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The plan for Halloween this year was to let Tyler trick-or-treat with a friend a few streets over from us, while I took Tayler trick-or-treating on our street. Tyler was extremely happy with her "Gothic Fairy" store-bought costume, and Tayler was extremely pleased with our work on her home-made Papa Smurf outfit. As usual, I waited until the last minute to even start on my costume. I toyed with several fantastical ideas, none of which were able to be made in the time available to me. I settled, at last, on something I always wanted to do: construct a cheesy robot costume out of cardboard boxes. I set to work late Tuesday night, and made a few adjustments during my lunch break Wednesday afternoon, knowing full well that I'd be putting on the final touches just minutes before trick-or-treat officially started.

I rushed home from work, stopping to buy a few glowsticks for the evening, and met the kids at home. I was informed that Tyler's friend was sick, and that Tayler had been invited to trick-or-treat with a friend across town. It was with a heavy heart that I consented to drive her over to the friend's house for the evening. I had been really looking forward to walking around the neighborhood with her in my robot costume. I made peace with the fact that I'd still get to walk around the neighborhood in my robot costume with Tyler instead. On the way over to the friend's house, though, I suggested that they see if Tyler could join them, since I knew she was disappointed at the unexpected change in plans as a result of her friend's illness. This suggestion was readily welcomed, and the friend consented, so it left me with no reason whatsoever to even don the robot costume.

Driving home alone, I realized that this was the first Halloween without the kids since I met them. It was a somewhat humbling moment, and I admit I was surprised by the disappointment I felt: I've always tried hard to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that they'll always be my little girls, and will always want to do things with us. This is the first of many times to come when the kids will want to do something with their friends rather than their parents.

After I picked the kids up at the end of trick-or-treating, they asked me if I had put on the robot costume. When I explained why I had not, they both apologized for not staying at home with me. It took me several tries to explain to them that I wasn't upset, and that I was glad that they had had the opportunity to spend the evening having fun with their friend. I admit that I'm a little saddened by the transition from little kid into pre-teen, and what it means for our relationships together; but I am glad that the kids have friends, and I'm hopeful that they'll continue to count Carina and I as friends, too.

Since I likely won't be walking with the twins next Halloween, I guess it's time to start planning all the gruesome tricks I've always wanted to play on the kids that come to the house in search of candy...

When I was a kid, I loved Sea Monkeys. I always begged to buy them when we saw a package for sale at a novelty shop. I knew they were just brine shrimp, but I thoroughly enjoyed the notion of the little buggers making a happy, vibrant community in the tank, as pictured by the smiling creatures on the packaging. I think I only ever had them on two or three occasions, and I'm quite certain I was disappointed by their microscopic size, but for some reason I always wanted more.

A couple years ago I bought a pack of Sea Monkeys for the twins. I don't remember what happened, but they didn't grow. Maybe we didn't use enough of the supplied "magic crystals", or maybe the water was soiled in some way. All I know is that after two weeks we couldn't see anything moving in the tank, even with magnification.

While wasting time at Meijer, waiting for passport photos to develop, I discovered a discounted box labeled Prehistoric Sea Monsters. A quick look and I was sold: they grow larger than Sea Monkeys (up to two inches!) and grow considerably faster. I presented the box to Tyler, who was immediately intrigued, and the deal was done. We just now prepared the aquarium, and poured in the first batch of eggs. We should see life within two days, after which we begin feeding them every other day.

Reading more about triops, I'm extremely eager to see what happens! They look neat, grow fast, eat almost anything, and thanks to parthenogenesis their eggs hatch without need for fertilization. That means that we can have a fairly continual herd of triops without much effort from us. It sounds almost like the perfect pet! Stay tuned for updates, and to find out if the hype matches the reality.

Tyler's room in our old house had a closet, in the strict definition of that word, but not in any functional definition. Her closet was at most 12 inches deep. It had two rods, one on each side of the door, that only barely accommodated hangers. Needless to say, Tyler didn't use her closet much.

In the new house, Tyler has an actual closet. I recognized quickly that this was new for her, and that she didn't know how to make it work for her. So I spent some time with her, helping her to hang her clothes and explaining that process that I use to decide what goes into a closet and what goes into a dresser drawer.

Tyler's an active young lady, and she doesn't sit still for too long. Consequently, me explaining things to her usually results in the information going in one ear and out the other. I could tell this was happening as I spoke, but then something happened which caught me completely unprepared:
"Tyler, do you know how these different hangers are used," I asked, as I help up a plain wire hanger and a wire hanger with a paper sheath along the bottom bar.
"No," she said, and looked straight at me.
"The one with the paper on it is for pants. The one without paper is for shirts."
"Hang on," Tyler said earnestly, "let me write that down."

It often feels like my kids are in a rush to grow up. As a result, I often forget that they're just kids.

Tayler speaks very eloquently. She has very effective communication skills, and she can use this to great advantage when trying to get out of trouble. She's also very good at sticking up for herself. She has a terrific memory, and is extremely compassionate. Her sense of humor is well developed, but sufficiently different from mine that we don't always enjoy the same kinds of jokes. She often gets agitated when I tease her.

