A Whole New Level of Sentience

The flurry of Halloween photos has descended on the blogosphere this week. I won’t bore you with too many pics (especially since you know how I feel about flash photography…LOL), but today’s installment just features a couple from her school parade last Friday. I’m not sure how she did it, but she has managed to become quite the little celebrity at the school. I’ve seen it on numerous occasions, Sammi walking past a group of children lined up in the hallway, shouts of “Hi, Samantha! Sammi, over here!” as they reach out to her, Sammi sometimes reaching back, sometimes waving. I just love the older children in Samantha’s school. I feel that the level of acceptance is overwhelming. A group of 5th graders assists the preschoolers getting on and off the bus each day, too, sometimes joining them for activities in the classroom. I’ll save my I’m-so-conflicted-about-what-school-to-send-Sammi-to-next-year-and-for-subsequent-years whine for another post, and get back to the Halloween stuff.

So FOUR is the year for a whole new level of sentience in the life of a child, I have discovered. Birthdays and holidays seem to have taken on a whole new meaning for her, suddenly popping into existence as days where something different is done. All of those cartoons on TV that have holiday themes now make sense to her, and I think (oooh, my fingers are sooooo crossed right now!! I’m so excited!) the holiday classics like Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will be watched eagerly in our house this year. Considering Sammi was obsessing with Santa back in August, I think Christmas will be a real blast this year. Halloween was an easy sell, too. I had been obsessing over what to have her wear for Halloween, and even how to present Halloween to her this year, since last year she’d been a little too young to really get the concept (not to mention, she was sick and super-cranky on Halloween night then, so we only went to one or two houses before abandoning the mission). While we talked about her Halloween costume regularly from the time we purchased it, allowing her to respond appropriately when anyone asked what she be, we waited until the last minute, the day before, to talk about going to the neighbors’ houses to ask for candy.

The school parade was the first opportunity for Samantha to wear her nurse’s costume, which she had picked out herself a few weeks ago in Walmart (I was not surprised that she chose the nurse over the others, including a princess of some sort – this completely fit her nurturing and empathetic personality), and she was only too happy to don it again on Sunday to trick-or-treat. She absolutely loved walking up the steps to each door, but contrary to her usual enthusiasm for doorbells, she refused to ring any of them, allowing me the honor instead. She was her usual polite self, however, thanking the homeowners for the candy and cheerily waving goodbye. “Next door!” she said after each visit. As the sun began to set and the winds picked up, we settled back in at home so she could have dinner and get ready for bed. We managed to tear her away from the Halloween episodes of Max & Ruby long enough to dole out some candy to the trick-or-treaters at our door. She enjoyed her responsibility to put the goods into each child’s bucket (or pillowcase…when did that become a trend?), and threw a fit when one little boy took his own candy from the proffered bowl, leaving her clutching a Kit Kat, pouting, and yelling after him, “Candy! Hey! Candy!” She took her job very seriously.

And it was definitely time for bed.

Nurse Sammi, at your service...

Out to meet her adoring fans...