The Best Laid Plans

Ahhhh.  The best laid plans. 

I was ridiculously excited about Halloween.  I am every year.  I love dressing up even though I never do so anymore.  And, man, if I don't love extracting that "candy tax" from my children as reward for schlepping them from house to house.  Kyan also loves - loves! - Halloween and we've been counting down the days since, oh, November 1st of last year.  Karis would say "Tripper Treek!" even though she had no idea what was going on.  I put together special Halloween themed meals and put together a surprise Halloween-y lunch for Jaidan to take to school yesterday.  Won't lie.  I was too excited about his reaction to that lunch.

Well.  A little after 11:00 yesterday morning, his teacher called to let me know the Birdster was running a fever.  He told her he wasn't sick; that he was just really tired because he had been up until midnight (um, thanks for making me look like That Parent, asshole, especially when you were in bed at 8:00 the night before!) and just wanted to lay his head down his desk.  I obviously went to pick him up and went spent the afternoon nursing a fever and bemoaning the state of our Halloween.

See, Eddie had to work last night.  I had no one to stay at the house with the sickie so I could take the other kids trick-or-treating.  I rearranged plans and, from around noon on, planned for Halloween to consist of only trick-or-treating on our street and then coming home for cupcakes and popcorn and Charlie Brown and tons of candy.  I sent Eddie to the store for the cupcakes and candy.  The boys weren't exactly thrilled with the prospect but what can you do?

After dinner, though, Jaidan had perked up a lot.  He had color back in his cheeks and his fever was down significantly.  And, with that, real deal trick or treating was back on!



My little ladybug wasn't feeling anything other than, you know, candy so pictures were pretty much out of the question.  Good thing I had the sense to do a little Halloween photo shoot with them a few days before!

If I wasn't lazy, I would've at least cropped these but, meh, I was too busy raiding the kids' candy stash.

 

 

 

 

We walked around the neighborhood for about an hour -- a neighbor boy and his dad went along with us.  I was pleasantly surprised with both the number of trick or treaters and the houses handing out candy.  It was definitely an improvement over past years.  And - score! - we once again managed to find the house that hands out full sized candy bars.  And - score again! - one of my kids came out of that bad boy with a Twix bar.

So Halloween ended up going the way we'd originally intended and hoped for.  The two-year-old only had one meltdown (though it did involve her dumping her candy bucket on the sidewalk.  Fun).  And, best of all, when we got home Jaidan's fever was completely gone. 

Halloween 2012 = Win!

 

 

P.S. I wrote this post last night (while stuffing my face with candy, though that's neither here nor there).  This morning, Jaidan is back to running a fever!  He has no other symptoms at all.  No tummy ache, no sore throat.  He's not even acting tired or complaining of being achy.  But, he's running a fever so I'm keeping him home another day.  He's NOT happy.  And now I feel like That Parent who let's their kid go do the fun thing (trick or treating) and then keeps them home sick the next day.  Ugh.

Boo!

I totally think you're lying if you try to tell me that you never look at things other mothers do and roll your eyes and think "THIS bitch" and "hey, why don't you just go join OVERACHEIVERS ANNONYMOUS and get it over with, mmkay."  If you read blogs, it's a pretty good bet that you think things like that on the daily.

With that said, I can go on ahead and admit that sometimes I approach "THAT mom" territory.  When it comes to food. 

I love holidays.  I love the who even cares holidays (groundhog day, anyone?). I love the big holidays.  Even more so because I have children.  What do I love more than holidays?  If you've read my blog anytime at all then you arrdy done know . . . FOOD.  I love food.  I love holidays.  And I love making food fun for the holidays.  You're probably not going to catch me making things like sandcastles out of sandwhiches for my kids for lunch.  But I do love to get creative with food when holidays roll around.

And Halloween?  Totes my favorite fun food holiday!  That being said, I thought I'd share some of the fun things I've done.  (Just as an FYI: very, very few of these ideas are mine.  Most of them came from that lovely mecca of creative we all know as Pinterest).

We did this one last year.  It's a grilled cheese sandwhich made into a spider, witches broomsticks (the pretzel sticks), moster mouth (apple slices, peanutbutter, marshmallows), a ghost and ghost poop, and one lonely moster eyeball.  Monsters totally have square eyeballs, ya'll.

