shenanigans

Life with a 2.5-year-old is never boring, I can tell you that much. Here are some recent highlights.

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Please note her tattoo and earrings.

Millie loves dinosaurs right now. This makes me inexplicably happy because, a) it's just really cute, and b) I myself was obsessed with dinosaurs as a child (although not when I was quite this young), so I can relate. So we read a lot of books about dinosaurs, we roar and chase each other around, and for the last few days, Millie starts each morning by telling us what kind of dinosaur we are. She decides this based on what color shirt each person is wearing. So as I carry her into the kitchen, as she's still bleary and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she's inspecting all of our outfits so that she can declare "Daddy green di-saur, Mommy purple di-saur, Millie red di-saur, Lola black di-saur!" If you change clothes later, she will tell you that "you no purple di-saur now, you blue di-saur!" or whatever. It's precious. Also, she's good at colors.

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She started taking ballet lessons this month!

Obviously this picture is in our yard and not during a class, but the cuteness is the same no matter where you are.

There's a studio that goes into local daycares/preschools and offers classes during the day, so that's what we're doing. It's nice because we don't have to give up a Thursday evening or Saturday morning or whatever to do an "extracurricular," but the sad part is that I don't actually get to watch the lessons. They send pictures, though, and Millie is usually happy to demonstrate what she learned that day, and I can definitely tell she's on track to be a professional ballerina. Hahaha. In related news, toddler ballet clothing is unbearably cute and I will be accepting donations to help with my new ballet shopping addiction.

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Not to boast, but the time change has been awesome for us. She sleeps harder and longer than ever before, and now we have actual DAYLIGHT in the evenings so that we can play outside or go on a walk after dinner. Life is infinitely better with that little luxury! This girl loves being outside, so we have had a lot of fun with this mild "winter" and spring!

We dusted off our bikes for a family ride a few weekends ago. We found some goats that were SO adorable. Now I have dreams of being a goat farmer. 

My ancient (seriously, 13 years old) cat Aidan is still hanging around, and he and Millie are the best of frenemies. Warm days mean they have time to antagonize each other. How lovely.

Millie has also had time to devise ways to swing with her baby dolls, which resulted in this heartwarming scene:

Precious, yes?

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This face may look cute and innocent to you, but shortly before I snapped this photo, we'd spent some harrowing and nasty moments digging a PEA out of Millie's nose. Yep. Shoved it (on purpose) right up the ol' nostril! Way to be a toddler, Millie!

It took us several attempts and combinations of tools to find success, but what ended up working was using the Nose Frida (hello, old friend!) to get the pea towards the opening, and then reaching in with tweezers to close the deal. And this only worked while she was sitting/standing up, so that gravity was working WITH us- we initially had her laying down, but the stupid thing kept rolling back as soon as we touched it. I hope you never need to know this strategy, but just in case...there ya go. I don't think that WE will ever need to use it again, because a) we're never having peas again, and b) we put the fear of God blood in Millie by telling her that it is NOT SAFE to have a pea in her nose, and if Mommy and Daddy couldn't get it out, we would have to take her to the hospital and they would cut her nose open with a knife and there would be LOTS OF BLOOD. So maybe we had to exaggerate a little, but I think it worked, because if there's anything she doesn't like, it's blood. And things that are "not safe." Deeming things "not safe" is one of her current methods of (trying) to get out of things she's not interested in doing.

"Time to brush your teeth, Millie!"

"No! Dat not safe!!"

???

"Can you get in your car seat, Mills?"

"No please, Mommy. Dat not safe!"

It is literally the safest thing on the market. Buckle up, cowgirl.

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Speaking of things on the market...

Here's something you need to be buying ASAP.

Reasons You Should Not Buy This Ice Cream:

1. You hate things that are delicious.

2. You don't want to weep with happiness.

3. You are satisfied with a mediocre life.

4. You have a life-threatening pecan, truffle, or fudge allergy. (However, if you just have a normal-level allergy that could be helped with just an epi-pen or a few days in the hospital, it's probably worth the risk.)

That's really all I can think of. Now, some of you may say "hey, that's a Publix-brand ice cream, and I don't live anywhere near a Publix," and to you I say "Delta is ready when you are." Seriously. I'm sure wherever you live is great, but so is the southeast, and WE have Publix and nine months of humidity and heat strokes  summer, so like...get moving.

And in case you were wondering, YES, Millie does approve of this ice cream and also has declared it to be safe, so...the end.

two point five!

