I don’t quite have the giant walrus mustache that Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters has, but it’s as close as I could get without driving myself crazy. Besides, who wouldn’t want to wear a costume that has your co-workers encouraging you to blow stuff up?

We spent the evening trick-or-treating with some friends in their neighborhood since our neighborhood has been vaccinated against the Halloween spirit. Our friends’ neighborhood appears to have been lifted wholesale from the movie E.T., complete with decorated houses and hordes of kids roaming the neighborhood and attacking anyone with a bowl of candy. At one point in the evening we passed a compact front-end loader pulling a flat-bed trailer filled with trick-or-treaters and a smoke machine. In its front scoop was a flashing pumpkin that made it look like it had plowed through some poor church’s pumpkin patch and perhaps a high-voltage line.

Early on Eli declared he wanted to be a ninja. In hindsight, us letting him dress as a ninja was like an unregulated credit default swap: good in theory, bad in practice. Not only was he wearing a black costume that encouraged him to hide in the shadows, but every fifth boy was dressed as a ninja. We had three kids dressed as ninjas in our group alone. Even his cousin Sam in Kansas City was a ninja. Liza, on the other hand, just wanted to wear a random dress over her warm clothes. She ended up with a mermaid dress that her friend Kate had.

We had between seven and nine ninjas, mermaids, and Angry Birds in our party. The kids quickly divided into three groups. The older boys would run ahead, with Liza running pell-mell in their midst. Liza’s friend Kate would follow behind at a more stately pace, with Kate’s younger brother Jordan trailing behind. Keeping the kids together was like keeping spilled marbles from rolling everywhere. We parents eventually adopted small squad tactics. One parent would run to the first house on the block, the next parent would take the second house, and so on until we were strung out along the street and ready to intercept our mob of candy-crazed kids. As the kids would leave one house, the parent at that house would send the kids to the next parent before running ahead of all the other parents to keep the train going. All we were missing were SWAT vests and shouts of “GO! GO! GO!”

The two Angry-Bird-suited kids eventually tired of wearing their costumes, so I inherited one of them to wear until we got back to the house. This led to a combination costume of Jamie Hyneman and Angry Birds that I can only call Angry Beret.

While Eli and Liza were mainly excited to run from house to house shouting, “Trick or treat!”, caring little for what candy they got, they ended up with a huge haul of candy. We split it into five gallon-sized Ziploc bags: two for the kids, one for Eli’s classroom, one for me, and one for work.

In conclusion, this is how I developed adult-onset diabetes.

Your more traditional birthday celebrations were spread out over three weeks. On your actual birthday you had donuts at school. Later that week mom and I took you to Red Robin. Two weekends later my parents showed up and took you and your friends Kate, Josh and Jordan to Chuck-E-Cheese. Sadly I was on a business trip and so missed you communing with Chuck and his scary animatronic band.

You talk far more than I ever expected you to. When I was young I talked a lot — completely unlike now — and so your uncle Andrew never got to talk much. Based on that I assumed that you’d have the same experience, since Eli talks slightly more than he breathes. Instead you also talk a lot, so that often our house sounds like we’ve got two radio station DJs competing for our attention. With practice, you’re leaving your cute toddler speech behind. It wasn’t too long ago that you were calling crayons “crayawns” and talking about your favorite restaurant “Phil Sandobal’s”. At one point you heard your mom bemoaning yet another fly buzzing around our kitchen. “There’s our usual house pet, a fly,” she said, which led you to call every fly from then on a “usually fly pet”.

Speaking of flies, you’re still enamored with bugs. This summer the red-eyed 13-year cicadas hatched and our friend Renee brought some over for you to see. You put them in your bug catcher and carried them around the house while petting them. In fact, you have no real sense that some bugs are evil, even those without scary red eyes. Just a few weeks ago you picked up a small sweat bee that stung you. Undaunted, you later picked up a big fuzzy bumblebee “because he wanted to be friends.” Fortunately, most of your bug encounters have gone much better. You’ve played with praying mantises, beetles, cockroaches, and more without being harmed. One of your favorite Christmas presents was the ant farm we got you, even though we couldn’t get the ants for it at the time because it was too cold. The ants finally arrived in April, as I found when I came home from work and you ran to meet me at the door. “Guess what I got! Guess what I got!” you said. “ANTS!”