 

This was dinner a couple weeks ago (I can get wayyy  more creative with dinner when the husband doesn't eat with us!)  Mummy Dogs are a Halloween tradition at our house and Jaidan usually starts asking for them around October 1st.  We also had spiders, witches fingers (baked zuchinni fries), and a little banana ghost.  We'll probably have some version of this for dinner tonight.

 

Last night's dinner!  The jack-o-lantern quesadilla looks totes appetizing, no?  I also colored a jack-o-lantern face on a clear cup and then filled it with orange soda (oh, shut-up, it's a holiday and I can give 'em soda if I want to!).  They LOVED this.  Even my stepdaughter, who is 12 and mortified by anything that's slightly childish, thought this dinner was fun.  (And, just in case you're wondering, they also had chips and salsa and baked apples with the dinner -- neither of those were all that Halloween-y, though, so Jaidan made his chips into hair for his quesadilla and then decided the apples were witch warts).

 

Now, let's talk about this morning.  I had every intention of getting up and making ghost pancakes for the kids.  Yeah.  The kids ate (formerly) frozen waffles and I'll scarf down something at some point.  School mornings are all kinds of cray-cray at our house.  I spent my morning saying things like "seriously, just EAT!" "You have five more minutes."  "Um, it's still at least eleven hours until we go trick-or-treating."  "The school said no costumes so, no, you cannot just wear your mask."  "Because your mask is part of your costume."  "Because I don't want you to lose it."  "Yes you will."  "Yes you will."  "Yes you will."  "HOW ABOUT BECAUSE I SAID NO, OKAY?"  "That's great if Jayla's mom will let her wear her mask.  I'm not Jayla's mom."  "Nope, sorry, don't know what Rudy is going to be for Halloween."  "Can we please just get out the door?"  Anyway.  Good thing I put most of J's special Halloween lunch together last night.  I had so much fun doing this!  I hope he gets a kick out of it when he opens it up and sees all his fun Halloween food.

His sandwhich is shaped like a ghost.  He has those peanut butter cracker spiders, an orange jack-o-lantern, ghost poop and bat wings (raisins and marshmallows), goblin fingers and witches brew (celery sticks), and a monster mouth.  I'm sure you're glad we're doing our part to destroy the environment by using all those plastic bags . . .



 

My favorite part of his lunch?

The three-eyed moster juice box!  How cute is this guy?

By the way, if it seems like J had a bunch of food it's because the poor kid eats lunch at 10:10 and they don't have a snack.  So he doesn't eat again until we get home some time around 3:15.



 

And that's a little glimpse of how we do Halloween food in our house.

 

Happy Halloween! 





Confessions: Halloween Style

I'm feeling lazy -- and Blogger is being a gigantic asshat to me lately -- so, today, a list:

1) After seeing the 800th Facebook photo of someone's children posing with My Little Pony and Transformer pumpkins (wtf ever happened to the uneven jagged mouthed jack-o-lantern?) I realized I am probably the only person who has never done pumpkin carving with my kids. I have no desire to. It's messy and involves using a knife and I just ... no desire. I generally just paint pumpkins with the kids (still messy, no sharp objects) which brings me to ...

2) I haven't even bought a pumpkin this year! Not one! Because ...

3) We haven't been to the pumpkin patch. I suppose we could still go but we went one year ON Halloween and there were, like, three rotten pumpkins. I'm assuming things won't be much better the day before. Besides, back in '10 when I was doing the Macaroni Kid newsletter for my area the kids and I hit up four or five patches. So technically I'm good till circa 2015.

4) I waited too long to buy a red Power Ranger costume so now a little boy is having wear his brother's hand-me-down Spiderman costume. Thankfully he's four and still seems to believe everything his brother owns or has owned is super cool.

5) Judging from pictures, I dressed as a baby (how creative of me!) at least three different times. And two of those times involved other people cross dressing. Awesome.

I can't find the third picture but I swear it exists and I'm pretty sure it was posted on Facebook at some point.

6) Of those pictures -- I believe one was taken my freshman year of high school. I know the other was during my senior year. I trick-or-treated both times. Yeah. I was that kid. BUT AT LEAST I WAS IN COSTUME.

7) I hate trunk or treats. I understand the purpose, I guess, but they've destroyed traditional trick or treating and that makes me want to kick a kitten.  These days you're lucky to find three or four houses on each street who are handing out candy.  SAD FACE.  I'm sure this year will be even worse seeing as Halloween falls on a traditional church evening.

