This Present Joy

Dear Carly, It's hard to believe that just over 3 years ago you made your entrance into the world. It feels like just yesterday you were a little baby, crawling around the house, then teetering on two legs--and now galloping and skipping through the house. From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep at night, you are ON--playing, talking, dancing, reading, talking to your animal friends. Your best buddy is still your puppy dog stuffed animal (and when people ask you what his name is, your reply is simply "puppy dog"). Of course, you have a posse of stuffed animal friends that stick together--Fluffy, Goosey Duck, baby puppy, Lovey, Buddy. . . and when I say stick together, you like to have all of them in bed with you at night. And, you know if one is missing. And you are relentless in calling for the missing friend until it's found. You are a sweet little momma to your babies. You love being outside. When we go on walks through the neighborhood, you like ...

I lost track of how many times Carly told me this Halloween night and over the weekend. J and I decided last-minute on Friday to take some friends up on their offer to come over to their neighborhood and trick-or-treat (we didn't trick or treat, of course, but Carly did--not that we couldn't have gotten away with it; is anyone else amazed at the number of older kids who trick or treat??) Before this year, Carly had never trick-or-treated. Her first year, she was days old; when she was 1 we placed her on her Uncle Trent and Aunt Meggan's front porch, rang the doorbell, and took a picture; last year, she went to a Halloween party with other kids but didn't really know what was going on. So, this was her first year to experience the excitement and "entitlement" of knocking on people's doors for candy. I must say, all the scary costumes threw her for a bit of a loop. She did talk about those afterwards, too. "The monsters scare me, Mom." We ...