She Should Have Been a Mole or a Bat Instead

Some time ago, my mother sent me a photo of herself, her sisters, and a couple other girls, all dressed up for Halloween in the sixties.

Now, all of her accompanying text within that email contained useful information, but the one thing I haven't been able to get over is her final statement:  "I don't have any glasses on, this must have been before the school nurse figured I was half blind at school."

I mean

First of all, just for today, we're going to ignore the girl in the nightmarish mask- we'll have to address that on a separate day, when I have emotionally prepared myself to do so.

For now, I'd like to focus on the girl in the cheetah costume:  My mother.

Seriously, though.

Does it really take a brilliant diagnostician to realize that the girl smiling thirty degrees to the left of the camera can't see a dang thing?


Every other person looks as if they've gone through the requisite party ritual of, "Okay, everybody, say, 'Cheese!'"  All look at the camera and parrot, "Cheese!"  Unless you're poor, blind Lorri, however; in that case you're wearing a vacant smile and staring at nothing.

Now, you could argue that the object of her gaze is merely out of range, that I have no way of knowing what she's looking at.  As a terribly, terribly near-sighted person myself (thanks, mom), I heartily and vociferously disagree, as I have pasted this facial expression on my own visage many times, when the contacts are safely soaking in their case, my glasses are on my nightstand, and Derek says something to me that requires a reply.  I have to wait for him to move in order to know where to turn my head and aim my voice at; otherwise, no idea.  None.  Just a blind smile, staring forty paces to the left of the person attempting to interact with me.

Kinda like this, actually.

I wonder how many walls she offered to "Trick or treat" that night.  Bless her heart.  Still, things could have been worse.

What the heck, 1967?

Halloween, Take Six

The theme for this year's Halloween costumes, I believe, was "Fine."  They were fine.  Nothing extravagant, nothing high-maintenance, just fine.  Of course, when it comes to Halloween, "fine" suits me right down to the ground.  It seems to have become one of those holidays where America has done what it does best, which is to throw so much money at it that it becomes virtually unrecognizable and no longer much fun.  How many parents did I talk to this year whose kids' threw out-and-out tantrums because it wasn't precisely what they wanted?  Too many.  Our children obviously would never do that, because they are so perfectly well-behaved at all times.  Or they had the looming specter of their father and I eating every last piece of their candy at the slightest hint of whining.  One of those two.

Adelaide's was my favorite, because I had to do jack squat to put it together.  She is now old enough to costume herself.  Hallelujah.

Dapper Derek there in the background went as Dapper Derek.

This vampire already owned her white t-shirt, black pants, black cardigan, and that red tie belonged to Derek's grandpa.  The black satin was culled from my scrap fabric bin, and while she did wonder for five seconds if I might hem it for a cape, my hysterical laughter answered that.  I never even had to utter the word "No."  I did graciously loan her a safety pin to secure it to her clothing for trick-or-treating, because I am a generous monarch, always going out of my way for the serfs who inhabit my kingdom.  The blood- or red lipstick- was also loaned by Us.  That's the Royal We in action, to you peasants.

Adelaide was the tiniest bit put out when people kept mistaking her for some kind of scary Harry Potter; for me this only enhanced her costume.  We did not make the mistake of voicing this opinion to Daughter.

Caedmon was Batman.  

Cutest- I mean FIERCEST- Batman ever.

He had, at one point, mentioned something about being a ghost, but when I realized I didn't have enough white fabric on hand to make this happen, I ever so gently steered him toward super hero-dom.  I did not say words like "cape," "muscle costume," "we already have all these things," but I did speak about such high-falutin' concepts as "honor," "bravery," "protecting all the other little kids out on Halloween."  Caedmon ate this up like the tastiest deception he's ever consumed.  Adelaide rolled her eyes.  Atticus was too worried about his own costume to pay any attention to how his mother may or may not be manipulating holidays to fit her own whims.

Atticus wanted to be a dragon.  He's had grand plans for me for months:  How I could sew spikes down the back of his shirt, and craft wings that would attach to his back, and figure out a way to get fabric flames on something that he could hold in his mouth.  This was a subject of great humor to me, as I had no intention of doing any of those things.  I told him he could wear the costume he already owned, and when he protested that it was an Iron Man costume, I pointed out that the print on it was CLEARLY dragon muscles, not human, and after all, it came with a dragon mask, didn't it?