8) A look at Halloween pre- and post-children.

 



Man, Johnson & Johnson totally nailed it with that This Changes Everything campaign, huh?

Also -- can I please have those pre-baby boobs back?  Please?  I swear I'll be nice and help old ladies cross the street and quit calling my kids assholes.

9) I'm feeling kind of stabby over the fact that Jaidan isn't having a Halloween party at school (unless they happen to send info about it today which I doubt).  NO HALLOWEEN PARTY?!? I can understand not wanting them to come in costume but no party? 

10) Finally,  I'll leave you with one of the scariest things you'll see this entire Halloween season.  I'm assuming I was around four when this picture was taken, making it 1984.  Also meaning: can't judge me for wearing it; judge my parents for letting me buy it.  Aren't we relieved that store-bought costumes have changed some since the 80's?

An Evening with Spiderman, Iron Man, Mickey Mouse, and a Fairy



Iron Man was not feeling the whole picture taking thing!

 Halloween is 90% of the reason I had children (the other 10% is because some day I'll need someone to either take me in and take care of me or select a nursing home.  I'd rather leave that to my own children than some wayward great nephew who is pissed because my life savings amounts to $10,000 less than what my care and eventual burial will cost).  I love Halloween!  It was always my favorite day of the year when I worked an after school program.  (On the other hand, the day after Halloween was the absolute worst, suckiest day of the year.  My condolences to anyone who works with children today).

I try to make Halloween as fun as possible.  Here's a little peek into what Halloween was like at our house:

We started off with a breakfast of what was supposed to be ghost pancakes.  Please hold the jokes when you look at them.  Kthanks.

Parenting tip: Adding chocolate chips to anything negates the fact that it looks NOTHING LIKE what you wanted it to look like.

I thought it would be fun to do a few Halloween themed games.  So, after we watched the Halloween episode of Yo Gabba Gabba for the 80 MILLIONTH TIME we got to the game playing!  I figured this would make me Mom of the Year -- you know?  The kids would have so much fun that they'd be nominating me for makeovers and trips to NYC and all that stuff.

Yeah, no.

Jaidan had a blast.

Karis was too young to really do anything.

And Kyan was just being a turd.

We started things off my decorating our pumpkins we picked up a couple weeks ago.  Confession: we do not carve jack-o-lanterns.  I've never in my life carved a pumpkin.  Eddie has expressed little interest.  And plus it just seems messy and gross and a good way to end up with a mangled finger.  So, instead, I give the kids stickers (last year it was paint) and let them do the punkin' decoratin'.

Then we used (plastic) pumpkins to bowl for (plastic bottles turned) ghosts.

My floor did not look that dirty yesterday when I was standing there with the camera.  I swear it!

Bowling over.  Let's make some mummies!

There are two things my kids love:  scavenger hunts and "find the *whatever* Mommy hid in the living room."  So we did a spooky scavenger hunt and followed it up with a game of "Find the Black Cat."

Finally, finally - time for my personal favorite game.  Pin the Wart on the Witch!

You give the kids a piece of gum (a very, very rare treat for my kids.  I don't outlaw many things but gum is practically a never ever in this house).  They chew it up.  You blindfold, spin 'em around, and then they pin the wart on the witch.  We repurposed our Halloween countdown witch for this little activity.

Again with the dirty floor - Sheesh!

We had a supah scary spooky lunch:

That's spiders, witch's broom sticks, monster mouths, ghosts and ghost poop, and one eyed cookies
Most thanks to Pinterest

Since I'm a big fan of theme food, we also had a Halloween dinner -- the same thing we've had for dinner for Halloween for a few years now.  The infamous mummy dogs:

The adults had the same thing they've had for Halloween as far back as I can remember: chicken taco soup.

Then.  Then.  It was time to get ready to trick or treat!

We had Spiderman:



A fairy:

Iron Man:

 And Mickey Mouse:

She was originally supposed to be a (mostly homemade) pirate.  But when her Daddy saw this Mickey Mouse costume, he thought she HAD to have it.

The trick or treating brought in a decent enough haul.  Karis didn't want anyone else to touch her bucket and she kept transferring her candy to Kyan's bucket while they rode in the stroller together.  Kyan told people what kind of candy to give him "the lello one!  I want the lello one!," told everyone at each house what the house before had given him, instructed at least one person to give him more, and made sure to say thank you at every house we went into.  Apparently the Manners Discussions are going to have to be upped a little bit.  Jaidan and Zhariah are five and eleven -- therefore old enough to mind their manners and not do anything overly cute.

