Duckies and Skeletons and Bugs! Oh, My! (or Halloween Part III: The Final Chapter)

Halloween. The day of ghosts and goblins, tricks and treats. The day when every parent of a food allergic child has a near coronary at the thought of a Snickers bar accidentally making its way into their child's bucket. How to avoid this? Reverse trick or treating. But that comes later. First, dinner. Spaghetti and eyeballs . . .yum!

We took the boys to the trunk or treat at my parents' church and Kev walked one car in front of us, perusing the candy selection and handing people things to give to Matthew. Most people were mighty confused and thought he was a total weirdo, but by the time I arrived with Matthew and they had processed what was going on, they had a tendency to comment to me that it was a smart idea. Matthew gave up carrying his bucket after a while, perfectly content to carry as many Smarties and Teddy Grahams as his little hands could hold.


Daniel and Nathan were seasoned professionals at the whole thing, arriving home with their buckets full to the brim with a future sugar rush.

And Kev and I put the boys to bed and then watched an obscure Hitchcock film, which ended up being mighty stupid (which is probably why it is obscure).

Yes, I Actually Volunteered For This (or Halloween Part II)

This morning I spent an hour with a classroom full of costumed, hyped-up five year olds. It was Nathan's first official class party as a kindergartener and he was so excited that he couldn't sleep last night. In addition to the mini-monsters (and dogs, and princesses, and superheroes), there were about a dozen parents in attendance. Which is a fact I wish I had known about last week when I was stressing out because I thought there would only be one other parent there besides me. I got on the phone and started begging people to please come help. (Thanks again, Joanne! You're a gem!) But whatever. I'm just glad there were enough grown-ups to keep the tiny masses under control. We played games and ate treats. The kids had a great time. And believe it or not, I had fun as well. Yup. That's me. The mom who loves a good class party.

Being a room-mother for my own children reminds me of all the things my mom did as a room-mother for me. One particular Halloween (I don't remember what grade I was in, but I'm pretty sure it was lower elementary), she arrived for the party dressed up as an Aborigine. Her face was painted dark brown, she had on a wig of short, dark curls and she even had canning rings as earrings. It was such a great costume that I didn't recognize her . . . literally. The other kids kept telling me that my mom was there, I would look around and then deny it. When I finally realized that the crazy Aborigine was in fact my mother, I probably should have been a bit embarrassed, but I wasn't because I was suddenly the kid with the cool mom. I don't know if my kids think I'm the cool mom for doing their parties, but I do know that they get excited about having me there. And like I said before, I love a good class party. It's just like being a teacher again but without actually having to teach anything, discipline anyone, or get yelled at by any parents.

Was This Listed In The Job Description?

Yesterday was one of those days that make me wonder what I was thinking when I decided to have children. It started off well enough, but things took a turn for the worse about the time Nathan came home from school not wearing his glasses. When I asked him where they were, he informed me they were broken. It looked like they were just missing a screw, but when I asked him how they broke, he told me he was hitting his head. With what, you ask? His own hand, of course. So I dug out the glasses repair kit, trying not to be too peeved, and set about trying to fix them which of course I was unable to do because either 1) I'm stupid, 2) They were more broken than I realized, or 3) I didn't have the right size screw. I'm hoping it is #3, but afraid that it is #2. And #1 happens more frequently than I care to admit, so that is still a possibility as well.

Upon realizing that I would have to take them back to the store to be repaired, I stuck the glasses in my purse and headed back to the kitchen where I found Matthew standing in the fridge. And yes, I have chosen the correct proposition. He was standing on the little ledge created when the crisper drawers are closed, grabbing eggs (which he is still allergic to), and throwing them up onto the top shelf. Being launched with such force caused every one of them to crack. Some slid down between the shelves and the back of the fridge, getting caught partway down, insides continuing to ooze downward, finally pooling beneath the crisper drawers. He got to approximately fourteen eggs before I caught him. I had to take the shelves out and clean the entire fridge. And it's not like it even needed it. Kev cleaned the whole thing about four days ago. Luckily for me, a cleaning tip I read about recently actually helped speed up the process. (To clean up egg, cover the egg with salt. Give it a few minutes to soak up the egg and then you can easily wipe up the whole mess.) I was able to salvage about 2/3 of the eggs and made oyako domburi for dinner. (This is one of Kev's mission recipes that we love. It uses half a dozen eggs so it worked out very well after yesterday's adventure.)

