AJ had a little meltdown this morning and is taking an extremely rare morning nap. We had to leave his gym class� Halloween party early. He had fun at first, but then two classes combined for a Halloween parade and that proved to be too much for him. He started yelling and shoved a small boy dressed like a pumpkin, who came up and stared at AJ while he was crying. The boy rolled away with his little legs waving in the air. Just like a cartoon. We made a quick getaway.

Holidays are really hard on toddlers. AJ loves the surprises they offer, but gets really freaked out by all the changes in routine. His gym class is really orderly, so when things didn�t go according to plan today, it put him over the edge. Still, it was fun to see that many little kids running around in costumes. At one point AJ (still a cowboy) was tearing around the room in a game of chase with a little boy dressed as an Indian and a little girl dressed like a horse, in a perfect parody of a Western.

I�m feeling a little blue today, mostly due to exhaustion � AJ�s been getting up very early and I have not been sleeping well. Last night I had a mystifying series of dreams in each of which I was a perfect party guest. I was funny, charming, outgoing; the DJ who saved the party from mass dispersion, the chef who fixed wonderful food out of a pantry full of nothing when the caterer did not show, and any number of variations. In real life I�m a lousy party guest. I�m usually the one sitting on the floor playing with the family dog or perusing the bookshelves in a quiet corner. At best I�ll sit in a corner and talk to just one or two people all night. I�m not much of a loud party person. I woke up feeling woefully inadequate.

My friend L (my roommate at SEM and a friend from graduate school) is coming up tomorrow for the weekend. A concert and trip to IKEA are on the agenda, so hopefully that will cheer me up. And hopefully AJ will be back to his usually cheery self when he wakes up. He�s very excited about his first foray into trick-or-treating tonight. We�ll probably only go to a couple of houses, but he�s been practicing saying �Trick-or-treat� for several days and has been rehearsing the procedures that he must have learned at school. This morning, I overheard him muttering to himself:

�Ring the bell. Ding dong! Open door. �Trick or Treat!��

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