This weekend is Halloween. Last Halloween, Reid gave us one of his cutest photos ever, but a lot of that had to do with us dressing him as a pumpkin. This year, we had help with the carving of a real pumpkin. Reid had a great time trying to eat the nasty goop that was inside and then carefully placing pumpkin seeds on my pants. As you can see, he also inspected my pumpkin-cleaning work to ensure quality control.

October has been a busy month hereabouts, with K having to travel during the first part, and then us all heading to Atlanta to visit the Reid's grandparents. Halloween just plain snuck up on us, which meant the finest of the Halloween costumes were long-gone from the retail establishments in our area. We really didn't want to get Reid any of the standard issue licensed merchandise, mostly since we would basically be arbitratily deciding that he would be Spider-Man or a Furby. (No joke, we saw a Furby costume. Who would ever dress a kid up as a Furby in 2004?) As far as we know (daycare is an unknown quotient), he hasn't really attached himself to some television character or anything.

So we honestly went into this Halloween thinking Reid might be something funny and abstract, like a frog or a chicken. (We never believed he would be a chicken, but we saw a chicken costume once.) These were all from your friendly neighborhood Old Navy, where parents can buy inexpensive clothes for their children and cheap t-shirts they don't mind getting slobber on for themselves.

Well, Old Navy was like a war zone by the time we got around to shopping for the costume (this would be last weekend, I guess, October 22nd). After hitting a few Old Navies, it seemed clear that no sane person would continue this quest. The Party City (and it's confusing competitor Party Depot) all yielded a relatively stale selection of costumes for toddlers (the middle schooler dressed in a pimp costume, and not one but two Furby costumes were both in the Party Depot). Daddy was desperate, and mommy was throwing a baby shower for a friend. Reid and I had no choice.

We went to KMart.

I'm not some elitist who won't shop at KMart for some highminded baloney about being better than Blue Light Specials. I avoid the place because it's always a complete madhouse, and sometimes the people are mean. Not the KMart employees, but the shoppers. Calm down people! Reid slept through the entire experience, but I found a frog costume which Reid consented to wear for this photograph. Since he was asleep and all 23 pounds of him was causing my arm to burn, I went ahead and bought a bumblebee costume as well. We have photos of Reid wearing it, but he is crying or screaming like a banshee in every one. Maybe we'll get them out for his prom date.

Happy Halloween.

It's late and daddy's weary. I thought seriously about waking Reid up and trying to explain to him that the last lunar eclipse until he turns four was slowly unfolding in the sky tonight. Then I asked myself, "what are you thinking?"

The gently glowing red moon reminded me of Reid' own personal eclipsing recently of the last peach of the season. He really did a number on this bad boy, and we had to unstick him from the sofa to get him into the tub.

Well, the beard was something of a shock to K, once she returned from her world travels. So shocking was it that she permitted Reid's dad to keep the hairy face for a week before she demanded it was removed.

Not having adequate equipment to do so, I engaged in a half-hour long electric razor slow retreat on the beard, using the lame trimmer attachment to wear down the beard's resistance. Reid was fascinated, as I normally shave in the morning when he is distracted. He couldn't resist the razor's temptation, and he wrestled it from my grasp and attempted to shave his hairless face.

Double-Bonus RPOD-Day!

Things have been rough lately with Reid and I. A few nights ago, we had a rough time eating out. I admit, I wanted to not cook dinner one night. Since K left last Saturday, Reid and I have eaten-in nearly every meal. The actual cooking of meals isn't the hard part. The hard part is the roulette wheel of Reid's finicky appetites. He just doesn't like to eat sometimes. I'm running down some leads related to the snack-foods served at Reid's day-care. I caught one of the folks there feeding him ice cream at 5 in the afternoon.

Anyhow, putting together meals for Reid is a tremendous trial. No matter what you prepare, there is the potential to have it thrown back in your face (literally). Nothing can be completely relied on as a food he will absolutely eat. One day, barbecue is a hit, the next day, he won't touch the stuff. One morning we're eating cereal happy as clams, and the next that cereal is met with a tight lip and a surprisingly defiant head-shake, "no." It's exasperating, to say the least.

