Happy Halloween Little Bald Pumpkin

Something we discovered when we took Caleb to Buenos Aires earlier this year was that Latins LOVE, LOVE, LOVE babies, especially little gringo babies. And, Caleb with his fair skin, light hair, and very blue eyes tends to stand out among Latins, especially in Peru where the post-war European influence isn't as prevalent as it is in Argentina. Everywhere we go (literally everywhere, church, the grocery store -- it takes twice as long to buy groceries, the hardware store, any sidewalk or cafe or, well you get the idea) people stop, or rather stop us, to admire and go a little nuts over Caleb, often taking him from our arms or the stroller -- and of course we have tried to teach our child not be a mama's boy so he happily goes to every perfect stranger who extends their hands toward him -- we're going to have to work on that! Consequently, the words I know best in Spanish are (as you are reading these, think about Peruvian men, women and children saying these things as if there were describing the most delicious food they had ever tasted): muneco (little doll); que lindo (so cute); que prescioso (so precious); sus ojos son muy azul (his eyes are so blue); que bonito (so beautiful); and my personal favorite...ahh peloncito (little bald one). And while these are lovely words, they are not as helpful at the market or the drugstore as you might think, well, in fact they are just as helpful as you might think, i.e. not!

Since this was Caleb's first Halloween (note, you will see many posts from here on out talking about "firsts" for Caleb - he is nine months old, that's the way it is), I wanted to be sure that we celebrated it properly with a cute costume, lots of pictures and plenty of candy. Okay, so even though he did the trick-or-treating (sort of), the candy was really for the grown-ups and we couldn't let it go to waste. Obviously we have to savor access to his candy now before he is old enough to understand why people are giving it to him and that it really does taste better than the pureed sweet potatoes and peas that he is used to having for "dessert" and then refuses to share with Mommy and Daddy ever again.

Our Table

The Embassy in Peru, and I suspect everywhere else in the world, has an annual Halloween party to which all children of all employees are invited. The theme for our party in Lima was a Halloween carnival and several announcements were sent in advance about each section being responsible for a table and a game at the carnival. Thinking this would be a good way to meet some people and get involved, I mentioned to Kenny that I would be happy to help with his section's game. Next thing I know, his boss is thanking me for handling the game and all the accompanying details...hm... Despite limited resources and time (thank goodness for Oriental Trading Company) we put together a fairly decent Halloween themed bean bag toss (no shortage of beans on this continent) complete with sparkly orange bean bags and lots of candy to distribute to the trick-or-treaters. I had purchased Caleb's Halloween costume (a pumpkin of course -- isn't is required that every baby dress as a pumpkin for their first Halloween?) before we left for Peru and packed it in our things so we would have it even if (read since) our slow boat stuff didn't arrive in time. And while he did not enjoy Mommy shouting hooray each time we had a winner at the bean bag toss, he looked terrific, collected a fair amount of candy and compliments and had, I think, an extremely successful Halloween experience. Now to my list of already useful Spanish words I have added: calabasito -- little pumpkin. Happy Halloween Little Bald Pumpkin!

The Little Bald Pumpkin

The Pumpkin and Daddy