You have a gift for naming things. There have been endless Needles the beetle, which you delight in finding and showing us at 6:30 in the morning. You’ve added to your stuffed animal menagerie: you now have Lips the fish and Turtle Turtle Not the turtle. Your scooter is Pixie the scooter. One of your many stuffed dogs is Special the dog.

As you’ve grown, so has your imagination. You have two invisible friends, Poodie and Jai Alai. They are electric monsters shaped like dogs who eat bones and are invisible. Sometimes they shoot electricity. There are also ice robots who follow the car and alternate between protecting the car and chasing it. To you, the large electrical towers that dot our landscape are robots, though it’s possible that’s due to your brother’s influence.

This has been a year of extreme weather. In January we had our first real snowstorm since your birth. You got to tromp around in the snow and make snow angels. A month ago a series of tornadoes tore through our community. We spent the afternoon huddled in a hallway filled with quilts and pillows. You and Eli played on iPads and iPhones; your mom and I fretted. The next day, as the extent of the devastation became clear, we ran to Arkansas, where we were promptly hemmed in by floods. At one point we walked from Pop Don’s house to a section of road that was underwater. “Why is there water on the road?” you said, pitching rocks in to see them sink to the asphalt below.

Last year I wrote that, if we were lucky, you’d become potty trained without us having to work hard. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened. The transition from you wearing diapers to you being potty trained was so smooth that we almost didn’t realize it had happened. Not so with your pacifier, which required a lot of bribing and crossed fingers. “Put them on the table and the binkie fairy will take them away and leave quarters,” we told you. Hint: it wasn’t the binkie fairy, it was me. I put them in the top drawer of my dresser in case you were absolutely unable to go to sleep without a pacifier. I had a whole story about the binkie fairy feeling bad for you if I had to trade them for sleep.

You’re still not the greatest sleeper, though your sleep habits have improved noticeably. Your brother sleeps so soundly that I could tie him to the car bumper and drag him around without him waking up, while the sound of moonlight sometimes interrupts your sleep. When we were visiting with my family during Thanksgiving, we put you to sleep in one bed and then moved you to another. The first night when I lifted you and you stayed asleep, I nearly passed out myself. Most nights aren’t that smooth, though. Putting you to bed stimulates your procrastination gland. “I need to go to the baaaaathroom,” you tell us. “There are shadows in my room. Who’s out there? Can I have some water? There’s a monster in my room. Can you cover me up?” The best of your excuses play on our parenting impulses. “I want you to hug me,” you’ll say. When we do, you say, “Now hug me for a while.” Just last night we went in to find that you’d been playing, dressed yourself in your fairy wings, and only then fallen asleep.

The most exciting thing you did all year was fall and poke one of your teeth through your upper lip. You got to have stitches, which sent you into hysterics throughout the process. Lest anyone think you were so upset because you’re a frilly little girl, I’ll point out that, two days later, the stitches were bothering you so you went ahead and pulled them out.

Eli is your best friend and dearest enemy. Sometimes you two fight; five minutes later, you’re sad that Eli won’t play with you. Every morning you wake up and go play with him until he pushes you or you hit him, at which point you wake up your mom and me either by complaining about what Eli did or screeching like an angry owl. Screeching is how you let people in neighboring states know that you’re angry. I’m afraid you inherited my temper. If so, I hope you learn to control it sooner than I did.

These days are so hot that we’ve been spending a lot of it in friends’ pools. You splash around excitedly, holding onto two pool noodles while you kick. After a while you tire out and want to be carried through the water while clinging tightly to my neck. I treasure those moments because, as excited as I am about your growing independence, it’s still wonderful to have you holding on.

You got many cool presents. I bought you a shirt from ThinkGeek because I’m that kind of dad. Mom got you a bag. But your favorite gift of all was a bug catcher. It’s a clear plastic container with a magnifying glass built into the lid, so you can scoop up bugs and stare at them while they cower, frightened by your giant magnified eye.

This year you’ve grown to love stuffed animals in a way that would make your uncle Andrew proud. Ellie the elephant is by far your favorite, but you also love Big Ellie the other elephant and Pinecone the other other elephant and Two the puppy dog. You named most of the animals, though I’m responsible for you calling one baby doll “Scary Baby”. It turns its head and makes frightening crying noises and clacks its eyes open and shut and it freaks me out a bit. If this were an 80s horror movie then it would be into the knives in no time.