This was definitely a discipline worthy event, but I had no idea how to punish Matthew. First of all, he is one and reasoning with him is pointless. Second, all the tricks that worked with Daniel and Nathan do nothing for Matthew. With the other two, I could give them a time out by plopping them on my lap and holding their hands so they couldn't move. They hated it and after a few times they got the idea. Matthew, on the other hand, doesn't care. He sits perfectly still, no screaming or fighting of any kind, and as soon as I let him go he goes right back to what he was doing. Flicking his hand doesn't phase him either. So after a consultation with Kev, I pulled out the Pack'N'Play. Matthew new discipline plan is to get a two minute time out in baby jail, which he doesn't like at all. It seems to help though. He was timed out for playing with the UPS for the computers, but hasn't tried to touch it again for almost twenty hours.

Since my first born was absent during both of these adventures, he must have felt an overwhelming need to join the "Try My Patience Club" upon arriving home. He leaned his entire body weight against one of the rails of the Pack'N'Play, causing it to buckle and I was unable to fix the problem. I was enormously displeased to have the method of Matthew's discipline broken so immediately after its inception. But Kev figured out how to make it work again, for which I am enormously grateful.

Ah, motherhood. It is never boring.

Pumpkin Nouveau

Tonight was the annual carving of the pumpkins, but with a twist. Daniel and Nathan decided, after viewing some funky looking pumpkins in a magazine, to go a slightly different direction this year. Luckily for me, they took the idea and made it their own. Daniel went with the half carved-half decorated approach while Nathan was a decorating purist. End result: two pretty crazy looking pumpkins.


Nathan decided weeks ago that his pumpkin was going to have glasses, so upon discovering that his 3D glasses were too small to fit his huge pumpkin ("Look at the size of that boy's head. It's like an orange on a toothpick.") he fashioned his own out of pipe cleaners. Pipe cleaners also created a giant nose, a mustache, cheeks, ears, hair growing out of the ears (that's those two antenna-like protuberances near the ears), a hat, and squiggly hair. (See Arrin, I told you we would use those pipe cleaners!) After beginning on the white hair (our color choices were limited), Nathan decided his pumpkin was an old man. About five minutes later it became Grandpa.

Daniel carved a nose and a scary mouth, made glasses, and stuck some white and silver hair on the back of his pumpkin. In opposition to the typical dynamic between Daniel and Nathan, Nathan forged ahead with his own ideas and Daniel copied Nathan with his glasses and hair creation. It was actually very refreshing to see Nathan give a burst of independence instead of waiting for Daniel to take the lead.

Once Nathan discarded the 3D glasses, Matthew made good use of them. ("I'm too sexy for these glasses . . .")

We finished up the evening with some pumpkin cookies. I even pressed raisins into them to make them look like jack-o-lanterns, but since the cookies were not actually orange (Home bottled pumpkin doesn't have that fab color that store bought does, but it is oh so tasty!), they just ended up looking like freakishly tan smiley faces. Next time I'll have to add a bit of orange food coloring to the dough!

It Was A Zoo! (or Halloween Part I)

Yesterday we went to Boo At The Zoo (Thanks again for the tickets Connie and Arrin!). We put our three little animals in their costumes and headed out the door, never dreaming of the chaos that awaited us. When we arrived, five minutes before the zoo actually opened, the line of people to get in already reached all the way down the parking lot. Sadly enough, the crowd on Memorial Day was nothing compared to the sea of humanity that dragged all their kids to the zoo yesterday. Nevertheless, we soldiered on and headed down the line. Luckily, Adam arrived before us so we didn't actually have to go all the way to the end of the line. Just three quarters of the way.

