Tricks and Treats

Treats:

• To the kids, for coming up with several great costumes, and rotating them through several Halloween events over the past few days;
• To the people who build a "fire house" every year, transforming their charming two-storey into a house full of fire and a mandatory stop on our trick or treat route;
• To all the folks who sit on their front stoops, in costume, and make our kids' Halloween night fun;
• To the students who run Safe Trick or Treat on campus every year, and give our kids props for their costumes;
• To the places you go to paint and carve pumpkins, ride haycarts, and drink hot cider;
• To the weather gods, who allowed October 31, 2010 to be a balmy mid-70s in the not-usually-so-balmy midwest.

Tricks:

• To the folks who stole our friends' yard decorations, even those made by their kiddoes;
• To the folks who make pumpkin smashing an annual sport;
• To grandma's candy-ometer, for deciding that a pinata for two kids is "not that much candy";
• To the students who think that 5-7 pm means packing up your booth at 6.20, because you all have some other place to be;
• To the folks who decided that two separate field trips by bus on one day, followed by a party and a parade was both a good school day and an appropriate amount of turmoil for first graders;
• To the parents who let them do it (yes, we take our share of blame in this too).

Okay. We'll do it all again next year.

Are We There Yet?

• Valentine's Tea party at the library... check.
• Valentines written, candied, and delivered to two classes... check.
• Valentine's chocolates to teachers... check.
• Birthday cookies ordered for the day prior to birthday so as not to get lost in the class Valentine party shuffle... check.
• Class Valentine parties... check, check. (Oh, the madness.)
• Valentine's candy bags brought home: sugar orgy... check.
• Birthday presents wrapped, delivered, opened, to the accompaniment of singing, and sushi for dinner... check.
• Birthday cake for party collected from bakery in town doing a booming Valentine's weekend business... check.
• Treat bags (no candy, because mommy can't take it anymore) made and ready for party... check.
• House cleaned, hot dogs and cakes and ice cream at the ready, awaiting the pitter patter of fifteen sets of kindergarteners' feet... check.
• Daughter, every five minutes: When are they coming? Is the party NOW? ... check.
• Hubby's Valentine card and present ready, stashed in a drawer ... check.
• Mother-in-law's chastisement (You're going to a writing group in Kansas City on Valentine's Day???) ... check.
  

Nervous, high fructose corn syrup- laden breakdowns: still pending. Check please!

Week? What week?

We elected to skip: the city trick or treat, the YMCA trick or treat, and the university safe trick or treat this year in honor of "we survived a play and then got fevers so really, we should stay home in the evening" week. We then celebrated birthay number 8 for Son. Guest of honor at the party: a vulture! and an owl, scorpion, snake and hissing cockroach, all from the university's Nature Reach. I do actually feel like a cool mom, having figured out how to work education into a birthday party... and it was the first one the NR had ever done one, too. There, that's my boast for the day!

We spent many hours this weekend selling boyscout popcorn at the supermarket, outdoors. The boys had many, many opportunities to help folks to their cars and return carts!

And then... there was trick or treating. We had a pega-corn (unicorn with wings) which was son's costume when he was 2, but daughter at 5 can squeeze into it like it's an amazing pair of knickerbockers. She complemented the look with stripy tights. Son wore a skeleton costume, and his bag is also a cloth skeleton with legs and head, so he held it up and told everyone it was his kid brother, a pain in the neck. What hams.

Me, to determinedly trudging daughter, on the walk home: Shall we slow down? We're nearly home.
Daughter. Nope. I have GOT to get to bed!