack-o-lantern. I tried to name it Jack, but she insisted we call it Grace McKenna.

Halloween is the perfect holiday for row home living in Philly. All the neighbors come out on their front steps with their bowls of candy and the kids walk from house to house and trick-or-treat. We took the girls down one side of our street and up the other. Then we sat out on our porch by our pumpkin passing out candy and talking to the neighbors while the girls blew bubbles. I don’t think Halloween could have been any better.

While driving in the car one day this week Kate started repeating “Mom, I want to do witchitstans.” Her requests were getting gradually more emphatic until they were verging on hysteric. My mind was racing trying to figure out what she was talking about. Finally I resorted to 20 questions: “Is it an animal?,” “Is it a place?,” “Is it a person?.” “No, like mommy school witchitstans!,” she ever so patiently explained. Then it suddenly clicked. She wasn’t talking about witches she was talking about the pledge of allegiance--for which it stands. We do that as part of our circle time in mommy school. We repeated the pledge together a few times. I narrowly escaped a crisis with that one.

Jane decided one day this week that it was time to start talking. She now repeats everything you say, or at least tries her best. Before it was a few words here and there: peaches, happy, shoes. Now she sings, counts to three, and tries to say anything she hears. Who told these girls it was okay to grow up?

Well, happy November everyone. I hope you are looking forward to it as much as I am!