Once we finally made it into the zoo, we quickly realized that the lines for each trick-to-tricking station were comparable to the entrance line. So after a quick conference, we hightailed it to the back of the zoo and worked the trick-or-treat tables in reverse, skipping the ones with enormously long lines (including the Meadow Gold truck-the last thing we needed in the midst of that unbelievable crowd was a case of anaphylactic shock). We saw about half of the animals, scored a little bit of candy, and promised the boys we would go back another day to see the rest of the animals and to ride the train. And yes. In spite of the hordes of people, the boys did have a good time.

As we pulled away from the parking lot, we laughed at all the poor pathetic souls who thought arriving two hours after the zoo opened was a good idea. The line of cars reached all the way down the hill, around the corner and clear to the next intersection. Note to self: If we ever do that again, plan to arrive at the crack of dawn and then run through the zoo at the speed of light in order to get to all the candy before the lines get too long.

Deck the Halls

About three years ago I began working on a trio of quilted wall hangings that depict the Nativity. I got the tops all done, then life happened and I never got back to them. This summer they finally came back to the top of my list. Over the past several months I’ve managed to finish them. So although it is still a bit early for Christmas decorations (unless, of course, you are working in retail in which case you hung up your stockings about five minutes after the fireworks on the 4th of July), I’m anxious for the season to be upon us so I can hang up my creations.

Random Is My Middle Name

I have been tagged by Brig to 'fess up to six random facts about myself. This isn't the first time I've been tagged for this particular task, but last time I could only come up with three, which is foolish considering that today there were bits of trivia that I had to cut to keep my list to six and prevent this post from being way too long to be polite. Here are the rules:

The Rules

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself (or as many as you are willing to admit to).
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

My Tidbits of Randomness
1. I have freakishly agile toes. Seriously, I can use my toes to pick things up with ease, which comes in handy when I'm pregnant because I don't have to bend down to pick things up. I pick things up with my toes so often that all my children think this is a normal thing and at some point attempt to do it themselves. Daniel has never been able to do it, Nathan can if he concentrates really hard, and Matthew is in the process of trying to figure it out. In the past week I've come across him more than once with his socks off, sticking the edge of his blankie between his toes, trying to figure out how to make his little piggies grip.

2. I am having a love affair with office supplies. It's true. I've never met a three-ring binder I didn't like. The day I found out that Sharpies came in twelve colors was just like Christmas. I get all giddy every time the folks who make Post-It Notes come up with something new. It's a sad, sad fact that I can easily spend longer browsing Office Max than I can spend perusing the entire mall.

3. I'm a closet Dr. Demento fan. It all started way back in my youth when Jon, Patti and I would lay awake in the dark on Sunday evenings waiting for the Dr. Demento Show to come on the radio. We were supposed to be sleeping, but every week we stayed up and listened. Luckily for me, Kev is a fan to.

4. I have an unusually good memory of things that happened when I was very young. I have one particular, very vivid memory that when described to my mother, appears to be an event that happened when I was about nine months old. And I have numerous memories of things that happened when I was two and three years old. I think I get it from my mom because she has memories like that to.

5. I hate beets. As in loathe, despise, abhor. Not only do they literally taste like dirt, but when they are cooked they look for all the world just like a hunk of bleeding flesh hanging out on the plate. Which is why, as a child, I referred to them as dead people. Gross.