My sweet infant baby is a full two and a half years old now! We had her thirty month check-up last week (much to many people's relief, I'm sure, I have personally finally stopped giving her age in terms of months...but apparently our pediatrician hasn't, haha!), so it seems like a good time to update the ol' blog and record the numbers and accomplishments for posterity! Plus...two point five is a really good age in terms of adorableness. So there are a few thousand pictures that are worth sharing with the world, in my opinion.

Aliases: Millie, Nuggie, Mill Mill, Mills, Millsie, Mims, and Mimsie. She calls herself Millie, but pronounces it "MEE-lee," which is obviously beyond adorable. She recognizes that Camilla is also her name, but when she tries to say it it she still puts the 'm' sound first, so it's like "ma-PEE-luh,"...no idea where the 'p' sound comes from, but otherwise I credit the emphasis on the middle syllable (and the "EEE" sound there) on the fact that her Spanish-speaking teachers pronounce her name the Spanish way, cuh-MEE-luh. Probably more than you wanted to know, but I find it all adorable and fascinating.

Also, she knows her (our) last name now and knows to throw it on the end of our names if she really means business. Which means that sometimes I wake from a dead sleep to hear her screaming "ECKUH BAAATES!!!" over the monitor. Adorable slash alarming.

Stats: She weighs in at a solid 32 lb 4 oz (I think that was 80ish percentile) and 35 5/8 inches tall (70ish percentile?). The most traumatizing part of her appointment this time, for me, was that they weighed her on a NORMAL HUMAN SCALE (like the kind you stand on and slide the bars back and forth to get weight...LIKE NOT A BABY SCALE) and took her height standing up, same as they would measure your height. Sad face sad face sad face. I mean, they didn't even prep me for it. They didn't inform me she was suddenly an adult and no longer a baby. It was terrible. But anyway. She's a consistent 3T in clothes and still rocking her size 6 shoes, which I must estimate is like the first percentile, haha. Sometimes if I want to really make myself laugh, I look at her feet and then look at all her other classmates' feet. They are all approximately the same size height-wise, but then ONE kid has teensy little hooves and the other kids all have giant skis, and I'll let you guess which one is my Nuggie.

Big Girl Skills: This section used to be called "eating," but that's hardly worth discussing now. She eats like a normal adult. She isn't picky at all, although she will always choose to eat her FAVORITE things first (generally fruit, quiche, and sausage...so in other words, she's a brunch gal). She even mostly drinks out of regular open cups now. I can't say I miss washing sippy cups, so it's a development I'm okay with!

Most importantly, my girl is potty trained!!! We really dedicated ourselves to the task at Christmas time, when I had quite a few consecutive days off of work, and when she went back to school in January, we were pullup-free (except at nap/bedtime)! She has done really well and rarely has accidents anymore, and honestly she usually stays dry during naps and overnight, too! As promised, we rewarded her with earrings (and ear holes, as she reminds us).

I miss that cloth diaper booty, but dino undies peeking up over her tights are pretty adorable, too. And I don't miss washing diapers. Or changing them. Or hauling around a giant diaper bag. So in conclusion, being potty trained isn't half bad. (The bad part: frantically sprinting across giant stores/other public locations the minute she grabs her crotch and says "POTTY, MAMA!!!" while praying fervently for both a) an open stall, and b) that you won't be calling for a clean-up on aisle 32. I could do without that happening every time we venture into public...)

Other Big Girl Skills include sometimes being legitimately helpful. She knows where the cleaning rags are located and will often go get one and wipe up spills/messes on the floor when she sees them. Last night, she saw me scratching my leg as I was laying on the couch. "What you do, Mommy?" and I told her that my leg just itched because my skin was dry. She disappeared for a moment and returned with the bottle of lotion from her bathroom. She then proceeded to pull up the leg of my pants and put lotion on my leg! "Feel all better, Mommy?" Actually...yes. And also, my heart melted. Can you clean up the puddle?

She went on her first plane ride(s) last week (we went to Texas for my grandfather's funeral) and she did a (mostly) great job! She was very enthusiastic about the whole thing (actually, Enthusiasm could be her middle name), and no one gave us mean glares on the plane, so I think we have to call it a win. 

