Tigger and Owl's Unbouncy Halloween

I'm ashamed to admit I tried to get Berry to be something frilly for Halloween, like a fairy or a princess. Last year she was a forest fairy, and I suppose I pushed the fairy theme two years running because my own childhood suffered from a serious lack of tulle.

But no, Berry was hellbent on being Tigger. Occasionally she toyed with being a monkey, but mostly it was Tigger. She and Nathan are slowly making their way through my Winnie The Pooh Complete Collection of Stories each night, so Pooh, Piglet, Roo, Eeyore, Christopher Robin, Owl and Tigger are her stars.


So I found her an excellent Tigger costume and, since Kickbaby can't push his own agenda yet, I made him be Owl. That's what he gets for looking so serious.

Sadly – and unbeknownst to us – both kids were coming down with a big old dose of the flu, so we found ourselves with a listless Owl and a decidely un-bouncy Tigger on our hands.


Berry made a big effort to rally, though, and a little while after we got back from trick-or-treating she came out of her playroom and said, "Thank you, guys."

"For what?" Nathan asked.

"For Halloween," she said, and wandered off with her pumpkin.

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Fairies are for real

Berry's great-grandma in Australia has an amazing and very old Flower Fairies book from her childhood in England that she used to read to all of us. I was completely fascinated with it when I was a kid. The fairies were intricately drawn, and seemed magical.


Berry's great-grandmother in Connecticut sent her this incredible forest fairy costume a week ago, and when I put it on her last night, it looked exactly as if one of the flower fairies had come to life and jumped off the pages of my grandma's book.


Last night was Berry's first trick-or-treat adventure ever – she called it her "walk" – and she was a hit around the neighbourhood.


She collected so many lollies that her daddy had to carry them for her (the picture below shows her very first stop, with Sue from next-door). She ate one lollipop and one mini Tootsie Roll – with the wrapper still on. We made sure the rest of the loot "magically" disappeared overnight. Those were her first lollies, and there'll be no more for quite a while.


Boy, it was fun while it lasted.

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How to confuse your holidays (Happy Halloween)

Australians don't do Halloween.

Growing up, we never dressed up and we never went trick-or-treating (and we wouldn't have been able to eat the spoils if we did – Dad's one-lolly-a-week rule was strictly enforced). But that was ok, because everyone else stayed home on October 31 too.

So when I moved to the States, Halloween – like Thanksgiving – was a new one for me. I loved it the first year because we and all our friends (childless and carefree then) dressed up as the characters from The Big Lebowski and stayed out till 3am.

But times change. This year we'll be taking our little forest fairy for a sedate lolly-gathering effort around the neighbourhood in the early evening, then staying in for the night. It will be her first year trick-or-treating... until June we lived in Washington and it was always too cold to take her outside at night. Hence the little Santa outfit from last Halloween, pictured above – nice and warm, and takes care of two holidays at once. (My practical side wins every time.)

Happy Halloween!