The truth is my dear friend Shayla handed a sack full of costume items to us awhile back (which included both of this year's costumes), and I have no idea if that mask is supposed to go with that costume, or if it's even a dragon.  All that mattered was that Atticus believed it, which he eventually chose to, but not before proposing a compromise to me:  He would wear the costume, but only if I sewed some wings to the sleeves of it, made out of some felt still in its Clearance wrapper he'd found in my fabric bin.  Oh, and it needed to start here and end here, and he wanted the bottoms of the wings to be cut in scoops, like this.  He is a canny negotiator.

This is why you always take a moment to poke through the Clearance bin at craft stores:  37¢ in 2012 is 2015's dragon wings.  

One of the best parts of the night was when we walked up to the house of an elderly gentleman sitting in front of his house with two bowls:  One with candy, and one with rocks.  The children got to pick an item from each, and I am not kidding you, the air around that house was filled with cries of, "Rocks!"  "Dad, look!  I got a ROCK!"  "Wow, look at this rock!"  No sarcasm, no irony, nothing; those kids were genuinely thrilled to be receiving a rock along with a sweet.  

Now, yes, they were smooth and polished rocks, but still, ROCKS.  Somehow that guy had the right idea, and was a popular destination in our part of town.

I can't help but wonder if he had one of these bad boys:

I remember asking for and receiving one of these for Christmas as a kid.  Shockingly, the results didn't exactly match those advertised.

Oh, yes, and for those of you keeping track (please tell me you don't), this has been our cheapest Halloween yet, because we already owned every last piece of these costumes.  So I win!  Except now, looking back at more extravagant Halloweens in our past where we spent all of $5 total, I'm amazed at how cute our children were in their little costumes.  Remember Caedmon the Chick?!  Or Atticus the Roasting Pan Turtle?  Or Adelaide the Tiger, and the first real post on the blog?

Deep breath, and repeat after me:  I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday, I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday, I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday...

A Sunshiney List

• As some of you know, I regularly treat Halloween as a competition with Ghosts of Kristy Past (Ghost of Kristys Past?  Ghost of Kristies Past?  I see a 'y' at the end and desperately want to turn it into a plural 'ies,' but as I've explained to countless people over the years THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL MY NAME.  What is the proper plural of the Dickensian term?) to see who can spend the absolute least amount of money on costumes for our children.  With three costumes completed, I can happily report that I am winning.  Detailed, self-indulgent report to come.

• With the knowledge that glasses will soon be gracing the face of our daughter, I did what I do and turned to books and a beloved librarian for help.  You see, I had all manner of picture books featuring bespectacled protagonists ready for her when she was younger, the Arthur series and such, because I had no doubt that our children would need glasses, given the appalling eyesight Derek and I are in possession of.  But then they got older and older and had one astonishing report of 20/20 vision after another, and I grew a little lax in keeping a mental catalogue of "glasses in books for our poor, nearly-blind children."  Now Adelaide is, ahem, less than pleased about the idea of wearing glasses, and I have no books ready for her!  (The horror.)  Enter beloved librarian:  "CathyIneedyourhelpAdelaideandglassesandwretchednessandNOBOOKSPREPAREDandanguish!"  She, in turn, calmly reached out to ALL THE LIBRARIANS IN THE STATE and is even now compiling a list of books for me, because she is magical.  
• Note:  This is aaaallll aside from Harry Potter.  Of course I thought of Harry Potter with his glasses, but Adelaide has read all of those, so I need books in addition to HP.  Preferably a female character, who is not stupid, or insipid, or annoying, or too age-inappropriate.  Honestly, I don't try to be difficult to please, it just... happens.

• You would think that, after one particularly memorable night of watching rerun after rerun of Unsolved Mysteries years ago, I would have learned that there are just some shows that you don't watch alone when the darkness outside your windows is concealing God only knows what.  Last night, however, I decided that since I had some sewing to do and the kids were in bed and Derek wasn't home, it would be a positively splendid idea to watch an episode or three of The Twilight Zone.  I mean, I LOVE that show!  What could go wrong?