She's quite a problem solver lately, especially if the problem involves not being able to reach something. Oh, you put your phone on top of the refrigerator, Mommy? And I asked for it and you said "no"? No worries, Ma! I got this one on my own!...and she proceeds to drag her bathroom stool into the kitchen, position it in front of a cabinet, climb on the stool, climb on the cabinet...you get the idea. This is a development I can do without.

Oh, and her final Big Girl Skill...no more paci. Can't say this one was her decision, though. One day a few weeks ago, the tip of the paci just got cut off! (She says that she bit it off, but I think Mama's scissors had more to do with it than her teeth did.) Then "it no work," and after a few tearful episodes, she's learned to live a paci-free existence. She still asks for it occasionally, but then she remembers and will say to herself (out loud) "oh. I no have paci. I BIG GIRL! I have EAWWINGS!"

Baby Skills: Hahaha, it's only fair. I need to keep track so that I don't think she's ENTIRELY grown up already! Her main baby skill is that she still sleeps in her crib. She hasn't realized she could climb out yet. Part of me wants to keep her in there forever, but part of me is super jazzed about getting a Big Girl Bed and some new decor for her room, so we'll see how long the crib lasts.

Communication: She's a very proficient talker. She talks all the time, and can generally be understood by most anyone without a parent needing to translate. She easily uses 7-8 word sentences and knows words for pretty much anything she needs to talk about- or knows how to describe something that she doesn't know a word for. I'm clinging to what remain of her "baby" words- like calling birds "tweet tweets" and bodies of water "wah-wah" (strangely, she calls drinking water, like in a cup, "wa-duh," but if we pass a lake/pond/river, it's "big wah-wah!"). I am fiercely anti-pronunciation-correction, haha. I know that eventually she will say everything the conventional (read: boring, not cute) way, so I'll savor every minute of "eawwings" and "fwiend" and "giwaffe" and backwards grammar like "dat no you mommy!" [that's not your mommy!--spoken emphatically to anyone, human or animal, between the ages of fetus and elderly, who looks at me in any way] while I can. 

Likes: She really, really, REALLY likes her mama right now. Like a lot. I can't say I hate it in the least! But she only likes Matt to be with her if she needs to go #2 in the potty. Not sure how that preference developed, but I am also certainly not going to fight him for that privilege! Other than being with "MY Mommy!" (me!), she likes being outside, "helping" in the kitchen, jumping on the couch or our bed, being nek-nek [naked], looking at "baby Mee-lee pictuhs" on our phones or in photo books, and playing all kinds of crazy games with her toys. She still loves looking at books and being read to, and she is really good at puzzles and sorting games. We are pretty stingy with screen time still (she maybe watches TV/videos an hour a week), but that doesn't stop her from begging to watch Daniel Tiger on the reg. She saw her first full-length movie, Finding Nemo, a few weeks ago, and she loved it. She still talks about the "fish no find he daddy!" I haven't informed her that there are probably about a billion other movies out there that she's also going to love...mainly because I don't feel like watching those movies, haha. She LOVES animals, particularly cows, horses, alligators, birds, and dinosaurs. 

Dislikes: Bugs, sharing anything, being told what to do...you know, normal toddler things! She gets like Code Red Level Ten hangry, so you gotta watch your step if she hasn't eaten recently. She is particularly scary if she happens to be holding one of our phones to look at pictures and then we dare to take it away from her. I recommend you never try that, unless you are prepared with a quiche or perhaps a cow to distract her.

There's nothing in this world I'd rather do than be than her mama. We never rocked her to sleep when she was a baby, because we felt like it was important that she be able to fall asleep on her own. She always did great with that (and is still a wonderful sleeper), but a few months ago she started asking me (and only me- no one else will do!) to rock her before bed. And I do it. Every night. Sometimes for two minutes, sometimes for half an hour. She doesn't need it to fall asleep, but I need it because she is my baby. Probably my only baby. And she wants me to hold her and rub her back and rock her, and there is literally nothing in the world I would rather do. She lays quiet and still, snuggled up underneath my chin, sometimes asleep, sometimes not, and she lets me kiss her and smell her delicious hair and whisper to her. I tell her how much I love her, how lucky I am to be her mama, how thankful I am God made us a family. Once I thought she was asleep, but out of nowhere she spoke up in a quiet, sleepy voice, saying "I happy, Mama. I yuv Dada. I yuv Mama. I happy."

I know that happiness isn't everything in this world, but it's a good thing. We are so happy. She is happy. I really can't ask for more.

