Sweet Moments

You can tell Halloween just happened and we're still living in the celebratory Land of Abundant Candy when you open the dishwasher and find the soap cup has been secretly stashed with the toddler's back-up supply of fruity ju-ju drops. Sometimes motherhood does make me smile. Love the random silly bits of life.

The Not-So-Scary Relatives

My in-laws came and they went. I didn't keel right over from anticipation stress and the visit went very well. I'm not sure exactly why but I sure am able to make a whole lot of panic out of a friendly visit. I'm so intimidated by other people sometimes, so scared of sharing my space (lest it be sneered at), so afraid of criticism and so unsure of my ability to get "included." I think a lot of it stems from not being a very strong feeling person inside, I'm not confident in my ability to hold my own, impress, blow away the competition or be what I am supposed to be.

A's parents, in the flesh.

It was just a little weekend visit, they flew all the way out from the Midwest, just to spend the weekend with us, belnieve it or not. On that weekend visit they sent A and I on a highly relaxing overnight with no kids (Oh, baby-free, king-sized, sleep-number-bed...you were heaven!), they re-stocked our kids with books, brought us sheet-music for children's songs, did all the laundry in the house, ironed anything within a 1 mile radius, took all our trash out, shined our every dish, treated us to pizza, and even maaged to hang a curtain for me on the sly that I had been battling with.... What exactly was I so scared of? I sometimes wish I was less of a ridiculously cagey bird and more placidly trusting and smoothly optimistic. But yeah, I'm still me.
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So, now that they're gone and all is well after all, I'm handing out the homemade cookies my mother-in-law whipped up for snack time and we're all reciting the lines from, How The Grinch Stole Christmas (which we can now recite in chorus thanks to Grandpa's astounding patience with "one more time" requests from Ru.) I feel soundly on my feet, heading into the holidays with my cap tightened down and my kitchen counters shining. I am determined to manufacture more goodwill for my fellow man, more cookies for the Christmas tins and as much good cheer as can be reasonably obtained. Morning sickness be darned!

Halloweens of Yore

Halloween was beautiful. I was worried all the snow we got right before the holiday would make for frigid trick-or-treating but it turned out to be a balmy night with just the right amount of nose nipping chill in the air.

Our yard, the day before Halloween

I think, all things considered that it was actually warmer than last year on Halloween. The boys all chose their own costumes, second year of the big boys actually having opinions of their own about what they wanted to be. Kind of fun to see what they think would be fun. My big qualm was that Ru chose "an Indian" and then wanted a boy and arrow and a feather headband and the whole nine yards. It wasn't terribly p.c. but I let him do it. He meant no disrespect so I decided if he's inspired by pretending a tribal identity, I'd let him live his little boy dream for the night. He felt really cool.

I was a zebra, for extra holiday spirit, A was a cowboy although I don't have a good picture.

I did very little this year for the holiday. No homemade costumes, no fancy food...no impressive decorating.We attended a party some friends of ours threw which was zero work for us, A bought the trick-or-treat candy for the visitors we had and I only bought one costume, for Dee...who was the most adorable frog ever. Nib re-used a doggy costume from previous years and the Indian costume was a friend's hand-me-down gift which happened to be Ru's secret yen anyhow.

We had a "special" snack of popcorn before door-to-door trekking to try to make sure that the kids actually had something vaguely nutritious before all the candy...and the boys thought I was really cool or making them a big bowl of popcorn. Sometimes simple is the way to go.

We had some friends from the suburbs join us as we left the house and we then we walked the kids until they were dragging their wheels pretty slowly. We stopped at the neighbors who always have a smoke machine, the famous neighbor who used to play in a major rock band, the neighbor with the yippy little dogs and the neighbors who always hand out full-sized candy bars...a whole covey of fabulous characters. Then we crashed back at the house and handed out the rest of our candy reserves to the last of the trick-or-treaters and the boys went to sleep with sugar glazed grins, and they were asleep as soon as they hit their pillows.

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