Happy Halloween!
Ever since Raina has been sentient regarding Halloween, she has picked her costume. She was a pink snake, she was a princess, and this year she was a butterfly. She's an advance planner (like her mother, thank goodness!) so she lets her parents know weeks in advance what she'll need for her costume. In early October, Raina settled on her butterfly idea. She and I hashed out what that would look like, and she decided that she needed wings and antenna and that she'd wear a solid colored shirt as the butterfly abdomen. I grabbed thick poster board, sketched out the outline of wings and then set her loose. She chose the pattern for the wings (hearts on one side, circles on the other), the color arrangement (blue and purple accents on a yellow background), and then spent an entire afternoon coloring her costume with markers. We grabbed some pipe cleaners, some beads, and a headband and made her antenna too.
A week or so later she decided her wings needed jewels. Off we traveled to Michael's, in the pursuit of stick-on sparklies and some strong ribbon to hold the wings in place. $5 later, Raina was in stick-on-jewel heaven and she finalized her costume.
The Whompton girls celebrated Halloween twice this week. Raina (and Krystal and Samantha) all dressed up in costume on Friday; Raina participated in a Halloween parade and sang a wonderfully adorable song. When we arrived at school, Raina noticed that very few people had made their own costumes; instead, most people had purchased their costumes. She then noticed how much positive attention she received; many of her friends wanted the process explained and Raina thrilled in saying "I made my costume all by myself!" The same thing happened tonight on our block. Raina exhibited pride at every turn as each set of adults marveled at the effort she (not we) put into her costume. I'm glad she's seeing that effort and creativity are rewarded.
Little Lola was more reticient about costumes. Since Raina was dressing up as a butterfly, Lola felt she should be a butterfly too, and there really was little budging her. She absolutely refused to wear the original costume we picked out, so we audibled to being a Titans fan. (We had purchased a Lola-sized Titans sweatsuit the year before, and we certainly had plenty of extra Titans gear around the house.) She grabbed her little pumpkin bucket and was off!
For the first time in Raina's five years, Raina walked up to each house by herself, rang the doorbell by herself, and needed no coaxing to go to the next house. Lola, in her first true outing, needed one house as an introduction (They're giving me candy? Okay, I'll just keep it in this hand and hold my bucket in the other hand. They're giving me more candy? What am I supposed to do with that?!?) and then she was a trick-or-treat professional. She ran up each driveway, waited patiently for Raina to ring the doorbell, grabbed massive handfuls of candy, put them in her bucket, occasionally said thank you, and always said bye-bye when we left. She "wow!"ed appropriately at the cool decorations and pumpkin carvings and was saddened when the night came to close.
Raina's real wish was to give out candy to trick-or-treaters herself, and I promised her that she could do that until it was bedtime. Our neighborhood doesn't get much traffic and it was 30 minutes past her bedtime when our first set of trick-or-treaters arrived. Beyond excited, she grabbed the candy bucket, politely offered each person his choice of two pieces of candy, and (with a little prompting) remembered to compliment their costumes. She literally was jumping with joy as they left, and she gave me the biggest celebratory hug.
All in all, we had a rather wonderful Halloween. Now on to this week's other holidays: Day of the Dead and Diwali!
A week or so later she decided her wings needed jewels. Off we traveled to Michael's, in the pursuit of stick-on sparklies and some strong ribbon to hold the wings in place. $5 later, Raina was in stick-on-jewel heaven and she finalized her costume.
The Whompton girls celebrated Halloween twice this week. Raina (and Krystal and Samantha) all dressed up in costume on Friday; Raina participated in a Halloween parade and sang a wonderfully adorable song. When we arrived at school, Raina noticed that very few people had made their own costumes; instead, most people had purchased their costumes. She then noticed how much positive attention she received; many of her friends wanted the process explained and Raina thrilled in saying "I made my costume all by myself!" The same thing happened tonight on our block. Raina exhibited pride at every turn as each set of adults marveled at the effort she (not we) put into her costume. I'm glad she's seeing that effort and creativity are rewarded.
Little Lola was more reticient about costumes. Since Raina was dressing up as a butterfly, Lola felt she should be a butterfly too, and there really was little budging her. She absolutely refused to wear the original costume we picked out, so we audibled to being a Titans fan. (We had purchased a Lola-sized Titans sweatsuit the year before, and we certainly had plenty of extra Titans gear around the house.) She grabbed her little pumpkin bucket and was off!
For the first time in Raina's five years, Raina walked up to each house by herself, rang the doorbell by herself, and needed no coaxing to go to the next house. Lola, in her first true outing, needed one house as an introduction (They're giving me candy? Okay, I'll just keep it in this hand and hold my bucket in the other hand. They're giving me more candy? What am I supposed to do with that?!?) and then she was a trick-or-treat professional. She ran up each driveway, waited patiently for Raina to ring the doorbell, grabbed massive handfuls of candy, put them in her bucket, occasionally said thank you, and always said bye-bye when we left. She "wow!"ed appropriately at the cool decorations and pumpkin carvings and was saddened when the night came to close.
Raina's real wish was to give out candy to trick-or-treaters herself, and I promised her that she could do that until it was bedtime. Our neighborhood doesn't get much traffic and it was 30 minutes past her bedtime when our first set of trick-or-treaters arrived. Beyond excited, she grabbed the candy bucket, politely offered each person his choice of two pieces of candy, and (with a little prompting) remembered to compliment their costumes. She literally was jumping with joy as they left, and she gave me the biggest celebratory hug.
All in all, we had a rather wonderful Halloween. Now on to this week's other holidays: Day of the Dead and Diwali!
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