Two Years

Sixteen Months

Twelve Months

 Eleven Months

Ten Months

Nine Months
Eight Months

Seven Months

Six Months

Five Months

Four Months

Three Months

Two Months

One Month

new year, same excuses

So...a happy New Year is in order, it seems?? Ha! So much for all those long, newsy, insightful blogs I'd planned for the end of 2016. What a shame. Don't worry, I don't plan to quit blogging...I'm just too busy/lazy to do it with any sort of regularity, apparently. 

Moving on! To summarize the end of 2016...let's see, there was a heartbreaking election. There were (are) terrible atrocities taking place all over the world and throughout our country. That's kind of all I remember. Maybe that's why I don't feel like writing anymore. I feel silly writing about my adorable child and generally happy life when there is so much real hurt and pain and injustice. It feels trite and trivial. I prefer to lose myself in fiction, to be honest, so that's what I spend most of my nights doing. I guess that led to one noteworthy thing: I read 31 books in 2016! Yay me. My goal was 40, so I did fall a little short, but I feel pretty good about 31. My goal for 2017 will remain 40, and so far I'm working on #3, so I'm off to a good start. (Side note for the book lovers or other people who would like to escape reality for a few hours: it seems that my reading "kick" for 2016 was books that took place in occupied European countries during WWI/WWII. I can't get enough of them!! A few of my favorites/top recommendations are All the Light We Cannot See, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Life After Life, and The Girl You Left Behind. Anyone else read TGYLB? I just finished it last week and it blew my mind and I'm dying to talk to someone about it. SO GOOD!!!!! Anyone have other recommendations in this genre?)

Annnnnyway. So I spend all my spare time reading. The end.

So I failed to blog about the super fun end-of-year holidays, which Millie found MOST exciting this year. I swear, she is SO MUCH FUN right now. She understands things, she remembers things (for better or for worse...like she remembers when I vaguely mention she can have a cookie later if she _______...and homegirl will CALL ME OUT on that!! Ha.), she anticipates things....it's awesome!! So Christmas was particularly fun.

We finally fulfilled my lifelong dream of matching family jammies!! And as it turns out, these were actually really comfy, too, so we all wear them basically all the time. Oh, and Millie will sometimes call us "mama bear" and "papa bear" now, so that's pretty much the funniest thing ever. JAMMY WIN!

We didn't make it to see Santa this year. Well, Millie sorta did...from a distance, with my mother-in-law, and she was fine checking him out from afar, but when it was her turn to sit in his lap, she (semi-predictably) freaked out and was hysterical. Thankfully, my MIL didn't make her sit in his lap and just let her leave, but for days, all Millie could talk about was "NO LIKE HO-HO-HO!!! I NO SIT ON HO-HO-HO! I CRY!! HO-HO-HO BITE ME!!" and it just didn't seem worth it to me to try to inflict that trauma on her again when she so clearly was NOT INTERESTED (slash terrified). So no cute or crying Santa pics. Maybe next year, unless he (apparently) bites her again, ha.

She was MUCH more interested in any holiday traditions that involved food. This girl. We've certainly never had to worry about her going hungry! Food is her JAM!

We've also never had to worry about her lacking in personality or opinions. Her sweet daycare teacher describes her like this: "Oh, Millie always helps us know what we are doing. She tells the other children what they should do and not do. She knows where everything is and whose stuff everything is! She is a great leader!"....well, that's such a positive way of framing it. ;) Thank you, teachers! But seriously. She knows what's going on, and she will LET YOU KNOW if you step out of line. Ha!

Her big present from Mama & Papa Bear this year (not giving credit to mean old Ho Ho Ho!) was a dollhouse. She's a big fan, and I have high hopes that someday soon she will start playing with it in a way that makes sense to me. Instead of, you know, mixing in like eighteen genres of toys and various items from around the house...here in the dollhouse kitchen we have a dollhouse refrigerator, a dollhouse grandpa doll, a green Lego, a jar of yellow paint, an empty toilet paper roll, six used stickers, a Daniel Tiger figurine, an eyelash curler stolen from mama's makeup cabinet, and a dirty sock. And I'm harshly reprimanded if I try to move any of those things, because THEY ARE VERY IMPORTANT AND SHE IS PLAYING WITH THEM ALL. Excuse me for feeling slightly overwhelmed at the notion of tying all of those things in to a play storyline that makes any sense...

