I’ve been waffling on what kind of Halloween costume my daughter should wear this Halloween.

It’s probably the last Halloween where I can freely pick a costume for her without her input, although I have to say that outside of liking twirly skirts, she isn’t all that demanding in the clothing department.  I have a penchant for wanting her to be literary characters, so I was sort of leaning that direction.  But nothing really felt right.

People often comment on how angelic my daughter looks.  She has very big, bright blue eyes, with incredibly long lashes.

Looks can be deceiving.

Since in the past two days she has broken one of our screen doors and locked herself in the bathroom, as well as her various temper tantrums and general all-around demanding-ness, the perfect costume came to me.

A devil.

My daughter will be a devil.

Oh, the cutest devil you ever did see, but a devil nonetheless.

Hey, my husband and I need some laughs, I assure you.

When my daughter gets older, it is almost certain that she will have an unreasonable, all-consuming crush on some sort of horrible boy band.

I’m not a huge modern pop music fan, and the thought of having to listen to that type of stuff already makes my ears want to shrivel.

Huh.

Maybe that’s what iPods and headphones are for.

And, that poor guy second from the left has been forever immortalized as the one with crop pants and no socks.  In fact, that entire outfit wouldn’t look out of place in a Land’s End catalogue.  For women.

via Buzzfeed

Just to show that I am an equal opportunity baby and animal photo person…

via Buzzfeed

I take my daughter to speech therapy twice a week for an hour.  The office is less than five minutes from my house, and because of the whole homeschooling thing, I have to bring my soon-to-be 10 year old along with us every time.

Which, you know, on the grand scale of things, is not really that big of a deal.  They have an observation room that we sit in, and we either read books or play games on the Kindle.  Well, usually it is me reading a book and him playing the games.

For almost all of my upper elementary years into high school, I was a stereotypical latch-key kid.  I would take the bus to my grandmother’s house, go into the backyard and over into the garage, where the house key would be waiting for me, tucked into a compartment in the water heater cabinet.  I would let myself in, watch television, maybe get a drink, and my grandmother or grandfather would be home from work in two hours or so.  My grandparents were very young, and didn’t hit retirement age until I was almost in high school.

I never had any issues or problems during those latch-key years.  No person trying to rob the house or salesmen knocking on the door.  Or, if there was someone purporting to be a salesman, I simply didn’t answer the door at all.

Even though he will be 10 in less than a month, my son has a fairly good head on his shoulders.  I know he is definitely not the type to light something on fire just for the hell of it, or make prank phone calls.  He just doesn’t have that type of temperament, and never has.

I was toying with the idea of possibly leaving him here for the hour that I am away at speech therapy, what with being so close and it admittedly being quite boring for him during the sessions.

My state has no age limit as to when a child can legally be left at home alone.  It’s more of a “you can make the decision yourself, but there will be hell to pay if you make the wrong one” type of thing.

At what age, if ever, did your parents leave you home alone?

I could totally picture my son writing this in kindergarten.

via

Because I have a nine year old and a two year old, this summer we have often found ourselves spending countless hours seeking family activites that will be fun for everyone.

This is a lot harder than it sounds.

Usually my husband and I will talk about it the night before, and all will hinge on how the two year old sleeps.  Or doesn’t.

If things are going reasonably well when we all wake up in the morning, my husband and I will again debate the merits of the chosen activity, by which I mean we discuss the length of the car trip to get there, the price of admission, will there be something there to interest almost all parties.

Twice in the last week we decided to take some fairly involved trips with a specific pricey destination.

Bad, bad idea.

When at the aquarium, my daughter could have cared less about ANY of the varied animals.  She didn’t even care when a lorikeet landed right on my shoulder, right there for her to observe. She was momentarily entranced by the luminous jellyfish, but her interest in that waned sooner rather than later.  She was upset when we decided to move back inside the aquarium after spending quite a bit of time in an outdoor play area.  She was upset when I stood in line for us to touch some starfish, and she was upset when I left the line.

Let me also tell you that she was upset when everyone took turns with bathroom breaks, and as I was trying to physically contain a screeching, bucking child who was crying “Ouch, ouch!” even though nothing was hurting her whatsoever, a male passerby clucked his tongue and said, “Oh, poor thing.’

Um, hi, you mean me, right?

But in short, she acted like a typical two year old.

Of course I knew going into the trips that we could encounter problems, but we really wanted to see how much our daughter could handle.

Turns out, not too much.

Next time we will just have to split up, with one of us taking the older child to the “event” and the other one just taking the toddler to a park.

Just think of the money we’ll save!

Today my son and I visited this place, specifically to view this.  My son has a fascination for the Titanic, and has read every book in our local library about it, as well as many others I have bought for him.  I would say he has read at least twenty books to date, not including information from various websites.  So we decided to indulge him and journey a hundred miles or so to see actual artifacts salvaged from the wreckage.

Anyhoo, Balboa Park is an absolutely beautiful place, and it was his second time visiting, but I knew he remembered nothing from that last visit as he was too young.  As we were rushing across the park to make our appointed exhibit time, I couldn’t help but marvel at the Spanish-inspired Churrigueres architecture present in many of the building designs.  If there is one knock I have on Southern California, it is that we are fairly architecture-poor.  Which is a shame because I really love it.

So, hoping to inspire my own offspring with this admiration, I had us stop and examine the particular building in the photo above.

“What do you think about that building?” I asked in a non-threatening, open-ended sort of way meant to lead to deep discussion.

“What do I think about that building?” he replied.  “I think it looks really expensive, that’s what I think.”

Definitive answer, conversation over.  He was already moving on towards our ultimate destination.

OK, then.

Who knows, perhaps I at least planted a seed?