bellaween and other new words

we had such a great time on sunday at bellaween. when I first got to the banquet room at the sons of italy, I was really quite depressed. instead of the black tablecloths and orange cloth napkins that I thought we were getting, there were white tablecloths and orange and black paper napkins. the room looked stark. the lights were really bright. after I decorated, the room still looked a little bare and a little disappointing to me. I went home and put on my witch costume and when I returned, there were already quite a few guests. they had dimmed the lights and put on the music that we brought and things looked much, much better.

as I had hoped, many people came in costume. nicole and mark were visitors to jurassic park with their newly captured dinosaur, noah. my brother roy, who is a mechanic, and my sister in law carol, who is a dog breeder, dressed up as each other. and shockingly (but excellently) my brother ed allowed my nephew zachary to dress up as skipper to my sister in law nicole's barbie. seeing a little kid in drag is fun...and when the family is hardcore born again christian, it's even better. my mom brought her costume and left it in the car and instead came as "a person in jeans". way to go. my dad said he was dressed as an old man. my stepmother kkkathy let me know that for the occassion she wore her push up bra, so draw your own conclusions there. sean's mom dressed as a desert soldier and sean's dad dressed as a jungle soldier. it's not hard to figure out that they have a son in the military. even sean's grandmother, mojam, dressed up in a phillies hat and a red mask. hey, it's better than nothing. and, of course, not to disappoint, jen and jon came as venus and serena williams. seeing jon in a sports bra - well, words are not adequate here.

of course, our little family was all dressed up too, with bella being the baby witch, me being the mommy witch, and sean being frankenstein. trent was hercule poirot as planned and of course everyone thought he was charlie chaplin. he just went with it after a while. though I am proud of him for being something that no one else really knew and not being self conscious about it.

we had cake (after sean's microphoned announcement that said "fire BAAAAAD, cake GOOOOOOOD") and food and everyone seemed to have a good time, even if my stepmother commented on how the music was terrible. (not everyone likes ozzy and the misfits, what can I say. this is what happens when sean makes the playlist.)

halloween was successful as well. at the last minute, some of trent's friends invited him out to trick or treat, which was nice. bella had her very own tastycake (tastycakes are important in our family) and LOVED it, and earlier in the day, sean had taken her to pick out her own birthday present. it was a plastic dog from playskool that she absolutely loves. he also got her the TMBG here come the ABCs dvd, which she watched for all of 10 minutes. sean and I were quite entertained by it, though, and actually rewound some of it to watch again.

tuesday, I took bella to the doctor for her 1 year checkup. she had been a little snotty but wasn't really cranky and had no fever, but it turns out that both ears are infected. so we're on the amoxicillin. she fucking hates that stuff and I can't blame her. it's vile. she also got her flu shot and a chicken pox vaccine and had some blood drawn for routine tests. you can imagine how cheerful she was after all that. we also learned that she's cleared for takeoff for whole milk (which we buy from merrymead farms, where we went to the fall festival, because their milk has no growth hormones) and all table food. and they want us to forgoe the bottle in favor of sippy cups. we're transitioning to milk in bottles first and then will tackle the cups, which shouldn't be a big issue, except for the fact that she loves to play with the cups and doesn't always drink from them.

we also found out that she's about 18 and a half pounds. she's gained one pound since her 9 month checkup. I've started to worry. because that's what moms do. I know it's going to be no big deal, but now I feel kind of desperate when I feed her. even when she signs "all done" I try to cram more food in her mouth. it's aggravating and nerve wracking.

to end this on a good note, she's started signing more and saying more words really clearly. she can now sign all done, more, eat, and her own version of no. she says baby really clearly, as well as hi, bye-bye, and my favorite: poopy. clear as a bell. when she's pooping, I usually say "are you pooping? are you poopy now?" she did it last night and I asked her if she was poopy, and she said "POO-PEEEEE! POOPY! POOPY!" you gotta love it.