She is so silly and creative and (I hesitate to proclaim this for fear of jinxing us, but...) POTTY TRAINED as of very recently! I was kinda half-assing the potty training ever since about September, doing undies occasionally and pull-ups most of the time, but since we had some extended time off over the holidays, we finally really committed to the undies- even in public!!! and in the car!!!- and she's done great!! We still do pull-ups at night and naptime, but she actually wakes up dry most of the time (or wakes up and goes potty in the middle of the night) (with our help, because HECK YES she is still in her crib)! I'm so proud of her and we'll be going to collect her reward (getting her ears pierced) very soon.

Also, please note that apparently using the idea of being a "big girl" for all sorts of ideas and explanations has caused some confusion in her brain. And it's hilarious.

Exhibit A: We told her earrings are for "big girls" and that when she was going tee-tee on the potty all of the time and didn't wear baby pull-ups anymore, she would be a big girl and could get earrings (or "ear holes," as she calls it, since she understands that you have to first get special holes in your ears that you can put the earrings in!).

So understandably, every day or so, as soon as she finishes up using the bathroom, she reaches up and touches her ears, saying "I big girl! I tee-tee on potty! Where my ear holes?"

Exhibit B: As she was sitting on the potty one afternoon, I was sitting on the stool and leaning over towards her. Apparently my shirt was hanging down and exposing my cleavage a bit, so she reached out and pointed to one boob and had a slightly alarmed and curious look on her face as she asked "what dat?" "Oh...um, that's Mama's boobie!" She touched the other boob. "What dat?" "That's Mommy's other boobie." She touched her own chest. "Where my boobie?" "Ummm...you get boobies when you're a big girl." She looks up with panic in her eyes. "BUT I TEE-TEE ON THE POTTY!! I a big girl! Where my boobie??!" (Sorry, couldn't even hold it together after that one. She has inquired about/requested boobies several times since then, so I'm trying to come up with a better explanation for when she can get hers.)

Exhibit C: Sometimes you just don't want to be a big girl. Because as she's learned, Big Girls do not get pacis all the time (only at bed time! and in the car. and during breathing treatments.), and they sometimes have to do very terrible things like stop playing to go use the restroom, etc. So the other night, she very calmly sat me down and explained "I not big girl. I tiny! I need paci. I tiny!! I want dipe-dipe. Where my paci? I tiny. I NOT BIG GIRL! I no have ear holes."

Look at that tiny not-big-girl.

I mean, as fun as she was as a baby, this whole language thing is priceless. I just don't know how I ever lived without hearing her ridiculous commentary on life all the time. I've been going through some of her baby things lately (to pass down to a niece that will arrive any day now!) and it's so bittersweet, but I don't know if I'd go back to her being a baby, even if I could. She is just SO full of life and love and sweetness...I can't get enough of my not-quite big girl.

We were supposed to have a Significant Winter Weather Event last night, but I don't know, something happened and we didn't. Our whole town shut down at like noon on Friday, just in case!!!!!, and we got all prepared and I was SO optimistic I even went out and spent ungodly amounts of money on two cheap plastic sleds that were clearly marked up 3000% just for the rare event...and then we watched videos on YouTube of kids sledding...and then Millie was SO excited all night and we promised that when she woke up, we would play in the snow....and then we woke up and there was like a fraction of a millimeter of heavy frost on the grass. WOMP WOMP WOMP, biggest disappointment ever. But Millie was not to be deterred. We promised she could sled, so dammit, she was gonna sled. And she had a blast. And we went and had French toast brunch with some new friends, and the kids gathered microscopic handfuls of snow off the playground equipment in the backyard and marveled at it melting in their hands, and that's how our snow day went down today. It was pretty fabulous, minus the part where we totally got gypped on actually GETTING SNOW.

So that brings us pretty up-to-date. I'm going to save the sleds, because a) I'm an optimist at heart, and maybe- just maybe!!- we will have reason to use them sometime soon...and b) the sketchy store I bought them at doesn't do returns. ??????? and potentially c) I could always just save them and mark them up another million percent next time there's a chance of snow and turn a sweet lil profit off another desperate mama, huh? So, options. They're good to have.

