Our neighborhood's second annual Fall Fun Fest was today and we had a great time. There were three bounce houses...all of which terrified Ellie. As brave and outgoing as she is, she's developing some very real phobias -- so far, the list consists of bounce houses (particularly those shaped like castles) and balloons. She used to love balloons and then one day she decided they were very, very scary. We happened to be in the middle of the grocery store with the a helium balloon that Ellie had been given and suddenly Ellie was horrified that the balloon followed her everywhere. She cowered in the shopping cart and screamed/cried until I left the balloon tied to a pile of avocados. But I digress. Despite the scary bounce houses, Ellie loved the 3F. She befriended two teenage girls who humored her while she compared her Disney princess cell phone to their iPhones and drooled over their hot dogs, and enjoyed dancing in the middle of the street. A little three year old girl thought Ellie was super-cool and kept walking up to Ellie and standing next to her. Ellie hardly gave her the time of day, having already made friends with the cooler, teenage girls.
Since the bounce houses had already scared Ellie, I thought McGruff (or whatever his name is), the big, crime-fighting dog, might scare her as well, but she just looked at him matter-of-factly and said "dadoo!"
She wasn't even scared of the very creepy Halloween decoration, but she did keep a close eye on it:
Although Ellie has another horrible cold, we took her trick-or-treating to a couple houses and she loved it! She really got into putting the candy in her bag (and amazingly, she didn't get upset when we wouldn't let her eat any of it -- of course it helps that she has no appetite right now). Mom and Dad learned an important lesson while trick-or-treating -- we have A LOT to teach Ellie about strangers -- she walked right into every house and made herself at home!