6. When I was in the ninth grade, I received an award for being an outstanding female student in . . . P.E. Anyone who knows me is laughing their head off right now because anyone who knows me knows I have no athletic skills whatsoever. But when I was in the ninth grade I had so many electives and super-smart-geek classes that the only period I had available for P.E. was the period when Advanced P.E. was offered. It was the class that all the members of the girls' basketball team were in. They were playing seriously aggressive basketball and all I knew about the game was that there was running and occasionally someone would try to make a basket. During the awards ceremony, my parents and I were laughing out loud. And adding to the hilarity was the fact that my equally un-athletic best friend who was in the Advanced P.E. class with all the members of the girls' volleyball team for exactly the same reasons I was hanging out in basketball-land was awarded the second outstanding female student in P.E. award. That's four parents and two students rolling in the aisles while everyone else looked at us like we were rude, crazy, or both. In discussing it afterward, the only thing we could figure out was that in spite of our ineptitude, we tried really hard. Apparently doing the best you can is in fact good enough.

Homework For . . .
Since this tag has made the rounds of my blogging community before, please feel free to disregard this invite if you're not in the mood. I tag Sarahbina, Kathie, Lisa, Susan . . . and anyone else who is inclined to spill the beans about some of their quirks.

What Color Do You Bleed?

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old,
he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

(Auntie Esther bought Matthew this shirt before he was even born. He's finally big enough to wear it!)

O Boy!

During dinner before the opera on Saturday night (PF Chang's . . . yum!), my sisters and I had a conversation about Rachael's recent post listing ten things she loves that start with the letter P. It sounded like fun, so I had her assign me a letter. So here it is, ten things I love that start with the letter O:

1. Order-Yes, that is the OCD talking.

2. Obedience-from my three rambunctious children.

3. Octaves- and all the notes in between. I love music, singing can lift my mood and listening to marvelous music is a balm to my soul.

4. Oranges-Not just to eat, but orangey scents are one of my favorite aromas.

5. Olivia de Havilland- and all her fellow actors in "Gone With The Wind," one of my all time favorite movies. Consequently, the novel is one of my favorite books as well.

6. Oz-Did you know that there are fourteen books in the original series? And the only reason "Gone With The Wind" didn't win the Emmy for best picture in 1939 was that "The Wizard of Oz" did?

7. Old Musicals-How can anyone not love films like "Singing In the Rain?"

8. Onomatopoeia-Clink, bang, buzz! I love words! There is just something about a finely crafted phrase or a perfectly descriptive paragraph. Reading them and writing them bring me joy.

9. On time! Seriously, chronic lateness is one of my pet peeves.

10. Ochre-as in red, my favorite color.

11. Opera night! This time it was "Madame Butterfly," which was marvelous enough to pretty much make up for missing the last one. Ah, Puccini!

Okay, so I know that there are more than ten, but I couldn't decide which one to leave out!

Indian Summer

One of the best ways to spend a balmy October day:

Star Light, Star Bright

Every Wednesday night there is a free star party on the roof of the physics building on the U of U campus. Anyone can go and look through their big telescopes. Last night we took the boys to the star party. It was perfect weather, clear and not too cold, and we were able to see some fun things. This is what we saw (although, with the exception of the moon and Albireo, our images were nowhere near as clear as these):








Matthew seemed to enjoy the view of the city more than looking through the telescopes, but the rest of us enjoyed the telescopes. It was pretty cool to actually be able to see the bands of clouds across Jupiter. As a random note, Nathan looks through the telescope with his lazy eye because he can only close his right eye by itself. But he said he could see okay!

My Least Favorite Indication That Winter Is Coming

Rachael and I just spent half an hour chasing a mouse through four rooms of my house before finally trapping it under a bowl. As I speak (or type), it is sitting across the room from me giving me the heebie jeebies from beneath its mixing-bowl-sized jail cell. For any of you who may not be aware of how I feel about mice, feel free to get inside my head here. I think our biggest weakness during this escapade was our tendency to flinch or give off a girly shriek every time we caught sight of the nasty little thing. My toes are still curled under and if you don't think it hurts to walk when one's toes are curled under, check in with any poor Chinese girl who has had her feet bound. But seriously, YUCK!!!!!

