Halloweenies 2015

This year, Zuzu totally embraced Halloween.

Coco was somewhat less enthusiastic.

sitting pretty with Minnie Mouse jack-o-lantern and lurking shadow of boogie man / giant lego man

Coco is "inexplicably" furious

But she's not one to back from her big sister

Those photos were actually taken a week before Halloween, but Coco's mood did not exactly improve. Poor little punkin had an ear infection.

David was off work on Friday and did a bunch of stuff around the house. I left work a little early because we'd planned to take the girls to the park.

Well, that plan had to be adjusted because Zuzu was involved in a disciplinary incident at school. Yes, our special snowflake got sent to the director's office.

(Okay, fine, I'll just tell you. She bit her best friend. Yes, BIT her. Like a vampire. And then--yes, there's an "and" here--she ATTEMPTED to bite another friend, but teachers intervened and sent her to the office. The director called me at work because they have to notify the parents for biting incidents. "Hi, Brooke. Everything here is fine, except Zuzu bit her friend." Just the phone call you want to get on a Friday afternoon. She was very kind and understanding about it, and mentioned the fact that it kind of indicates how comfortable Zuzu feels with her friends now--she bites the ones she loves!--and the fact that the day before Halloween makes all the kids go a little wild. But still. We are mortified. David told me to tell the director that he'd be sure to bite Zuzu back when she got home but I didn't feel like it was the kind of thing we can joke about. Also I e-mailed her friend's mom to apologize and she was really cool about it, but STILL. I mean. Seriously.)

The morning before the bite(s). #babyvampire

When I asked her what she and the director talked about in the office, she replied, "I told her that her office is just like my daddy's!" Yup. Not exactly the office you want your kid visiting. Our friends reminded us last night what they say about principals' kids and preachers' kids... Anyway, Zuzu's embarrassing transgressions were somewhat overshadowed by the fact that she fell out of The Climbing Tree about ten minutes before I showed up to pick her up, and bruised her ear.

This picture was taken two days later and doesn't really do it justice, but you can kind of see how the top is still all purple.

I'd never seen an injury like this before--it was just the very top of one ear, and it was puffy and blue and red. She had an ice pack and was actually holding the ice on the ear instead of just playing with it, which meant that it really hurt.

So I fussed over her ear and then loaded her up in the car to go get Coco. I started the conversation with, "I heard something happened at school today that made me very sad."

She said, "Yes! I hurt my ear."

So I was trying to redirect the conversation to address the biting incident (in case you're wondering, her friend wanted to get on the tire swing, but ZUZU WAS THERE FIRST and her other friend was messing with her shirt and ZUZU TOLD HER TO STOP BUT SHE DIDN'T) when I got a text from Coco's daycare teacher letting me know that she had a fever and was pulling at her ear.

By this point, it was already 4:15pm, so I called the pediatrician's office, hoping they could squeeze us in with someone before 5:00pm, even if it wasn't our regular doctor. Calculating traffic and pick-up time, I promised we could be there by 4:40pm.

So then it was a mad dash to pick up a very pitiful Coco-Puff (who had been totally fine that morning!) and head to the doctor's office. I figured that he could take a look at Zuzu's ear, too, and make sure it was just a bruise and nothing more.

Zuzu had a lot to say about the doctor and to the doctor (who was really nice and told me that he wouldn't have waited around for just anybody, but he knew that if I said I was on my way, I was really on my way). Zuzu asked if she could come with us when they called us from the waiting room (like I was going to leave her there unsupervised), then told the nurse she would just wait for us out in the hallway (riiiiiight). She told Coco that she was going to have to gets "sots" even though I'd told them no one was getting shots today. She interrupted the doctor to ask if she could have a sticker, and then introduced him to "My sister, Coco-Puff Duckworth."

Long story short, Coco had an ear infection, Zuzu just had a bruised ear, and I told David to open a bottle of wine and have it ready by the time I got home.

I went through the pharmacy drive-thru, but they had no prescription for Coco called in, I tried to call the doctor's office, but they were closed. So I had to call the after-hours line and explain the situation so the doctor on call would call in our prescription, but in the meantime, I headed home to feed the girls dinner, and then went back out to get the medicine later (at least I was able to go by myself).

On Halloween, Zuzu's bruised ear was looking pretty much normal, she had a bite-free day (we might have to put up one of those workplace signs: __ days without a biting incident), but Coco only seemed to perk up when her tylenol kicked in. Poor little punkin.

I still wrestled her into her Big Bad Wolf costume because I am merciless.

(But really, she was feeling okay at this point, and once she got outside she was fine).

Red chases the wild wolf

Zuzu was thrilled to have her friend Bea come over and they were great trick-or-treat buddies.

Zuzu even told her Halloween jokes at a few houses. It's a St. Louis tradition to tell a joke in order to get a treat, which at first I thought was weird and now I think is awesome. Zuzu's joke was, "Where was the pumpkin when the lights went out?" Punchline: "In the dark!" I don't think she actually gets the joke, so her delivery is a little off, but I was impressed that she told it (although she got shy at the babysitter's house and did the whole joke with her fingers in her mouth so you couldn't understand any of it).

Going up to knock on the door

So proud of themselves!

The most popular costume around this year were Star Wars characters--especially Princess Leia--and I didn't see many Elsas, although Zuzu tells me that's what she wants to be next year.

Our little wolf was happy to explore the neighborhood and really tried to keep up with the big girls.

At one house, Zuzu took candy for herself and then pointed at a package of Whoppers and said, "My Grammy likes those!" so the lady let her take an extra candy for Grammy.

At another house, a lady handed her M&Ms and she said, "I don't like those." The lady was not amused and we were embarrassed (a weekend theme in regard to Zuzu). We had a brief chat about manners (of the "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit" variety) and trick-or-treating continued without incident.

It was fun to see Zuzu get so excited about it. Each time she'd come back to us on the sidewalk and say, "Let's go to another person's house!" Her outgoing personality is such a marvel to me, but I really love it.

Of course, for all the delight in candy collecting, Zuzu isn't much for eating it. She had one package of Skittles today and hasn't mentioned it since then. Her lack of interest certainly makes things easy in terms of policing sugar. It also leaves plenty of Reeses peanutbutter cups for me. (And Whoppers for Grammy.)