Tyler is on the warpath for independence. She wants nothing more than to spend time in her room, alone, with the door closed. She emails her boyfriend, plays games on her computer, or paints her nails. She's quite content to spend an entire evening in her room, and only comes out -- grudgingly -- for dinner. Tyler has a very sophisticated sense of humor, and loves to tease people. She's been extremely short-tempered lately, which has me worried that the long dark years of puberty are quickly approaching.

I once took the day off today to spend with the girls, since they were home from school. We had a pleasant enough morning, with no real conflict until just about lunch time. This was somewhat remarkable, as the girls are usually at one another's throats before they even finish the morning's cereal. After lunch, I took the girls swimming. They love to swim; and would swim all day long if permitted. I don't have the stamina, so it's usually a few hours worth of pool time before we pack up and head home.

The twins are different people entirely in the water. Both of them magically transform from articulate young ladies into silly little girls, and I'm reminded anew of how little -- and how precious -- they each are. Tyler loves to wriggle and splash and tickle. She often gets more than a little out of hand, and I end up with water in my eyes (if I'm lucky), bruises and scratches, or an unintentional kick in the groin. Tayler used to be deathly afraid of swimming in water deeper than her hips; but now she loves to swim all over the pool.

The game we played at the pool that day involved me holding my breath and floating, face down, until the kids came within arm's length. Then I'd grab them and tickle them. That this would amuse them for more than a single iteration is amazing to me: if we did something similar out of the water they'd get bored within seconds. But in the pool, they each kept coming back over to me, knowing full well that I'd tickle them given the chance. After this, I tried my best to sneak up on Tayler to tickle her when she wasn't expecting it. Each time she shrieked loudly, and I had to really work to stifle the laugh that came over me. Were I to tickle her at home more than once, she would snap "Stop it dad!" in a commanding voice.

Once, long before we were married, I babysat the twins while Carina did something. I recorded the twins singing songs and making jokes, and then got them to repeat a few funny phrases. I then used these as interstitials on a mix CD I prepared for Carina. She found that CD yesterday, and played the twins' tracks for them as we drove home. Included were such gems as Tayler saying "Mommy, you're the bees knees", Tyler telling her favorite joke at the time ("Why did the chicken cross the road? Because BOK BOK BOK!" -- this simple joke could keep Tyler laughing out loud all day!), and both of them singing "Where is Thumbkin" (which came out "Where is Pumpkin?" followed by a lot of indistinct mumbling as they tried to remember the words).

After the kids went to bed, Carina and I stayed up listening to WAV files she had recorded from when the kids were little. It was a real treat to hear their cute little voices, and to be reminded of just how much they've grown up since then. It was also amazing to hear the kids saying way back then the same things they still say and do today: Tyler teased Tayler and laughed mischievously about it, while Tayler repeated "Stop!" again and again.

Carina and I both vowed to begin recording more of the kids, so that we can look back in another ten years and be reminded of how precious the twins were at this age, too.

We've moved in, and now call the new house "home". We still have plenty of stuff to bring over, but we have sufficient necessities in order to actually begin living in the new home. Tonight we brought over the cats, which really cinches it for me.

The new house is great, now that we've (mostly) finished painting it. Much to my surprise, I quite like the couch that Carina selected. It's enormous, and consumes a great deal of space in the living room, but it's super comfy, and it seats about a thousand. I quite enjoy stretching out on the couch: it's markedly more comfortable than the tiny IKEA couch at our old house.

We had a cookout yesterday, and invited friends and coworkers. We also invited several of the new neighbors. Mark and Carolyn are a retired couple that live behind us, and brought yummy brownies. They've lived in the neighborhood for eleven years, and know most of the folks on their street and our's. They're an extremely fun couple with which to have a conversation. Matt and Susan are the young couple next to us. They've been there for about a year. If I had to guess, I'd say they were Carina's age. They came over later in the evening, and stayed late chatting with us in the backyard.

One thing I'm really looking forward to is being neighborly. Our old house has an alley on one side, beyond which is a duplex. None of the tenants of that duplex ever stayed for long, and as such we never really got to meet any of them. On the other side of our house was an older couple who were nice enough, but not exactly the kind of folks with whom you wanted to interact beyond polite formalities. I am a bit disappointed that I really don't know the names of anyone on our old street; and I hope very much not to repeat that same mistake here.

Of course, that's unlikely to happen even if I tried. Since this was my grandmother's house, I knew casually at least a handful of her neighbors. Two houses up from us is Francine, who has now lived on the street longer than anyone else (my grandmother moved in several years before Francine, so when my grandmother passed away, the honor transferred to her). Across the street from us are the parents of a group of kids that went through school with me and my sister. Bob was in my sister's class, and his sisters were in the grade below me. Bob lives about five houses down from us. (We're using his parent's wireless network until we get Speakeasy hooked up. Thanks Bob!)

So while we still have a lot of stuff to bring over, and then a lot of work to do on the old house, things are moving along nicely.