I've been taking a page from Juliana's book lately on that. My happiness is usually contingent on how well something has aligned with my ideal plan or how "perfect" it is, whatever that means. Not Julie. If she's with people she loves, doing things she loves, she's about as easy to please as they come.
My mom sewed this darling hooded ghost costume for Juliana's costume this year. For FOUR months Julie has said, "I wanna be a ghhoooooost for Halloween and scare ALL the kids!!" She was like white on rice: knew exactly what she wanted from the start.
But the second she tried on her ghost costume, which we all expected to be a smashing hit, she couldn't handle it. It has a big hood that ties around her neck. However, she got Mitch's lovely genes on that one and cannot handle ANYthing touching her neck or throat or she gags. Like truly gags and almost pukes until we pulled it off. HA HA. She hated it. Just flat out said, "no thanks. I don't wanna wear it. I don't yike it."
I was not into the idea of making another costume so last minute, so I spur-of-the-moment offered something off the top of my head: "a kitty... do you wanna be a kitty?" I knew that could be easy. "Yes!" said Juju. Okay then!
It was then that I realized that she wanted to just be with her little friends and have a fun Halloween. She didn't care about anything else, and neither should I. So I drew a little kitty face on her and we called it good. She loved it: thoroughly thought she was in full-costume. She was happier than she ever was in a big, grand costume. I was both relieved and surprised.
And so, our Halloween day followed suit. We nixed the unnecessaries out of our day and decided since, really, it's a day for kids to enjoy, we'd do what was fun for Julie. We ate dinner at chic-fil-a, and took our time trick-or-treating: not trying to beat any clock, schedule or bedtime.
Lessons from toddlers. They're usually pretty good ones.
I call this the "twonager face"
Picked up Mitch from class. Peas in a pod.
I think she makes about the cutest chocolate-faced kitty ever, don't you?
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