A spooktacular Halloween and more updates...

Halloween ~ I think this has been the best year yet. It started off with carving a pumpkin after Ladybug woke up from her nap. This is the first time either of my kids has even touched a pumpkin before. I don't know why, but HB and I always think about it at the very last minute and have never gotten around to it. So needless to say, the kids were thrilled! Superman really got into the scooping out the guts part. Ladybug gave it a good shot but thought it was pretty yucky. From the pictures, it looked like a happy family affair. But if those pictures had sound you would have heard Ladybig screaming for a good portion of it. I finally figured out that what she REALLY wanted was the knife. SHE wanted to carve the pumpkin. Call my crazy but I'm not about to give a 2 year old a weapon. So she settled for helping to poke out the pieces once I had carved around them.

Dressing up was another adventure and a half. Ladybug was all flailing limbs because she didn't want to put her costume on, but the moment she saw herself in the mirror, she decided never to talk it off again. She was a faerie in all her pink girly glory. Absolutely adorable. Superman was a medieval knight. A very skinny one at that. The boy is all legs. For some reason, you dress him up as a knight and he looks so much taller. Go figure.

HB took them on a 2 hr trick or treating walk (or as Ladybug says "Shick or Sheet") which resulted in a ton of candy and two very chatty happy kids. Apparently Ladybug didn't stop talking for the whole walk. They decided to skip anything that had motion sensor robots that talk when you walk by them, and all spooky houses.

They went to bed 30 mins later than usual which resulted in one of the worst days ever by the time the sun rose the following day. I've discovered that Ladybug is not a child who can skimp on her sleep. She spent most of the day yelling, crying, or if we were lucky...both at the same time. Poor Superman would just walk in the room and she would unleash her overtired overemotional verbal screaming meltdown on him. Superman was incredibly tolerant until about 3:30pm and then he had a 2 hour meltdown. Listen, I tried every trick in the book to help him manage his energy. But when you had a screaming flailing 2 year old to the mix, nothing works. Eventually I ran Ladybug over to the neighbours and asked if they would keep her for 15 mins so I could deal with Superman. But that turned out even worse because he thought I have Ladybug to the neighbours TO KEEP! So we had to sort that one out.

After the dust had settled, Ladybug was back home and we settled down to watch a movie together I asked Superman why he thought his energy got so high. It was very simple and it all boiled down to two things.

1. Ladybug makes me feel like everything is all my fault and she screams if I just walk in the room (fair enough. That's not pleasant for anyone)

2. I'm bored. (ah ha! Superman has always been a kid where if he's bored, you lose him).

So today I made some purchases to add to the playroom. Battery-free, imagination powered, basic toys that he will love. Foam building blocks and a wooden toy city that he has to build. They can be used by either kid, or together and the wooden toys will last eons.

Looking back, I can see the missed cues where I could have headed things off. Once he got into the spiral though it had to run it's course. Thank goodness that moments like these are the exception, not the norm. I can't remember the last time he had one that huge and now I wonder how the heck I coped back when he used to have 6 or 7 a day. Just goes to proves how far we/he have come.

Today Superman was observed for 4 hours by the regional behaviour team at school. In the beginning his energy was a little high having two extra people hanging around him and Ms. D wherever they went, but he did quite well. It will be interesting to see what they report back. I was really happy to hear they were in.

Today has been a great day so far. Ladybug and Superman are both balanced and relaxed which is a nice change from yesterday.