But I must admit that anyone walking in on us during our little adventure probably would have laughed their heads off. We were both crouched down like football players preparing for the hike, too afraid to get on the floor, holding mixing bowls with a death grip. Furniture was moved and items were thrown all over to get them out of the path of the rodent. At one point we had books, boxes, a folding table, the ironing board and the pack and play barricading off three sides of my bed in an attempt to trap it on the other side.

(an hour and a half goes by . . .)

Okay, once was bad enough, but TWICE is completely unacceptable! Even as I blogged, I caught sight of another mouse. This one was eventually trapped inside a tube of brown paper, one end pressed against the wall, the other end pressed against the bottom of a mixing bowl. Unfortunately for me, I was kneeling there with the bowl pressed up against the tube with enough tension to keep the other end flush against the wall and no way to keep it there. And then I started to hear the mouse scrabbling around in there. Augh! Bless Rachael for holding the bowl while I got the fire safe to prop the whole contraption into place.

This is why God invented exterminators.

Academic Glee

Last week Daniel brought a note home from school stating that he had been invited to join Perspectives, the gifted program in his school. Daniel has been very ho-hum about school so far this year, so it was wonderful to have him come bursting through the door this afternoon and declare, "Perspectives started today and it was AWESOME!!!" I'm absolutely thrilled that he is in an academic situation that he enjoys (and the fact that it is teaching him some critical thinking skills doesn't hurt either).

I Should Know Better

This morning was my day as the volunteer parent in Nathan's class. Last month I left Matthew with a babysitter. This month I thought I would take him with me and just see how things went. I have no idea what I was thinking. After all, this is the cookie thief we're talking about. Nevertheless, I took him with me. And the result was a morning chock full of mischief and chaos.

The morning started off just fine, seeing as Matthew was strapped into the stroller, but I knew from the get-go that I wouldn't be able to keep him in the stroller all morning. So when I was involved in a task that kept me sitting at the table, I released him and gave him a paper and a pencil. That kept him occupied for all of about 2.5 seconds, after which he made a beeline for the computers. Luckily for me, they were turned off so his tapping of buttons didn't cause any harm, that is until one of the keyboards mysteriously slid off the desk.

My next task was some one-on-one work with students in the hall. Matthew enjoyed the relative freedom of the hall and I enjoyed the relative lack of things for him to break. After a few minutes of mindless wandering, he discovered that he could push the garbage cans up and down the hall. About halfway through the ABC flashcards with student #3, he discovered that he could put his blankie in the garbage can and conveniently push both around the hall. I know. Gross. At least the only things in the can were one piece of paper and a couple dried up wads of gum. The blankie was quickly confiscated and hit the laundry as soon as we got home.

Nathan's teacher keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer next to the door of the classroom and has the kids trained to take a squirt when they arrive in the morning or come in from recess. Having observed the kids at this routine, Matthew quietly walked over during the next transition period and helped himself. I do believe that his hands were more sanitary this morning than they have been at any other point in his young life. After I moved the sanitizer out of his reach, he discovered the Sharpies, pens and the electric pencil sharpener. Taking him away from all those sources of entertainment was the cause of shrieking episode #1.

Recess duty was calm (as calm as recess duty with a playground of five and six year olds can be anyway) and Matthew enjoyed himself immensely. Going back inside inspired shrieking episode #2.

After recess I was off to the library to make copies of a workbook for the kids. Shrieking episode #3 began when I wouldn't let Matthew sit at the rug and fold his arms like the other kids. Once the shrieking stopped and I arrived at the library, I got the machine all set to copy, collate, and staple and pressed the button to get it started. Sometime around copy #11, the copy machine suddenly lost power. It appears that although the power switch was in no way conspicuous to me, it was exactly at eye level for Matthew. After turning it back on, I learned how to open every door and clear every possible mis-feed. During my learning process, Matthew managed to get up onto a chair and bring one of the library computers out of hibernation. Commence shrieking episode #4.