This particular day, a few nights ago, we went for one of Reid's slightly more reliable means, Middle-Eastern food. When we were in Egypt, readers of this blog will recall, Reid was some kind of crazy eating machine. He wandered the marble floors of whatever apartment we were in, clutching kufta and munching away like it was nobody's business. Just the other day, when my father came to visit, he bought Reid and me kabobs and Reid sat in his lap eating huge chunks of meat like a champ. I thought Aladdin's would be a lock.

I was dead wrong. As the meal continued, it became apparent that the food I had selected wasn't tender enough for Reid to really enjoy. The meat was a little chewy (how I like it), but Reid bored with all the chewing and rarely finished a piece of meat. As a result, dinner that night was some hummus, pita, two cucumber slices, and some mango puree.

It wasn't enough.

By three-thirty in the morning, Reid was awake and hungry. With only one parent in the house, the toddler-block technique of letting him cry/talking him back to sleep is tough to enforce. I didn't want to pick him up, but I'm sure I buckled. I really don't remember.

Because it happened again last night. Dinner -- at home this time -- was a disaster. I think I barbecued some chicken which he seemed to eat, though I found a lot of the chicken in his pants when I took him up for his bath. I cooked one egg, and Reid didn't eat any of it. Dying for sleep, I think I fed him some yogurt, but it didn't matter. At 4, he was up again, and we passed an hour with him shouting at me while I spoke in calming tones about how he should lay down and go to sleep.

In the end, I was wrong, probably. The entire crazy don't-pick-up thing is grounded in the theory that re-affirming the effectiveness of the midnight shouting should be avoided. In the end, though, I wanted to sleep. After three bouts of near-return to sleep, I picked Reid up and rocked him for five minutes. He fell asleep in my arms and I put him in his crib. He slept for two more hours.

I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed now, but here is the promised double-RPOD! In the first, above, Reid finds himself trapped on top of a laundry basket. He slowly rotated in this position for about five minutes.

In the second, Reid and his dad debut the biggest surprise of the two-weeks K's been away: The Beard!

Goodnight.

Sadly, I don't have a ton of time tonight, as a recent change in the weather has left me with a big pile of long-sleeved Reid laundry to take care of so he isn't under-dressed tomorrow.

I also committed a lot of time to this ridiculous exercise, but I think the final result -- a stop-action sequence of Reid melodramatically falling back over his custom-built pile of pillows and then recovering -- speaks volumes. My little experiment shows Reid's gift for performance.

Tomorrow's RPOD will feature a new picture plus a bonus shot from today of Reid experimenting with climbing, and scaring the heck out of me.

Reid's capacity for wonder continues to stun me. Reid and I did some experimentation with the "Room of Danger." This is my name for the office/front door/staircase portion of our home, to which we've relocated every dangerous thing and many of the precious things in our home (tall topple-likely bookshelves, expensive computer equipment, several hundred fun-to-break cds). I've been spending time with him in this room, monitoring his behavior to identify potential hazards, and taking action when he endangers himself.

So today, we discovered the trashcan. I don't think we need any more commentary on that.

Today, we also discovered pockets. Unfortunately, this discovery came because Reid likes to grab my sunglasses from my breast pocket. Then, later tonight, Reid decided that this very pocket was the best place to put lego blocks. Lots of them. Little ones and big ones. And very big ones. Ones that don't under the current laws of physics fit in my pocket. I had to do something quick. Reid was wearing jeans. So I put a lego in his pocket.

Reid was shocked to find these pockets on his very person. The blocks magically disappeared into these pockets and Reid simply couldn't believe it. It was amazing. The look on this boy's face, as his little world slowly shifted to shed light on this new component of his own pants, was what being a dad is all about, I suspect.

Reid's got a lot of toys. K and I go back and forth about age-appropriate toys sometimes because Reid gets a lot of toys that are for older kids than him, and my mind runs in circles attempting to determine exactly how Reid could injure himself because he isn't 3 years old, as the manufacturers recommend he be. This is because I'm insane.

One of my favorite targets in this discussion is always my mom's gifts of choice: strange little dancing dolls. First it was a strange little dog in a trenchcoat with an umbrella who soft-shoed to "Singin' in the Rain." Others followed.

The latest was Chicken Dance Ernie. At first, Reid feared the Ernie, which was fine by me. Secretly, I wanted Ernie to fail, which, I know, practically guaranteed that Reid would grow to love Ernie. This despite the fact that it was clearly out of his age range.