Neither Kyan or Karis napped yesterday so after about an hour of scouring the neighborhood they were both just done.  Kyan quit going up to houses and, when I wheeled him up to one, told the guy "no thanks" when candy was offered.

If that pic doesn't say "DONE" I don't know what does!



We made it home and they each had one piece of candy (Milky Way, Skittles, and Reeses).  I convinced Kyan that Sweet Tarts, Nerds, and Bottle Caps are all nasty so he gladly handed them over.  I inspected candy and threw away anything that was open or was, you know, bubble gum.  We made it this whole Halloween with only getting one or two of those nasty Mary Jane things.  This morning, the kids are going to go through their candy.  They each get to pick out five things they want for them.  Then everything goes into the treat bucket to be handed out whenever they deserve a treat.  Or whenever Mama wants to snack on a Twix!

Dibs on the Twix Bars!

Last night we took the kids to a "trunk or treat" at a church here in town.

I'm not just the Biggest Fan Ever of trunk-or-treats but they had fun and got a jump start on the candy stash that I'll be hoarding until chocolate covered cherries are 50% off the day after Christmas.

When I was a kid, Halloween happened on Halloween.  No one had ever heard of trunk-or-treating.  You got dressed in a (mostly) homemade costume, went to MawMaw's house where you posed for pictures, then to Granny's house to pose for more pictures, then to Aunt Fay's house for homemade popcorn balls.  Then, of course, you'd hit up a few more spots until your bag was so full of candy it was about to fall apart.  You went home and Mom and Dad inspected them for bad stuff like razor blades and evidence of poisoning -- something that, for some reason, the Snickers bars and Reeses never survived.

My brother and I in one of those pictures taken at Granny's house
I was a baby (an old standby costume) and likely too old to be trick-or-treating; he was Peter Pan

These days, trick or treating has been replaced with people decorating their trunks and handing out candy in church parking lots.  And, while I certainly understand the safety concern (at least to a point) it still makes me kinda sad.  Tonight, I'll take the kids out trick or treating.  In our neighborhood, only every six house or so will have a light on.  Only every six house or so will be handing out candy and ooh'ing and ahh'ing at trick or treaters.  Only every six house or so.  Which means the odds of getting the good stuff (full sized candy bars) is even lower.

No one will be handing out homemade popcorn balls.  And, even if they were, we wouldn't let our kids eat them anyway.

By the time my kids are grown and their own children are ready to celebrate Halloween there probably won't be any trick or treating left at all anymore!

Smell My Feet

With all the trunk or treats and "harvest festivals" (remember when they were just called Halloween carnivals?), does anyone ever really just trick or treat anymore?  But just in case you're planning on going out Monday night (or sometime over the weekend since, of course, we no longer even freakin' trick or treat ON Halloween anymore), here's a little repost from last year.
 
Enjoy!  And remember: Don't be an asshole this Halloween.
 
I. Thou shalt not leave your porch light on if you're not going to be handing out candy. Asshole. I realize that you want to see to put your key in the lock when you get home from your trunk or treat or hiding from all the little ghouls and goblins. But, um, hello. This is the one day out of the year that you KNOW excited little children go from door to door and expect it to be opened when your light is on. Use the garage light next time, mmkay? Sheesh.

II. If thou art over the age of 12, thou shalt wear a freakin' costume if you expect people to give you candy. Assholes. Come on, jerk. Head over to the dollar store and drop two dollars on a plastic mask.

III. If thou art over the age of 12 - and insist on trick or treating - thou shalt not try to scare my little people who actually are, you know, of trick or treating age. Assholes.

IV. If thou art over the age of 12 - and insist on trick or treating - thou shalt not hang out the window of a car wearing a Scream mask and make a crude comment about my badonkadonk. Asshole.

V. Thou shalt not ever, EVER, answer the door for trick or treaters with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. Asshole.

VI. Thou shalt control your brats and not allow them to run over other children (namely mine). Assholes.

VII. Thou shalt not hand out those crappy Mary Jane thing-a-ma-bobs. Cheap assholes.

And, finally, a new one for this year:

VIII.  Thou shalt not judge me if you notice my three-year-old's "costume" is his faded, too small Sheriff Woody pajamas.  He is very opinionated, ya'll!