Is It Naptime Yet

We have a little neighbor girl, I’ll call her J,  who comes over somewhat regularly, in an irregular way. We see J a lot and then we don’t.

During the summer J took a bug catching net home with her, but she visits her grandma who lives across the street from us, so it went to her real home. The day right after she took it she had come over to play, but I was busy making something where time was of the essence, kneading rolls comes to mind, and my hands were dirty and I was unable to get the net from her at that very moment. She had stayed the night at her grandma’s and had brought over her suitcase, what she had taken the net it, but I was too busy. I told her to come over later that day but we didn’t see her until the next week and of course the net was at her real house by this time.

When J came to play Lilah would ask about the net and tell her it’s not nice to take things. I don’t know the exact age J is, but I believe she’s right in between Lilah and Eden in age, or around 4 to 4 1/2.

I would remind Lilah to not worry about the net, but of course it was something precious to her and she wanted it back. Lilah stopped asking for the net and began not playing with J when she would come over and after J left Lilah would mention how not nice J was for taking the net.
I would try to tell Lilah that sometimes people don’t understand that they shouldn’t take things and to forget about the net.

Yesterday it happened again.

J had come over and Eden was playing with her, but Lilah would not. Later in the car as we drove to Beth’s house Lilah mentioned the bug net. I then started talking to her about grudges and forgiveness. Our conversation went something like this.:

Me- Lilah it’s not nice to hold grudges against people.  J didn’t mean to hurt you by taking the bug net, she just didn’t know better and decided to take it for herself. You need to forgive her.

Lilah- What’s a grudge?

Me- A grudge is when you’re mad at someone for a long time and you don’t forgive them. Would you like it if I stayed mad at you for something you did a long time ago?

Lilah- No.

Me- So you need to forgive J and move on and be her friend.

I guess our talked worked, or made an impact, because when J came over today Lilah actually played with her a little. Of course their interest are different so it only lasted for so long, but I was happy to see Lilah trying to play with her rather than trying to ignore her.

This year Halloween fell on Nevada Day observed, or the last Friday of the month, so Jon got the actual Nevada Day off and was able to spend the day with us. He worked on his paper throughout the day and was nice enough to take pictures of us taking our the seeds and guts of our pumpkin and handed out candy that night while I took the girls around.

Our tradition is to carve our pumpkin Halloween day. So the girls helped me gut the pumpkin. Eden really didn’t like getting so messy, while Lilah sat there and played with the seeds and guts.

The poor pumpkin had no idea what fate awaited him.

The only Picture Eden was smiling. All the others she has that look of disgust.

Lilah drew a face, which I transferred to the pumpkin.

Eden chose a picture from the carving kit I bought. (Her expression here just made me smile.)

I came up with my face on my own.  (Lilah took this picture.)

I got the girls ready a little before dark so we visited Beth’s house and Eden’s old nursery leader.

We then came back to our neighborhood and took the girls to the other four houses on our little block that were participating. Jon stayed home and handed out candy. We went through about 6 of the 8 bags and I will have Jon take some candy to work because we have plenty of candy from the girl’s adventures.

After going down our block I took the girls to my parents neighborhood. I took them down the cul-de-sac my parents live on and one more. We hit around 20 house but still came home with so much candy. I’m not sure why I took them down the second street. Lilah was just so into trick or treating and I guess the child in my wanted as much candy as we could get. Lilah started complaining about her bag being too heavy and I had to carry Eden’s bag for her towards the end. We have way too much candy for our house. I only let the girls choose one piece a day at lunch and I’m actually trying to not eat that much due to watching my weight, and Jon only eats a piece maybe once a week. I’m thinking I may put some in the freezer for Christmas. “I don’t know why you got gum with a jack o’ lantern on it or that gummy spider.”

Candy from our previous adventures.

Candy from Halloween night. (I don’t know if you can tell, but this bowl holds more than the 1 gallon bucket. )

I’ve noticed that even in my parents neighborhood, where there are a lot of families, there are not a ton of kids running door to door and only about 1/4 of their neighborhood participates in handing out candy. When I grew up there were kids everywhere swarming the streets and you rarely had a house that didn’t hand out candy. I feel like they miss out on some of the excitement I had has a kid.

Lilah still loved trick or treating and even though her bag was “getting so heavy” she persevered. Too bad she as a once piece of candy a day mom rather than a pig out on candy one night mom.

I just have to make a note of this before I post about our Halloween festivities. Lilah is on the floor reading a book to Eden. It’s a board book so it has some words she doesn’t know, but that’s not fazing her. (Some  board books  have harder words since you’re suppose to read it to your child, compared to books for beginning readers. )

If my battery were in my camera instead of charging in my kitchen I’d take a video. I think she’s doing rather well and I love that’s she suggested reading a book to Eden and Eden is patiently listening to her big sister reading to her.

Lilah’s reading is really taking off. She knows so much and really enjoys reading books we borrow from Beth or we take out from the Library.

Lilah’s getting too big.