Sometimes I am a slow learner.

Many things, friends.  Many things could go wrong.  Granted, most of the wrong things were happening within the confines of my own brain, but as Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore said, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

So comforting.

Three Costumes, One Halloween

It's that time again, friends: That magical holiday that, more than any other, brings out my desire to be proclaimed the Cheapest of Them All.

Yes.  It's Halloween.


For whatever reason, last night was our little town's night to Trick or Treat (also known as "Beggar's Night" 'round these parts- I do not remember this label from my childhood.  Is this an Iowa thing?  An upper midwest thing?  A thing they don't do only in southern Kansas?  What say you?), which actually worked out rather well, as tonight- Halloween night- is supposed to be cold and windy and really rather miserable for walking around with small whiney-ish children.

That means it's time for- duh, duh-duh DAAAAH!- our Annual Cheap Halloween Costume Round-Up!

Adelaide's costume took me zero time to execute, as we already owned all its incipient components.

Child:  Adelaide

Costume:  Vikings Fan

Materials:  One of Derek's old Vikings jerseys, one of Derek's old Vikings stocking caps, and stickers meant to look like those black marks football players put under their eyes.  I obviously don't know what they're actually called, but we already owned those, too; they were the souvenirs we picked up for the kids on our recent trip to Minnesota.

Pros:  Easy.  Fast.  Made from materials we already had in the house.  Warm.

Cons:  None that I could see.

Total cost:  $0

Caedmon decided to be Batman (exactly zero people keeled over in shock when they learned this).  For the record, I offered to finagle some sort of Batman- costume out of clothing he already had, but he was adamant:  He wanted to wear the hole-y, worn, nearly too small Batman jammies he got a year ago for his birthday.  We compromised (read:  I cruelly imposed my will upon our poor, abused son) and he wore regular pants with the pajama top, as I didn't believe his four-year-old bum needed to be exposed to the October evening air via the aforementioned holes.  After I had broken his spirit, however, it was relatively easy to force him to wear another shirt under the Batman top for warmth.

  

Child:  Caedmon

Costume:  Batman

Materials:  Batman Pajama top, t-shirt cape I made last summer, Batman mask-glasses-thing borrowed from a friend (thanks, Shayla!), Batarang that I think was a kid's meal toy or something, toy sword we already owned which he insisted on carrying despite Atticus's stance that a sword is not, in fact, part of Batman's arsenal, random belt he pulled from my drawer for holding that sword.

Pros:  Easy, fast, warm, Caedmon was pleased with it, we already owned all the pieces except the one that was kindly loaned to us, plus Cade can make just about anything cute.

Cons:  It looked like a costume that had been thrown together from disparate elements, probably because that's exactly what it was.

Total cost:  $0.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was afraid Atticus's costume was going to turn into Robin Hood in Drag, and never was this fear so real than yesterday when dressing him in all the random items of clothing I'd dug out of my scrap fabric bin, hoping enough green and brown layers would magically turn him into a robs-from-the-rich, gives-to-the-poor woodsman.  Mercifully, by the time I'd added all the little accessories, it ended up working rather well, although there was a bad moment when Atticus was freaking out a little about wearing his sister's leggings; he had no pants that I deemed worthy of the rest of the costume, but it turns out six-year-old boys care very little about whether or not their pants "go" with the effect their mother is trying to achieve.  I did some very fast talking about how Robin Hood lived in the woods and needed lots of layers of clothing to keep warm and all these (um, women's) clothes were exactly the type of thing Robin Hood surely wore.  He, thankfully, believed this claptrap.

Child:  Atticus

Costume:  Robin Hood

Materials:  Green Goodwill sweater I bought years ago for some long-abandoned craft, black leggings of Adelaide's, brown cardigan that was once mine, but which the, uh, washer shrank (yes, that's why it's too small now... the washer did it), but I couldn't bear to get rid of because I still loved the fabric; for the costume I cut the sleeves off to make a vest, then took the sleeves and pulled them on over Atticus's feet to partially cover his tennis shoes and further the scrappy-woodsy look, tan cord randomly wrapped around sleeve-leg warmer-things, left over from another long ago craft project, braided belt of mine I bought at a garage sale for $0.50 a couple summers ago, paper towel tube for quiver to hold (broken) arrows, leftover felt rubber banded on the bottom, twine threaded through to wrap around Robin, hat sewn by me via this helpful tutorial, although I had to use more felt than it called for, as our children have large adult-sized heads, feather in hat hurriedly cut by me out of paper ten minutes before we left and pinned to hat, bow and arrows a past birthday present, broken sword also a past gift.  Whew.