You enjoy drawing and reading. Sometimes you wander into your room and pull books off of your shelf to read them. When I sit down in my overstuffed red recliner you take that as an invitation for me to read to you. You grab a book and run to me, crying, “Read to me, daddy, read to me!” You throw the book in my lap and climb up my legs like they were a ladder. I read the book to you and you toss the book aside, climb back down, and run to get another book.

Nothing, though, dims your overwhelming love of Dora. “I wanna watch Dora!” you shout. “Dora Dora Dora the exploraaaaaaaah. DORAAAA!” Sometimes you dally with other shows, like Team Umizoomi. “Pattern Power!” you say as you run madly around the house in no discernible pattern.

You’re extremely active and sometimes frighteningly coordinated. In your mind you’re a six-year-old boy, which gives you courage beyond your years. As soon as we open the back door you’re climbing up onto the trampoline of death and jumping and jumping, your blond hair spreading around your head like a dandelion puff, before swinging yourself down. You climb up the side of our jungle gym and clamber around its exterior in ways guaranteed to take years off of my life.

You’re an “I can do it” child.You want to dress and undress yourself. You go to the bathroom by yourself, which gives us hope that your potty training will be so easy that maybe it will happen without us noticing. One day I’ll look up and say to your mom, “Huh, I haven’t changed Liza’s diaper in a week. What about you?” She’ll shrug, at which point angels will descend and everyone will war no more.

After talking at a very young age, you’ve decided that words are overrated. Sometimes you’ll stick your tongue out just a little, like a small pink flag, and say “Thaa thaa thaa thaaaaa” instead of talking. You also screech a lot. When you spill your milk, you screech. When Eli takes your toy away, you screech. When an episode of Dora ends, you screech. It’s much funnier when you deal with your anger by talking. When Eli thwarts you, you clench your tiny toddler fist and say, “Eli! That makes me so angry! That makes me angry, Eli!”

Some words you say in an unbearably cute little kid manner. “Yellow” comes out as “lellow”, which means it’s easier to understand you singing the first verse to “Lellow Submarine” than the chorus. “Water” comes out as “wah-tuw”, something I hear most any night that I put you to bed. “Daddy, I want some wahtuw. I want watuw, daddy. I want watuw.”

Your sleep issues have returned, though in a new form. When we put you to bed you sing or talk loudly to your stuffed animals. Some times we come back into your room and tell you sternly, “It’s bedtime now. No more talking.” That works about half of the time. The other half of the time you ignore us and go back to singing shortly after we leave.

You also have occasional nightmares. Every few weeks or so you wake up crying. Oftentimes I’m the one who goes in to comfort you. You sob and throw your arms around my neck. I help you sit all the way up and give you a drink of water. “Do you want to hug Ellie and go back to bed?” I ask, and you nod solemnly. I wasn’t sure whether or not you remembered those half-asleep moments until you told Mom one time, “I miss dad. When I’m scared he makes me feel better.”

I’ve been traveling a lot this month, which means I’ve seen you far less than I’ve wanted to. But even when I’m away, I can close my eyes and see you. You’re running in the sun, arms swinging, your face alight with the joy of being alive, and I’m reminded how privileged I am to be your dad.

“Okay,” he said, putting it down while open, creasing the spine and making certain breeds of book-collectors wince. “I’ve paused my book.”

On Monday Geof visited and brought his new iPad. He was brave enough to let Eli play with it, and in minutes he was selecting pictures, zooming in on them and panning like a high-speed Ken Burns, before he discovered he could play Bejeweled on the iPad. I’d heard people joke that the iPad interface was simple enough for a child to use; now I’ve seen that that’s true. I guess that’s why Geof bought on. Ha, zing! Take that, Mac-lover!

Liza is doing well, though she’s going through a spell of night terrors. We’ll hear her knock on the wall, and when we go in she’s crying and whimpering. Thankfully she settles down quickly.

She’s reached the first age of defiance, which I understand should last until she’s 90 or so. She’ll ask Misty a question, like “Where are we going?” If I say, “We’re going to Ari’s house,” she’ll say, “Nooooo, dad, I’m asking mom. Mom, where are we going?”

That bothered me for a while until Misty told me what Liza said while I was at work. “I miss dad,” she said. “When I’m scared he makes me feel better.” So I can’t provide information, but I can make people feel better.