Happy Halloween

I am having identity whiplash today. Just spent 3 days at a conference doing conferency things, seeing wonderful old friends and meeting new ones, getting very excited about talks that related Piagetian-esque models of children's mental structures to mathematical structures (for instance, the structure of children's iterating, partitioning, and splitting schemes is isomorphic to a loop, but is not quite a group), staying up too late and getting up too early, and getting elected to an office I didn't even know I'd been nominated for. And then I got back on a plane and came home to the children and my husband and my in-laws and everybody was getting ready for our Halloween extravaganza. And then the Twin Whisperer came by, and our neighborhood had a big party in the park, and Nora actually ate pizza (!!), and then we went trick-or-treating.

Here is a lovely picture Jake snapped of the kids and the Twin Whisperer.

She is so wonderful. I miss having her in our lives on a daily basis, but we still see her every week or so. The kids miss her too, and ask about her, and this evening when she left Nora cried. (I must be tired. I just misspelled "cried" twice.)

The in-laws were supposed to stay for the party and then to answer the door as we took the kids trick-or-treating. But then my MiL had some sort of episode over a perceived slight, I'm not sure, and they took off unexpectedly. But we made do, and Jake answered the door and I took the kids around our street. As soon as Nora got her first candy bar she immediately opened it and started eating it. Imagine her walking down the street with chocolate drool dripping down her face. Classic preschool moment.

Then we got home and yes, I let them eat some candy at the table, until I finally cut them off and said "If you want any more to eat, you can have grapes." Milo said, "Halloween is my favorite!"

This year, my dear, I think I agree with you. Seeing the excitement of Halloween through the kids' eyes was something else.

My mother, by the way, made those incredible costumes. She is so talented. Everybody commented on them and several people remarked "She should go into business!" Milo and Nora are so lucky, just like I was as a kid.