Pros:  Cute as a button.  Already owned everything but two of the three pieces of felt needed for hat.  Warm.

Cons:  Took me around 30 minutes to make the hat, then another ten whole minutes to put the outfit together, five minutes more than the other two children's costumes.

Total cost:  $0.54 for the two pieces of felt.

Candy was gathered.  Cute children were observed.  Trick or treating done in one hour, both boys asleep within another thirty minutes, Adelaide off to bed after stern warnings to both parents not to eat her M&M's.

I'm going to declare this a successful Halloween Most Frugal, so I can get on with the important business of stealing our children's candy.  

Home again, home again

Halloblaaarghween *Updated*

Halloween is two weeks away.  Uuuuuggh.

I feel like I should be more excited about this, but when you live in a time and place where people think nothing of spending waaaay too much money on their kids' costumes (note: anything more than $10 TOTAL constitutes "too much" in my book, which practically guarantees our children are going to have those sad "my mom tried to get creative with a black trash bag and now I want to kill myself" looks), Halloween fills you more with dread than excitement.  

Adelaide is still undecided, costume-wise.  I keep killing her buzz with questions like, "So how exactly are you going to execute this coffee mug costume?" and "You do realize I'm not going to allow you to draw on your face with Sharpie, right?"

Atticus wants to be Robin Hood, but the only Robin Hood-ish costumes I've been able to come up with are made from my own brown and green clothing, so it'll be a battle to make sure he has a "robs from the rich to give to the poor" look and not a "I like to prance around the woods in women's clothing" Robin Hood in Drag look.  

As for Caedmon, I'm pretty sure he's going as a Communist, as all he likes to talk about anymore is working.  "Welp, I'm going to work," "No, mom, I'm working," "Mom, working is more important than anything."  I just won't feed him for the next two weeks and dress him in burlap for trick-or-treating.  On the plus side, he won't be able to complain when I divide his candy equally between each member of our family.

And real quick:  Nobody panic.  I'm not going to force our six-year-old into tights or starve our four-year-old.  I just need to get these negative Halloween feelings out so I can work on actual obviously-homemade costumes that our kids can proudly complain about for years to come.

I don't know how I'm going to top last year's four-dollar roasting pan and spray paint turtle costume, but I'm working on it.  I'm working on it.  (Heh.  I just looked, and Atticus is wearing my clothes in this photo, too.  Hrrmmmm...)

UPDATE:  I'VE GOT IT.  I'll just throw paint on the lot of them, and when people ask, "What are they?" I'll muster up as much disdain and superiority as I can and scathingly tell these obviously uncultured peasants that "It's ART," and if they look skeptical I'll string a bunch of nonsense phrases together relying heavily on words like "visceral" and "symbolism," plus I'll heave a bunch of huge sighs because true artists are never appreciated in their own time.  

Halloween Rundown

Last week was Halloween.  Thursday, I think.

Was it Thursday?  I don't even know.  Today has been one of those days where I'm constantly confused by even the most menial tasks and questions.  Earlier Caedmon asked me how to spell "DVD" and I had no idea.  Some very basic part of my brain immediately said to the rest of it, "It's 'D-V-D."  But then the bigger part my brain- the part that's not to be trusted- thought that didn't quite sound right.  "DeeVeeDee?  Is 'Vee' even a letter?  And surely it can't be that simple.  'D-V-D.'  No, that's can't be right.  This must be a trap."  Then the small part of my brain gave up.

Then I started to wonder if my brain was inhabited by tiny politicians, because this all seems like their modus operandi.


You know, this was just supposed to be a post containing photos of our children in their Halloween costumes.  Now my brain is sabotaging the blog.