By now, Ernie has become a loved member of the family. About half the time, Reid walks up to Ernie, knocks it down, and laughs. Sometimes, like in the moment captured above, Reid just watches Ernie dance on by and squeals with delight.

Today, Reid had a fruit-filled day of fun. We visited friends in the morning, and ate pineapple and melon there, as well as a plum. Later we ate this apple. I won't comment on any of the results of this fruit-intensive diet, but you can go ahead and venture a guess if you want.

This weekend, Reid and I also tried a very slow, but very enjoyable new activity. Since the temperature here has dropped enough for Reid to be wearing long pants regularly, we've taken to walking Dixie. Instead of our normal walk routine, we dispense with the stroller and instead hook Dixie to an old-school eight foot leash and carefully, slowly, moving only at the pace of Reid's short legs and long curiousity, walk Dixie around the block.

At first, Reid took to a surprisingly effective position in the walking. He stood between Dixie and myself with his hand on the leash, walking along in rhythm to the dog and myself. But the dog tugged this way and that, and Reid didn't like the feedback on the leash, so he would wander away dangerously. Though Reid's mom and I haven't talked about this policy yet, I feel strongly that Reid, at 15 months, needs to begin understanding that when we're out walking together, we need to be holding an adult's hand.

So now, we walk with Reid holding my hand and me holding the dog. But the dog still tugs and yanks, and when the dog does what you take dogs out for a walk to do, I'm left without the right number of hands to handle the business... at hand. So what to do?

That gets us to the final configuration, which was the most successful. Reid walking and holding my hand. Dixie, still on the leash, strapped to my waist by having my belt threaded through her leash. Daddy enjoys full range of hand motion, Reid is carefully kept in hand at all times, and Dixie, well, she's pretty much the same in any of these scenarios.

We had a good walk, after we worked out our hand-and-leash issues. Reid's an excellent and observant walker. I can't wait for Reid's mom to get home so she can join us.

Weekends are what make the single parenting gig hard when K's out of town. Not that morning prep and drop and afternoon pickup, feed and bedtime are a piece of cake, but there is something relentless in being the sole, undistracted point of contact for the baby for an entire 48 hour period.

My sister is going to swing by and relieve me for a few hours tomorrow afternoon, which will be a super break, but today Reid and I had a pretty good time.

The morning started, as you can see, with some fun playtime in our fancy pajamas. It's impossible to tell because he is so prone to running around nonstop (a real obstacle to successfully identifying a new Reid Picture of the Day every day), but his pajamas are football-styled, decorated with players and numbers and whatnot. Unfortunately, Reid's display of team spirit did not help the Crimson Tide in today's outing. Let's not speak of this again.

After a nap, Reid decided it was time to go out. It's easy to get cabin fever sitting around in four rooms all day long. But when I say Reid decided, I mean he actually grabbed his baby bag off the table and dragged it to the front door of the our house and grappled for the doorknob. He was ready to go.

After swinging by a friend's house, we headed over to Old Town Alexandria. Well, we discussed what we would have for lunch, but a previously unknown street fair threw a wrench into our plans. Reid began to lose patience with yours truly as I drove around Alexandria looking for food. We finally arrived at a delicious barbecue restaurant where Reid taught my pulled pork sandwich a thing or two about toddler hunger. His stomach full, Reid was a perfect angel as we strolled around Alexandria, dodging the ubiquitous pan-flute band and window shopping. Reid even did some sidewalk maneuvering of his own stroller, though he wasn't able to see where he was going.

Reid is sleepy tonight. So is his daddy.

Warning: Senseless diaper update ahead: Little Reid appears to be experiencing some kind of growth spurt. Two nights in a row, he awoke with a little leaky action over the top of his diaper. Reid's body type is an odd one. He's very long in the torso, but with normal length legs for his age. So the size fours diapers fit around him better than the size fours, but they seem a little like low-riders. And Reid is far too fashionable for hip-huggers.

So our adaptive solution is this: number fours for sleep, because he looks like a chicken popping out of an egg when he wears these gigantic diapers, but number threes for his daytime wear, because we can keep an eye on matters and ensure that he doesn't have an accident.

Senseless diaper update complete. Over and out.