So Happy New Year! I promise to try to do a better job sharing things here- but if I don't, feel free to follow me on Instagram or Facebook or- let's be honest- Goodreads, haha. If you've made it this far, I will reward you (??? haha) by asking a completely off-topic question to close: does anyone still actually balance their checkbook/somehow reconcile monthly expenses against a budget on a regular basis? I'll go first: I do. I save every receipt and have an Excel workbook that everything goes into (I update it usually twice a month; each time we get paid). But I've discovered that apparently not a lot of folks my age/stage do that anymore. I guess folks just keep a general eye on their bank balance and keep on rollin'?? So I'm just curious. Anyone else out there still carefully saving and recording every single stupid receipt like I am? It's so annoying and time-consuming and I hate it, but I can't think of another way to make sure that I stick within our budget(s)?? I have Mint, and it's really similar (but easier)...but I can't bring myself to not still do the stupid Excel thing. So please weigh in and either enlighten me to a better way or let me know I'm not alone in boring tediusville over here! 

the littlest fly-fly

Although this is technically Millie's third Halloween, this is the first time she really "got" it...and therefore, this has been the BEST ONE! (For those of you mourning that all of your baby's "first" holidays are done, rest assured that probably the second and third and fourth ones are going to be even better, even though there aren't t-shirts and bibs designed to specifically commemorate the occasion.) 

On Sunday night we did some costume roller skating with our church. Millie had two costumes this year, since the weather in Georgia is incredibly uncooperative/unpredictable. She has a warm furry monkey costume and a summer-weather ladybug costume. Since it's still in the 80s...she wore the monkey costume once, nearly sweated to death and was completely miserable, and has chosen the ladybug (or "fly-fly"...butterfly...) costume for all other events. Ha. Can't blame her, plus...WAY CUTE. So she was bribed to wear selected the fly-fly for Sunday night's event, and I decided to complete the outfit with her first time wearing makeup. Because real butterflys wear makeup, right?? Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

I'm going to try to not turn into a pageant mom, but this didn't help. She was SO CUTE as I put on her lipstick!!!!

We had a blast at the party, although Mills wasn't so sure about the actual skating part. I was, though. I relived my childhood, only I'm like a hundred years older now and my whole body hurts. Ugh. Growing old is the worst.

So we spent Monday morning and early evening trying to prep Millie and explain what we were going to be doing when we went trick-or-treating. She was understandably mystified and was ONLY interested in the bowl of candy I prepared and set near the front door. "MY TWEAT!!! MY TAN-DY!!!!" she screamed as she fell out in hysterics over the injustice of seeing that bowl of candy up high out of her reach. I kept explaining that that was the candy for other children, and that we were going to put on her costume and go knock on our friends' doors and they would give US candy. She did. not. get. it.

Once I finally got her in her costume, she ran again to the bowl of candy and started begging for it.

"No, Millie, remember? We are going to go knock on our friends' doors and say "trick or treat!" and then they will give you candy! And you say thank you!"

She stares at me for two seconds and runs to the nearest door in our house, the laundry room door. She makes a fist and bangs the door a few times, then turns right back around and looks me in the eye.

"I knock. GIMME DAT!!"-- as she points to the bowl of candy.

So I think she got it. HAHAHA.

We finally set out to trick or treat, and she finally figured out what her life's purpose was. It took no time at all for her to figure out that we would find a house with a light on, then walk to the door, then knock, then she would sweetly say "trick or treat!" (or maybe, if she was already staring down the candy bowl, she'd just squeak out "TWEAT!"), then she would look the candy-giver in the eye and thank them. It was adorable. She was precious. And when we walked back to the wagon, she was SO excited each time. She would sit back down, ask for her "punkin" and talk to herself as we walked to the next house. "Happy! Tweat! Knock knock, tweat! Thank you! Happy!"

She also quickly caught on to the fact that we would only go to houses with lights. So she helpfully pointed out every light she saw. "Mama. MAMA!! Light!! Light! Tweat!"

"No, Mills...that's a street light. There's no house. We have to find a HOUSE with a light."

"Otay Mama. MAMA!! LIGHT!!"

"Millie, that's a car's headlights. Find a house..."

So, there's room for improvement on the specifics, but I'd say she gets an A for overall trick-or-treating skills.

Getting home and getting her into the bath and bed was not nearly as delightful as the rest of the night, but hopefully I'll forget that part soon and only remember the good times, ha!

And now I'll have a little sob-fest as I look at how much she's grown over her three Halloweens!!

But I can't sob for long, because it is NOVEMBER 1, which means I can safely start listening to Christmas music in my office all day!! So no time for tears...plus, now I can start thinking about how much fun Millie is going to be at Christmas, because I bet she will "get" that a lot more this year too, and oh, what fun awaits!!