Kind of like that day last week when it convinced me that "brown" isn't a real word.  It just sounded too strange to be actual English.  (Say "brown" 50 times in a row, really enunciating each letter, and you'll see what I mean.  Well, you'll hear what I mean.  Or maybe you won't.  This is the kind of thing I tell Derek and he does that thing where he purses his lips, closes his eyes, and shakes his head, probably because it's kinder to do that than say what he's actually thinking.)


PICTURES.  Before I can say anything else.

Let's see:  Adelaide was a cheetah, Atticus was a turtle, and Caedmon was a cowboy riding a horse.

Sadly, this isn't just a pose for a photo.  She did this most of the day, even at school, according to some friends of mine who happened to walk by her classroom; she's still heavily into her cheetah phase.  Bless her teachers.  And everyone else who interacts with her but doesn't judge her weirdness.

Oh, yeah, and the costume rundown:  My mom made Adelaide's costume for her birthday and we already had the face paint, so total cost of her costume (for us):  $0.

We got a surprising number of compliments on Atticus's costume.  I'm not sure if it's the repurposing, or the frugality, or the obviously homemade factor that appealed to everyone, or if we just have really nice friends.  Probably a combination of all of the above.

The roasting pan was $0.98, the light green spray paint was $1.98, we already had the darker green paint, and those ties are just scraps of brown corduroy fabric I had on hand.  I also painted Atticus's nose black, which we already owned, but that's just because he saw Adelaide getting face paint and wanted some, too.  Oh, and that's my green sweater he's wearing, because it turns out he doesn't have one of his own.  Total cost of Atticus's costume:  About $3.

Caedmon remembered his manners this year and went with the more conventional "Trick or Treat" greeting when people opened their doors, as opposed to last year's demands.

I got Caedmon's costume at a garage sale last spring for $5, and we borrowed the hat from a friend.  Total cost of Caedmon's costume:  $5.

I also felt guilty for not carving the pumpkin and did it about an hour before we went trick-or-treating.  We left this burning on our front porch for any late night Halloweeners.  

I just said, "Halloweiners" to myself and snickered.  Atticus overheard me and is now rolling around on the floor laughing.  This is our family.  We're not sorry.

The Scariest Part of Halloween

Around our house, Halloween tends to be pretty tame.  Between me being kind of a pansy and having a kid plagued by night terrors, steering clear of all the gore and fright- however fun and good-intentioned- really just seems like the wise course.

This Halloween was a little different, at least for our sweet, gullible, three-year-old Caedmon.

Shortly after arriving home from picking Atticus up from preschool yesterday, I suddenly heard Cade start shrieking, and he quickly came running into the kitchen, crying and panicked and gasping.  I was actually a little concerned; this crying seemed pretty extreme, even for our house, where daily bouts of tears and crying are so normal they hardly register anymore.

It took him several tries to finally stutter out his cause for alarm:

"A-A-A-Atticus- Atticus- ATTICUS LEFT HIS ARMS AT PRESCHOOL!"

Then, message delivered, he buried his head in my shirt and sobbed.

At that point Atticus the Armless came waltzing into the kitchen, swinging his shoulders to and fro, empty sweater sleeves whipping around his body.  He was chuckling.

I don't know how many times the old tuck-your-arms-into-the-torso-of-your-shirt gag is going to work on Caedmon, but I'm praying it's not many.  He laughed while I was recounting the story to Derek, so hopefully he now realizes it's more comedy than horror.


The problem with this story is that it seems to have opened Atticus's eyes to the joy of terrifying your younger siblings.  At preschool he received a Tootsie Pop that had black pipe cleaners wrapped around it to look like a fuzzy, not even slightly realistic spider.  He took that silly, googly-eyed spider off the sucker, very seriously told Cade that when it touches a kid it turns into a real spider, and threw it onto Caedmon's head.

I don't think I have to tell you the rest.  Screaming.  Running.  Tears.  Promises of Vicious Retribution.

There were a couple other more minor incidents.  Each time Caedmon's response is a little less severe/gratifying.  Hopefully this whole thing will play itself out relatively quickly.

