Happy Halloween.... Dat's Funny!

This month, Micah's favorite expression is "Dat's Funny!", often used after being turned upside down, seeing a funny picture in a book, or doing something that we think isn't quite so funny, like spilling an entire bowl of soup on our glass table or running around the house naked to avoid having his nose wiped. We love seeing Micah's emerging sense of humor and fun, although it has gotten a lot more physically demanding to keep up with him! Sometimes it takes two of us -- and all of our patience plus some we didn't know we had -- to get him dressed in the morning. And there have been some...... moments, let's say. A few days ago, Adam and I were catching up at the end of the day while Micah occupied himself, and we soon discovered that his occupation had been drawing on the walls, with permanent marker! His "Dat's funny" quickly turned into repeating to himself "Daddy mad. Only wite paper" while we struggled between mad and the desire to laugh. We've left the walls marked up for a little while, so we can reiterate "only wite paper."
His newfound independence has also happened at bedtime, too.... our formerly easy bedtime turned into a supernanny-style showdown for a few days, with a few dozen trips out of bed, being carried back each time with the words "Its bedtime, goodnight." Finally, Adam discovered an easier option: if we just hold the door shut for a minute or two, Micah will give up trying to get out and go to sleep. Unfortunately, we can't do this trick in the middle of the night, when we've had a barefoot little boy show up in our bedroom at 2 or 3 am. Because no one gets much sleep if he stays in our bed, one of us will have to carry him back to his room each time, but he pops back in by 5:30 or 6. What a good little alarm clock!
We had plenty of halloween fun this weekend, and a little bit more planned for tonight. I asked Micah what he wanted to be for Halloween thinking he had absolutely no clue what Halloween is or entailed, but I got him the giraffe (his favorite animal) he requested. Then I was surprised each time some well-meaning adult asked him what he was going to be, and he confidently replied "elmo." Oh well, too late to send back the giraffe costume, and it did get a lot of compliments!