Aurora Wells

Yesterday I saw this kid sitting on the front lawn, wearing Aurora’s favourite t-shirt…

But wait!

That’s MY kid! What a change, eh?

So here’s how it really came about: On Thursday night, after much procrastinating, I finally cut Aurora’s overly long bangs, and I did a pretty neat job of it, for a change. She looked at herself in the mirror, with short bangs and the rest of her hair pulled back, and said, “I want all of my hair to be this short.” We had a careful discussion, to make sure she really meant it, and when she agreed over and over (and again the next morning), I agreed to take her to the hair salon Friday after lunch.

The stylist at the kids’ salon had a big book of hairstyles with hundreds of photos of girls with medium-to-long hair, but only one pixie cut. Aurora and I both pointed to it and agreed that that was the one we wanted. The stylist did such a good job, and finished it off with a spray of orange sparkle hair spray – nice touch. Aurora was absolutely satisfied, especially since everyone in the shop went gaga over her haircut, and the stylist asked if she could take several pictures for herself. Aurora and I had fun taking pictures when we got home, too.

I call this the “Uncle David” face.

Aurora’s feeling a bit lighter now, almost like she could fly! I don’t think she’s going to miss that long hair one bit, and neither of us will miss the daily battle with tangles, that’s for sure!

Aurora asks me this question every. Single. Day. She never says, “Mommy, I want to be Buzz Lightyear.” Every day, sometimes several times, it’s always exactly the same, “Mama, who can I be from Toy Story?” I’ve learned my lines pretty well: “You can be Buzz, and I’ll be Woody.” “I want to be the Old Buzz!” “Okay, you can be Old Buzz.” Daddy has more variation in his script. Sometimes he’s “New Buzz” (the one in Toy Story 2), sometimes Rex, or one of the other supporting characters.

So, luckily for all of us, this conversation didn’t change from the time, in July, that Aurora decided that she should be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. Mommy would, of course, be Sheriff Woody, the cowboy doll, and Daddy, well, what should he be? Then I found it; at Value Village, a Rex head. Not just any dinosaur mask – this was definitely the Rex from Toy Story. We had it made!

Maybe she should have been a hockey player? Sorry, kiddo. We’ve already got your costume. Thanks to Stephanie and her family, for the use of their old Buzz costume. She grew so quickly from July to October that I didn’t even need to take it in!

At our Halloween Potluck on Saturday night, Aurora and Kate play doctor with Aurora’s new doctor set, practicing on Teddy Bear and Miga. Kate looked like a tiger on Saturday night, but on Sunday she still hadn’t exactly made up her mind, and arrived on our doorstep as a fairy kitty.

The potluck gang, including Barrett the Stegasaurus (I wish I had a good picture of his awesome costume to show you), helped us demolish this Halloween haunted gingerbread house on Saturday night. I can’t believe this was the first time I tried making a gingerbread house before. So much fun to make & decorate!

All set and ready to go on Halloween night. Rex stayed home this year to hand out candy, while I took Aurora to about 20 houses for her tricks and treats. Every house we stopped at had at least six stairs, sometimes a lot more, but she tromped up and down them slowly and carefully, never letting go of my hand. This year she had finally gotten the hang of the script (”Trick or treat!” “Thank you!” “Happy Halloween!”), with only a small amount of prompting. Her little voice sing-songing sweetly at each door was one of the cutest things I’ve ever heard. This is definitely why people have kids.

Rex shows that his species of dinosaur only had two claws on each hand. “Rrraaargh! Did I scare you?”

Aurora looks over her booty at the end of the evening. Awesome bag she made, eh? Oh, and as she looks at how much candy she got, she says, “This is a lot. We should save some of this candy to give to the kids next year.”

Yeah, right, that’s what we’ll do with the “extra” candy.

Sometimes it’s like a switch clicks in my head, and all of a sudden everything I was interested in yesterday is old hat, and I have a new obsession. For me, a few days ago, I suddenly began to see my house through the eyes of someone who actually cares about dust and grime, and I couldn’t stop cleaning for a couple of days. Yuck! How could I live like this?

But this blog is not really about me. However, I do seem to have a child who, like me, jumps from obsession to obsession. Do you remember the Olympics Guys? She barely ever mentions them now, even though they were best buddies for most of February and March. Now she’s into two things: Puzzles and Buzz Lightyear. Two weeks ago I took Aurora to the Family Centre, and looking around at the shelves, discovered a stack of 24-piece jigsaw puzzles that we had yet to try. Aurora’s not (or so I thought) a puzzle person; she’s never really shown much interest in the wooden toddler puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles, on the other hand, are super-cool. She was so excited about the two at the Family Centre that we stopped at a second-hand store on the way home and bought two Disney puzzles for home. After doing each one several times a day, and then moving on to the Dr. Seuss puzzles I’d put away for a rainy day, I knew she was ready to step up her game. I found a set of eight puzzles for $24, half of which are 100-piece puzzles. She needs more help with those, but they’re also more interesting for Mommy and Daddy, so we don’t mind.