I don't even know where Atticus gets it.  I mean, sure, I used to do this thing that absolutely terrified my sister Kelli, where I'd bend slightly forward at the waist, then stagger forward, letting my straight arms swing back and forth in a pendulum-like motion, head lolling to the side, eyes wide and a deranged smile on my face while I softly called, "Kellllliiii.  Kelli!"  It's somewhat difficult to describe, as my performance of this character was never anything short of inspired.  Kelli's screams always sounded authentically petrified.

On a completely unrelated note, another year has gone by and Kelli has yet to nominate me for Big Sister of the Year.

I'm sure it's a simple oversight on her part.

I Will Never Be A Costume Designer

Yesterday it snowed.

First I cried because it was snowing in mid-October.

Then I cried harder because I realized it's not mid-October; it's close to the end of October.  In fact, we're just about a week out from Halloween.

Then I panicked.

Just a little bit of panic, though.  I have two of the kids' costumes more or less set:  my mom (thankyouthankyouthankyou) made Adelaide a cheetah costume for her birthday last May, and I made it pretty clear to her that she was going to wear that thing for as many Halloweens as I could stuff her in there.

I found one of those cowboy-riding-a-horse costumes (I have no idea how to describe that thing if you don't know what I'm not talking about, so... just wait for the inevitable post-Halloween pics I guess?) for Cade at a garage sale last spring, so he's pretty well set.  Just need to borrow a Caedmon-sized cowboy hat.

And then there's Atticus.  (I feel like I say that a lot, you know?)  He hasn't been able to make up his mind over the past few months, but I finally pinned him down to his most recent choice of 'snapping turtle.'  Okay.  So.  Time to construct a snapping turtle costume that 1) costs very little money and 2) requires very little time and/or energy of me, because spending oodles of time I don't have preparing something he'll wear for two hours at most isn't really my thing.

I knew where to go for ideas and inspiration (Pinterest, of course!), but I was half-terrified to do so.  Pinterest is chock-full of crazy-ambitious moms who apparently live to do things like weave their own fabric on hand-constructed looms and hand-dye it with natural dyes derived from the plants they grow in their native plant gardens that fill their backyards.  (You think I'm joking.  And... well, I am, but JUST BARELY.)  I knew that I would probably find a clever idea for a simple turtle costume, but I'd have to weed through 1) parents who don't mind spending a fortune on costumes and 2) parents who don't mind spending weeks sewing and gluing and losing sleep and probably pints of blood, because if 4-H taught me anything it's that you lose a lot more blood trying to sew late into the night while getting ready for an event, be it the county fair or Halloween.

I finally found the courage to brave Pinterest yesterday (after shedding my snow-induced tears), and I was right.  Partly right.  I found groups 1 and 2 (moneybags and time- and blood-donors), but I also found:

3)  Slutty turtles.

I'm not even kidding.  I'm well aware of the recent trend for youngish females to dress themselves in the strangely provocative versions of pirates and witches and medical professionals; I've spent many a merry hour with my friends being, um, perhaps a little less than generous in our commentary of these no doubt super duper smart young ladies.  But I really thought that I was now able to predict what kinds of costumes you'd see on these, ah, modesty-challenged girls.

I was so, so wrong.

I don't even know.  I just... I just can't.  Did I miss something in biology and my backyard?  I remember picking up a turtle when I was a kid, and I really don't recall seeing a green lamé bra anywhere on it, and it may have peed on my hand but it did nothing with its tongue that made me recoil in horror.


I did eventually get over my shock at the thought of sexually promiscuous turtles (oh, jeez, I don't even want to know what kind of skeevy human being is going to find this blog because of their google search for "sexually promiscuous turtles."  GO AWAY, CREEPER.), and found an idea for a turtle shell that involves a big disposable roasting pan and a great deal of paint.  Will his costume look tragically homespun?  Oh, no doubt.  But I presented the idea to him and his only concern was that it wouldn't be "like a snapping turtle."  I told him to eat his candy by snapping it into his mouth and then he'd be a snapping turtle, and he seemed satisfied.

I tell you what, you set the bar low when they're young and you make everyone's lives that much easier.  Feel free to write that down.

This May Become Our Go-To Substitute for "Trick or Treat"

Celebrating holidays with small children is always interesting.

