Claire the Congested Kitty Cat

Claire has a miserable cold this weekend (bonus: with a fever) but since Old Navy was selling costumes for $5 and she has a Halloween party at school next Friday, guess where we went? The idea of a duck, frog or bee went straight out the window thanks to the sale, of course. Claire could not have cared less. I thought the cat outfit was much better than poodle or bat.

So this is our miserably congested cat in her first try-on of the costume. She was watching a Backyardigans, so I could have put her in pretty much anything. She dealt with it for a little bit, but the thing is HOT, so once she started cooking it was time for the thing to go. Luckily it velcro's on/off like a little jacket, nothing over the head, so she can strip it off herself easily. The pants with the feet slowed her down a bit, which was funny. I had to help with that.

In addition to the Halloween party on Friday, her school moved their Halloween festival to Nov. 1 since it rained all day today, so she'll hopefully have two opportunities to wear this. Her daycare is affiliated with a local private school that also owns 3 daycares, so they are having a festival for all the schools. Might be fun if she can get and stay well for a week or so. "They" keep telling me her immune system will benefit from this. I hope so.

Pumpkins!

We made the trek up to Butler's Orchard in Maryland on Saturday. Ray's family used to go there when he was younger. They have a lot for kids to do - animals to see/feed, tunnels and slides and such. Claire had some fun - she liked the chickens and pig.

She liked picking out her pumpkin and insisted on carrying it all the way from the field to the checkout share. (Mommy's back almost gave out, but that's ok.)

September = shoes and school

September was busy, we just didn't realize it until, well, until October. The first week of September Claire started daycare/preschool. The first few weeks were rough. As in wailing crying when I dropped her off. Lovely. For whatever reason, this week she suddenly is ready to go and excited - to the point where she doesn't even look back when I take her to her classroom (so now its my turn to cry for a couple of weeks!). We're really excited she's enjoying it this much, though. Huge relief.



They have (so far) covered the letters A-D, colors, body parts - she knew the majors, but now add cheek, chin, etc, to that, and they just started the Five Senses. They have "show and share" - Claire took Theodore the Giraffe one day and showed everyone how he could fly. (what, your giraffe doesn't fly?)



At home Claire's been busy trying on shoes. Primarily Mama's shoes, but she'll try on shoes anywhere. If she spots shoes lying around someone else's house, she'll sit down, very purposely take off her shoes, and then try on said random pair of shoes. I haven't had any incident reports from school yet, but it will happen. And she is equal-opportunity on the shoe thing - note her attempt at wearing Ray's work shoes.


We haven't worked out what Claire will be for Halloween yet. We were thinking Bee, but I have yet to find a good (read: cheap) costume. Ducks are a big thing right now (well, with her) so we may look into that.

Stay tuned!