The other obsession, with Buzz Lightyear, just started a couple of days ago. We were reading an old story about Buzz going to school with Andy for show-and-tell (for those of you who haven’t seen a kid’s movie in the past 20 years, Buzz is a space ranger toy, one of the heroes of the movie Toy Story). She wanted to see more of him, but that was our only story about him, so I showed her the clip from the movie where he proves to (most of) the other toys that he can really fly. From that moment on, she was Buzz Lightyear. Wearing a Lightning McQueen t-shirt that day, she told me that she was Buzz, dressed up as McQueen. Later on, with a pair of tiger ears and tail on, she said that Buzz was wearing a Tigger costume. Here’s a picture of Buzz on the way to get her haircut:

And Buzz’s “after” photo:

Now Buzz can fly even faster, because she doesn’t have to stop all the time to brush her hair out of her eyes and mouth (and Mommy can kiss the fuzz on the back of her neck again). She was so good at the hair salon that I got her a collection of Toy Story stories afterwards at the bookstore. Lucky me, I get to be Woody the cowboy. Hopefully Daddy doesn’t mind being Hamm, the piggy bank!

Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself with the alliteration. We celebrated Easter two weeks late this year, so that we could do the egg hunt in Grandma Shaun and Grandpa Bill’s backyard again, with Uncle Jim and Aunt Lori visiting, too. The past several weeks have been really hectic at work for Daddy, with lots of overtime, so it was great to have him all to ourselves for four days in a row. The weather in Armstrong, I mean Spallumcheen, was absolutely perfect, with sunshine, just enough warmth to bare arms, and a beautiful blue sky that cries, “Come out and play!” Here are some photos from our (yes, very sorry) EGGSTRAVAGANZA!

Aurora is totally psyched for the “treasure hunt with no clues,” as she descends the porch stairs.

This basket’s getting heavy, Grandma!

Aurora finds egg number 11 at the far end of the back yard. Thanks again to Jenn Milley for the lovely “Aurora” jumper.

What a haul! Aurora shows off the goodies she can’t wait to consume.

Brawny Uncle Jim helps carry the load back to the house, with lovely wife Lori, too (and baby bump, too!).

Thanks again for letting us come to visit, Grandma and Grandpa. We had a wonderful time!

As promised, here are some pictures of the munchkin in costume for Halloween. Thanks to the Milleys for letting us borrow the Tigger costume – Aurora was totally jazzed about being a character she loves this year.

The Sunset Community Centre (Main & 51st) had a 1-5 year old play gym the day before Halloween. In addition to the usual gym stuff there was a craft table where we made icky playdough worms and a tissue ghost; a Halloween diorama for pictures, although Aurora kept wanting to pick up the leaves; a face-painting table; and a bouncy pirate castle. The castle was like a flame to my little moth. She was inexorably drawn to its door, fascinated by how much fun all the other kids were having and wanting to have fun, too, but completely unable to enter without Mommy (not allowed). She stood in line no fewer than three times, waiting while 4 or 5 other kids entered, then screaming and clinging when it was her turn. Ah, well, maybe next year.

Definitely the best part of the Sunset play gym – a trampoline! None of the other play gyms have one, and she got a lot of good Tigger practice, although after a few minutes of bouncing, the warm costume had to come off.

How to be a Tigger without a costume? Get your face painted!

All dressed up and ready to go!

Our friend Mandy hosts a great Halloween party each year, in fact, her whole neighbourhood goes nuts for Halloween. We visited for a while with our favourite fairy and her little doggie,

got loaded up with candy, and then set out to get some more. Brian took Aurora around Mandy’s block (rumour has it some of the movie people from the Vancouver film scene live here, and they get a little cinematic when it comes to Halloween) while Mommy went home to answer the door and give out candy.

Aurora made out pretty well considering how long it takes her to climb up and down each set of stairs. Daddy says at some houses they were practically throwing the candy at the kids. Her total haul? An impressive .75 kilos!

In case you are not a muppet fanatic, Daddy is Captain Vegetable and Mommy is Bip Bippadotta. Happy Halloween from the entire weird family!

Today our friends J & J have whisked their kids off on a surprise holiday to Disneyland, and at ages 3 and 5 1/2 I’m sure Edmund and Agatha will have a fabulous time. I only wish I were going myself, as Disneyland is my favourite place to imagine myself when I get stressed out. It was my third home (second was Grandma’s house) when I was growing up, and I could have written one of those “insider’s guides” for teenagers.

Here I am at exactly Aurora’s age, waiting to board the train with my mom, on my first trip to Disneyland.

Disneyland always has exuberant flower displays, no matter the time of year.

And just cuz it’s that time of year, and I’m scanning old photos:

Steve and me, ages 4 and 6, looking super for halloween.