Adelaide is old enough to remember past Halloweens, but Atticus clearly had no idea what I was talking about when, a few weeks ago, I asked what he wanted to dress up as.  As a result, he decided he wanted to be Spiderman mid-afternoon on Halloween, after seeing other boys dressed up in Adelaide's elementary school Halloween parade. Needless to say, by then it was too late.  He ended up being a clown, simply because that's what Adelaide wanted to be.

Caedmon also had no idea what was going on when I began stuffing him into last year's almost-too-small chick costume.  Still, he swung his little pumpkin bucket happily enough as he followed his two older siblings to the first house we visited, then stood silently as our neighbor put candy in his pumpkin.  After some prompting, he managed a whispered, "Day-dew."  (Thank you.)

By the time we had walked from the first house to the second, however, he had obviously had time to process exactly what this night was all about.  People were giving him candy.  And he was going to get to eat it.  Whoa.

As a result, when the next person opened their front door holding a big bowl of candy, Caedmon started crowding the doorway, and rather than the polite "Trick or Treat," Atticus and Adelaide were chorusing, his demand was,
"PUT CANDY IN MAH BUCKET!"

Fortunately, this neighbor of ours decided to find an avaricious chick about to trample him cute rather than rude, chuckled good-naturedly, then gave him a Snickers.

We had a talk with him once he returned to the wagon, and from that point on he managed to keep his greed in check and kept his salutations to "Trick or Treat!" and "Day-dew!"

You'll notice that Atticus and Adelaide don't really have costumes; their entire look centers on my shoddy face-painting skills.  Except it's not even face paint, it's Halloween make-up I bought three years ago and is finally starting to get a little crumbly.  There's probably oodles of bacteria growing on it while it sits in a dark cabinet the rest of the year, and this may have been the last year I could pass it off as a reasonable costume effort.  Especially now that Atticus has seen what other kids with loving moms do for them on Halloween.

Not that I don't love my kids.  I do.

Just not enough to actually buy them Halloween costumes, evidently.

Good Intentions

You know what's funny?

About three weeks ago I said to myself, "I'm going to try and start blogging every day."

Then I got super busy, and I've been lucky to post once a week.  Whoops.  Blogging tends to come in dead last on my priority list when I've got a lot to do.

So I'm going to try this again, but this time I'm telling all six of you that blogging once a day is my new goal.

Not forever.  Unless I really really love it, I just don't have enough material to blog about every day for the next who-knows-how-long.  Well, unless you want to hear about the strange conversations I have with our children (trust me, you don't), or about the quick-draw contests Derek and I have in the evenings when we've both had too much Halloween candy.

Oh, calm down.  We don't use actual guns, people.  He draws the multi-tool he keeps on his belt and I draw the inhaler that's always in my pocket.  Duh.

Anyway, starting... today, I guess (this whole thing is suddenly terrifying), I'm going to try blogging every day for... let's say two weeks.  That seems like a reasonable goal (or internet suicide, depending how you look at it).


In other news, today is November 1st!  You know what that means?

I get to start playing Christmas music non-stop until, oh, around mid-January.

I know, I know, poor Derek, blah blah blah.


To kick off the season, I started with the musician whose Christmas album is, I'm convinced, the best ever produced, and whose voice never fails to make me think of winter.

That's right:  we spent the morning listening to Neil Diamond.


TOTALLY KIDDING.  It was Nat King Cole.

Please don't ever try to argue with me on the whole Nat-King-Cole-has-the-greatest-Christmas-album-of-all-time.  Unless you want to see a gross overreaction on my part and the possible destruction of our relationship.  Then, sure, go ahead.



See?  The next two weeks are going to be fun!

Farewell, Fall

Cooler temperatures have recently blown into central Iowa.  This morning when Adelaide left for school it was 29 degrees out, which I know will feel downright tropical come January, but for now feels pretty chilly.

These more winter-like conditions, plus the fact that we only have two more days in November make me feel like Autumn is over.  How about a photo recap?


We continued to go for lots of walks throughout most of the Fall.

Atticus likes to pull the wagon, which makes me look like a really lazy mom straggling behind the wagon, forcing her children to do all the work.  I'm okay with that.

