Halloween

It's halloween. We're going to a neighbour's place for hot apple cider (non-alcoholic for some, stronger for others, sigh ..) and then taking Nina for the English version of trick-or-treating, which I gather is much like ours, only scaled back a lot. And some people think you should only go to households that have said they're ok with accepting visitors. Heck, people, just don't answer the door if it bothers you that much, I say. As a parent, and with a feeling of great betrayal to the child I used to be, I think it's a great idea that they don't collect 1kg of candy here. Nina's got a real witch's costume, which Hannah provided (ah, I'll miss her). I'm going to wear my velvet cloak and some lipstick and go as a witch's mummy.

Anyway, we've got our little witch, but she's asleep, after much tantruming when I wouldn't let her climb into the cotbed HERSELF. She was delaying and delaying and I said that if she didn't climb in I'd lift her in, and then, oh my god, I *followed through* and lifted her in, and the screaming started. She was, quite literally, hopping mad, holding the footboard of the bed and hopping up and down in anger. It was frustrating but hilarious.  The thing is, I've been thinking that I only had to take the bus towel away the one time - now we have no more trouble getting out of the bath ever. And it's the same with the pajamas - there was a week when we had pajama tantrums and now they are gone. So I have high hopes that this will disappear too, but the fact that she is really too big for a bed that's actually a sort of socially-acceptable cage is looming, and its acceptability is diminishing. Hmph. 

Anyway, on to something more positive: Nina likes puns. She has a book, The Snowy Day (which I'm sure many of you know well, or remember vaguely). She sometimes refers to yogurt as "dahin" (basically, pronounced as a nasal version of "day"). So I said "Is it the snowy dahin?" and she thought it was HILARIOUS. She's still chuckling over it. On wednesday when we went to Sainsbury's, she said "hee hee, we're going to SPAINbury!" She also loves it when we open a book, and start saying the text of a different book. She says: "Papa's TEASING me! Tease me again! Again!"