Annabel Took This Photo

This is probably the best photo I have of Gaby and me. Beginner's luck or gifted photographer? 

Max and Ruby

  I've just spent the last week with Annabel and Gaby everyday. It's nice to spend such a long uninterrupted stretch with them. They are both developing so quickly, you can actually see them progress over the course of a single week, particularly Gaby.

We just finished watching Max and Ruby and put the kids to bed. Max and Ruby is far and away Annabel's favorite show. She requests it literally morning noon and night, and occasionally whines and pouts when its not possible to put it on.

We Tivo it, so we always have some on hand. Something happened with the priority system on the Tivo here, so that some other show is being recorded during the Max and Ruby time slot everyday, so the ones we have on the system are not being replaced by new ones. This doesn't bother Annabel at all. She is happy to watch any one of three episodes that we have over and over and over again. She's seen them all at least 10 times. So, tragically have Kristin and I.

The show features Max, a bunny rabbit who behaves roughly like a one or two year-old child and Ruby, who behaves MUCH more like a mother to Max than the "sister" role that she officially plays would suggest. Maybe she is a much older 16 year old sister, perhaps.

The average episode features Ruby displaying zen-like patience in the face of Max's impossibly frustrating behavior. One of the episodes we have, for example, features Ruby being awoken in her bed by a tired and irritable Max at least five different times for various reasons including flies buzzing in the room, windows that must be shut, pajamas that are too hot or too cold, etc. I am often annoyed at Max just watching it. Ruby though, is a champ.

Annabel is clearly confused about the relationship between them too. Tonight, during the aforementioned episode, I said

"Ruby is a good big sister, isn't she?"
and Annabel said "She not his sister, she his MOMMY".
and I said "I think she's his sister."
"No, She not." said Annabel

She has the sniffles at the moment, a small thing she caught from traveling to and from Detroit for Thanksgiving.

"Are you feeling sick?" I asked her tonight,
"No, I okay. It's getting away." she said

In general she is wonderful to her sister. She shares her toys well, and displays good humor and great patience when Gaby pokes her or snatches things that she is playing with. At her worst, she can whine for an entire morning, and at her best she twirls with joy when she is happy.

She loves princesses and dragons and magic. Several times this weekend, she would approach me with a small item, like a nut or a small toy and ask me to "disappear it". Where I use some clumsy mis-direction to drop the item and then show both hands empty. She loves the magic of it. Gaby, on the other hand rarely takes her eyes on off of the item.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year. It really started last Friday, when Kristin and I went to a costume party on Friday night as little red riding hood and the big bad wolf.

Then on the actual night of Halloween, we had some friends over with their kids so that we could all go trick-or-treaing together. At the start of the evening, I was the only adult wearing a costume. After an hour of drinking wine while we waiting for the sun to go down though, I managed to get everyone into a some sort of costume from the trusty old costume bin.

The kids were going to go as "The Pumpkin Sisters", which was Annabel's idea, but at the last minute Annabel couldn't resist the appeal of dressing up as a princess.

Gaby went ahead with the pumpkin plan, but only had her costume on for about 2 minutes, but that was enough time to snap a few pictures.

We went trick-or-treating at all the shops in North Beach. Most of them had candy out and the kids had a great time.

Gaby was tired by about 6:30, but Annabel was engaged and loving it to the very end.

This was our exchange when it was time to head home.

"Can I get more Candy?" She asked
"Maybe a little more" I said "It's time to head back home"
"I want to get a LOT more, Daddy"

Interestingly, she saved almost everything for later with the single exception of some Gummy Teeth, which she ate on the spot.

Little Pumpkin, originally uploaded by Rgold.