We continued to water our mums, hardy pansies, and tulip and hyacinth bulbs.

Caedmon was really helpful.

We went to the apple orchard/ pumpkin patch.  We got zero apples and zero pumpkins.

But we did play in the corn pool!  After all, this is Iowa.

What's that?  You've never been in a corn pool?  It's basically a giant pool... of corn.

Aren't you glad I'm here to explain these things to you?

Atticus showed Mark how to make it rain corn...

Then Mark showed Atticus how to make it pour.

Mark and Atticus also sped down the giant slide.

It really is huge, and somehow the burlap sacks you slide down on make it very, very fast.

No, really.

Top...

...bottom.  Big.

We also jumped around on the big bouncing pad, saw a bunch of farm animals, and went on a hay rack ride that busy day at the orchard.  In the following weeks we kept finding corn in our clothing and coats.  When I washed the clothes the boys had worn that day, I opened the dryer and a cataract of corn came spilling out onto my feet.  I still find kernels at odd places around the house.

A few days after that trip we celebrated Halloween.

I feel like my kids are at a perfect age to go trick-or-treating:  They aren't old enough to start whining about going without Mom and Dad, and I can still basically make them wear whatever I want, like cute and fluffy chicken costumes that make our youngest boy look like a girl.

The beginning of October was unseasonably warm, and we took advantage of it by spending lots of time outside.

A month later it was no longer quite so warm, and while the kiddos still wanted to play outside, I retreated indoors.

Of course, fall brought with it football season.  It will continue through part of winter.  I will not exactly be devastated when it is over, although Derek has mellowed quite a bit, on the outside, at least.

I have this wild and crazy notion that our sweet, sweet Spudley might have something to do with that.

Here's hoping everyone had a magnificent Fall, a terrific Thanksgiving, and a better football season than we have.

Positives and Negatives

I love a good Positive and Negative list.  Here's one applied to our kids' Halloween costumes.


Adelaide


Costume:  Clown

Positives:

• It didn't take long to prepare: We used the make-up from last year's tiger costume, and spent about fifteen minutes applying it to her face.  
• Inexpensive:  We already had the makeup, and she was able to wear regular, cold weather clothing trick-or-treating.
• She loved all the colors.

Negatives:

• The strength of her costume relied solely on her makeup, since she didn't wear actual clown clothing.  I'm going to go ahead and spin this into a positive, by pointing out that I don't think it's a negative thing to teach her to direct all attention to her face, especially when I see more and more young ladies treating Halloween as Dress-Up-As-A-Tramp Day (and by Tramp I do not mean the lovable Disney pooch from the wrong side of the tracks).
• She couldn't wear it to school, because they weren't allowed to wear their costumes all day, they had to instead bring it with them to change into in the afternoon for their parade down Main Street.  Instead, she wore a little apron, matching chef's hat, carried her kids' cookbook and a small whisk, all of which we already owned.  To turn another negative into a positive (an annoying habit of mine), she actually got two costumes this Halloween, and two is better than one, right?
• I tried to get her to let me paint her up as an Emmett Kelly-style hobo clown, but she wasn't having it.

Caedmon

Costume:  Chicken

Positives: 

• He was so freaking cute.
• It kept him really warm.
• It slid right on over a onesie, and I got to hear Derek say things like, "Your mother did this to you, not me," as he put it on Spud.
• We got to hear all kinds of other people coo and "Awww!" over him.
• I got it for $3 at a garage sale.

Negatives:

• We were told over and over that "She is just so cute in that chicken costume!"

Atticus

Costume:  Fireman

Positives:

• It was easy: a raincoat and firefighter's hat.
• It was inexpensive: the raincoat was mine in Kindergarten and Adelaide got the hat a couple weeks ago on a field trip to the Slater Fire Department.
• It was warm.

Negatives:

• It's the same costume he wore last year.  He was going to be something else, but I couldn't find this jacket of his that I needed to make it.  I'll probably find it tomorrow and be mad.
• The hat was too small for his gigantic head and kept falling off.

Overall, the night was one great big Positive:  we had a great time, and the kids were really tired by the time we got home and went straight to bed.

I hope everyone else had a safe and happy Halloween.