My favorite bit of mischief for the day occurred during the last portion of the morning. The children were each given a large outline of a heart. They were instructed to divide the heart into as many parts as they wanted and make a picture inside each section that would tell about something they loved. My task was to label each section because let's face it, some five-year-olds' renderings of their beloved Fido look suspiciously like the portrait of Grandpa. I labeled a few drawings, looking up just in time to see Matthew pulling cleaning supplies out from under the sink. I dashed over and put them away, then plopped Matthew down on a tiny chair at a tiny table hoping it would entertain him for a few minutes. Several moments later I glanced up and noticed that he was holding a glue stick from the basket that was, unfortunately, right by the tiny table. It was one of those big, fat ones, the ones that go on blue and dry clear. But I wasn't concerned because 1) glue sticks are nontoxic and 2) he can't get the lids off anyway. I know now that my thinking was flawed, but it seemed like good reasoning at the time. Anyway, I wrote butterflies and rainbows a few more times (it appears that five-year-old girls are extremely fond of such things) then glanced at Matthew again. My first thought was, "Oh, good. The lid is still on the glue stick." Then I looked up at his face and saw a big, blue circle on each cheek.

I'm very grateful that kindergarten is only two and a half hour long. And next month I will be getting a babysitter.

And The Good News Is . . .

Matthew had an appointment with the allergist today and we actually got some good news. First, he isn't allergic to fish or shellfish which will make me breathe a bit easier when I crack open a can of tuna. We're definitely not going to be feeding him fish anytime soon, but it's still a stress reducer. Second, he is still not allergic to tree nuts and since it is very rare for someone to develop an allergy to tree nuts after the age of four, if we can keep him away from nuts until then he should be fine in that area. Third, his doctor feels like he would be a good candidate for anti-sensitivity therapy to decrease his reactions to milk and egg when he gets a bit older (around kindergarten age). The only bad news we got was that we are pretty much stuck with the peanut allergy. But we already knew that so it really wasn't an emotional factor in today's visit. And as usual, Matthew had everyone in the office wrapped around his finger by the time we were done.

Who Stole The Cookie From The Cookie Jar?

This morning I made cookies for tonight's Family Home Evening. I set them on the racks to cool and then went to check my e-mail. A few minutes later I noticed that it was suspiciously quiet. I peeked into the kitchen and saw this:

So starting from the scene of the crime, I followed the telltale trail of crumbs . . .




until I found the remains (minus one full cookie) . . .

and the culprit.



At least he helped me vacuum afterward.

Halloweenie

To celebrate the arrival of October, we spent Friday evening preparing for the season of ghosts and ghouls by putting up our Halloween decorations (all three of them) and making Halloween themed sugar cookies. Nathan's art lesson at school this week was about blending the primary colors to get other colors, so mixing our orange frosting became reinforcement of principles taught at school. I thought it was a fabulous excuse to make cookies.

Our pumpkins and ghosts were frosted in the traditional colors except for Nathan’s. He had an orange ghost because it was friendly and a white pumpkin because it was haunted.


Once he was convinced that putting up the girl skeleton was just as much fun as putting up the boy skeleton, Daniel enjoyed himself a good deal, as evidenced by the following photo.


And Matthew was right in the middle of everything, letting me help frost his cookie for about half a second before deciding he absolutely needed to do it himself and being enormously pleased about eating a cookie as big as his head.



I don't get nearly as jazzed for Halloween as I do for some of the other holidays, but it is definitely one of those holidays that is a lot of fun when you have little kids. Daniel and Nathan really love the dressing up, the enormous amount of free candy, and making our house look a little bit Halloweenie by scattering Jack-O-Lanterns and ghosts around. (And there isn't anything not fun about saying a word like "Halloweenie!")

Ick

I'm so glad I have boys because when I find a spider in my bed while I'm taking the sheets off to wash them, there is someone to squish the heck out of it.