Lucky Duck

It would seem that Ellie has something for duck costumes, although I think technically her previous venture as a duck she was technically supposed to be a baby chick. Either way, she is pretty cute as a duck. For those readers lucky enough to get to watch the animated series "Wonder Pets" on Netflix streaming several times a day, you will understand why ducks are near and dear to Ellie's heart. She adores the wonder pets. She talks about them, sings about them, pretends to play with them all day long. Her favorite character is the duck named Ming-Ming. So nothing would do for a Halloween costume but for Ellie to be a duck so she could actually be Ming-Ming. (To be honest, some of this insistence was as much on Daddy's part--he gets a good dose of "Wonder Pets" most days.)

So we got Ellie all pumped up for going to the church to "trunker-treat." I had been feeling bad about how little I have been involved in Ellie's outings during this pregnancy. It's become such a novelty for her to have me along that when she knows I'm going somewhere with her she gets all excited, running around the house and announcing to anyone who will listen "Mamma's coming! Mamma's coming! MAMMA's COM-ING!" So I felt like I really needed to put forth the effort and go. I took an extra dose of nausea medicine, crammed my swollen, Fred-Flinstone-like feet into some real shoes, and got myself out the door. I even managed a costume.




(What I should have put on the sign was "about two weeks" since that's all anyone asked me that night, but I've never seen a magic 8 ball with that answer. Also, this is not actually a maternity shirt, so not very flattering at this point in pregnancy--the things we go through for our kids)



The duck head was so big, Ellie looked like she was perpetually about to fall over as she walked. She talked quite a bit about wearing the costume and knew that the primary goal of wearing it was to "get candy." The whole night, though, we could barely get her to look at anyone, or anything other than the ground for that matter. Might have been the costume, but she was a strangely shy duck. Of course over breakfast the next day she managed a very cheerful, articulate "trick-or-treat!"

Halloween candy has proven to be a bit too nauseating for me this year (which may be a good thing), but I have learned the true value of a roll of Smarties when dealing with an almost-two-year-old who has a bit of a cold and is starting another round of teething.