Happy Halloween!

We had a lot of fun with Halloween festivities this week. Aidan dressed up in his lion costume for playgroup on Thursday and then again for Halloween on Friday. At playgroup on Thursday, the kids painted pumpkins, decorated trick-n-treat bags with stickers, and trick-n-treated from a long line of goodies that the parents brought (Aidan brought frosted mini-wheats, which were a hit!). On Friday, we went to a party at our friend Jeanie's house, and afterwards joined a neighborhood parade of about 1,000 people who dressed up, carried lit pumpkins, and paraded around Bennett Park. We had a lot of fun, and loved seeing the kids all dressed up in their costumes! Aidan's friends costumes (from what we can remember) were a 3-eyed monster (Jack), Frankenstein (Tyler, Nate), a dragon (Dillon, Mira), a bat (Mosissa), a skeleton (Johnny), a dalmatian (Dakota), a bumblebee (Sebastian), a Viking (Gus), a panda bear (Jacob), another lion (Mina), a fairy (Grace), a medieval witch (Catherine), a mermaid (Yuxin), and a pumpkin (Lily). They were so cute! Mommy wishes we could dress them up every day!

On Saturday, Mommy and Daddy and Aidan went out to dinner for Ethiopian food (at Awash restaurant) with Aidan's friend Mosissa and his family (his grandfather Solomon, and his mom and dad, Galani and Casati). Solomon and Casati, who are both from Ethiopia, did a great job of introducing us to the delicious food, and we enjoyed having a chance to hang out all together before their family moves away in December. Aidan is really going to miss Mosissa!

During the rest of the week, things were a little bit more hectic. Within the last week, Aidan has morphed dramatically into being a toddler, and now has at least 1-3 temper tantrums every single day! It is an amazing switch from our previously very happy baby! In an effort to figure out what is going on, Mommy hosted a play-date on Wednesday to watch "Happiest Toddler on the Block" and has been reading Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. Both have been very helpful. Mommy and Daddy are learning how to use empathic listening and "Toddler-ese" to talk with Aidan (using 1-3 word sentences recognizing what he wants and emotionally and physically mirroring him), which is helping cut short at least some of the tantrums. And we are learning that Aidan likes having structured snacks as well as meals, and that we are responsible for feeding him a variety of healthy food and he is responsible for whether and how much to eat. Both of these principles are helping us all be happier, as we navigate through this new, high-emotion (both joys and sorrows and frustrations), high intensity stage. It's always an adventure!