Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from our favorite

pop star and evil galactic lord.

Toddler's Halloween Manifesto

I am such a fan of offbeat humor. I found this post from Kim Foster, who blogs at Yummy Mummy and laughed so hard I cried....I had to share. It is about her kids preplanning for Halloween so that parents will be prepared for what will happen....an All Hallows Eve Bill of Rights, if you will.

"The Halloween Manifesto was not just their doing. Oh no, they polled their friends, at playgroups, playgrounds, pre-school and countless gymnastics classes, carefully scribbling down in pink crayon the thoughtful responses of every toddler willing to give them an earful about their Halloween wishes. They have asked me to disseminate the results of their intricate polling so you’d know what your kids really want for Halloween. Yes, that's right - your kids were involved in this as well. Read it and weep:

The Toddler’s Halloween Manifesto

1. The right to completely ignore the great dinner you made to make more room in our bellies for candy. Halloween is the high holy day of candy eating, parents. We’re not idiots.
2. The right to hide a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup in our shirt until it gets all warm and melty and liquidy and then to suck the chocolate and peanut butter out of the paper wrapper as if we were insects.
3. The right to cover the entire surface area of the living room floor with candy and treats and spend the remainder of our awake-time sorting through the debris, fondling the cartoon-covered wrappers until they are mutilated beyond recognition and begging you for just “one more piece of candy” until we keel over in a sugar-induced coma.
4. The right to make you feel like crap because you couldn’t find a blue princess dress and make the “pitiful orphan face” until you go on line at the Disney store and buy the most expensive princess dresses they have and give our family’s hard-earned, recession-riddled money over to the blood-sucking commercial machine.
5. The right to remove our underpants while Trick or Treating because we like the feeling of being “fresh” while going door to door.
6. The right to not have our candy orgy interrupted by parents who “just want that little Snickers bar” or who steal our Pixie sticks “because they remind us of when we were kids”. We are uninterested in your trips through nostalgia-land, parents. Re-read your yearbook, tell the neighbors that story about how you almost made prom queen and focus on your beer. Let us worry about our insulin levels.
7. Apples, pretzels and oranges are not treats, parents. We want the sugar, high fructose corn syrup, additives, preservatives, red dye number 4 and blue dye number 6. The whole enchee-lada. If it causes cancer in mice, bring it on. Do not mock us with your attempts at nutrition on this holiest of days.
8. The right to notice that Hershey bars are the same color as poop and to state that revelation in front of people who don’t have children and who are eating a Hershey bar, in hopes we might see them gag, make the vomit face or spit up a little bit in their mouths.
9. The right to not have the contents of our treat bag disappear or dwindle down significantly by parents who think they are helping us by “removing” the candy from the house while we sleep. We are onto you. We have taken inventory on our Barbie calculators. Step away from the treat bag.
10. The right to be covered in chocolate from head to toe and refuse a bath, to spend all evening with sticky hands until finally we decide to clean up and then wipe them on your new pants, and to not get yelled at when we grind red Swedish fish into your new off-white Berber carpet because in our hallucinogenic reverie, we think the red swirly pattern looks cool. It’s Halloween after all and all bets are off. "

Halloween #1

Darth and Hannah

Cookie Masterpieces

Tonight we had a date with Darth Vader and Hannah Montana. They make an interesting pair since we are on our second year of non-matching costumes. Georgia was very excited to try out the life of a platinum blonde. She was insistant that no dark hair show through, so we spent a little time pin-curling that mass of hair that she has to her head so that the wig would be perfect.
We went to the country club's annual Halloween party where they ate pizza and pasta, carved pumpkins, iced cookies, and heckled the performers on stilts. Georgia was the only pop-star that we saw and Brody was one of two Vaders. He was quite at home with the large number of Star Wars cast members in attendance. Lots of Yodas and Clone Troopers to play with.
They looked in on "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", but it did not seem to hold their interest (probably because there were no light sabers or singing teenagers), so we moved on to souvenier pictures that go home in a clear plastic coaster. Brody was later bothered by the fact that I was using said coaster for its intended purpose. "Mom, your drink is on my face. It doesn't go there!"
Mom's favorite was the club's pumpkin pie and chocolate mousse. They always have the best desserts. We made it an early night and skipped the scary hayride since it was a school night. Bummer. Thank goodness the real deal is on a Friday night!

Nature Walk

Georgia's class went on a field trip to a local wildlife center for a nature walk and lesson on seed distribution. Since today is my volunteer day, I got to go along.

It was fun helping first graders look for different types of seeds but it was cold and windy today and most of our walking was in the shade of the woods Brrrr! Georgia thought the milkweed races at the end off of the walk were cool.

Bad A**

Today I woke up with a bad a** attitude. I like to dig up some obnoxious girl anthem and sing it super loud in my best karaoke voice. Keep in mind that I said karaoke and sing is a term I use loosely. It is more like rock wailing. Chris still cringes when my cell phone rings because I have not gotten tired of No Doubt being my ringtone.
So with Georgia off to school, Brody and I had ourselves a little concert. This morning's selection was from Pink's new album "So What". Love it! I know Chris was happy that he was in Houston today and missed it. Especially since I was in an ABBA mood last week and the three year old was reciting the chorus to Mamma Mia. There was a lot of eye rolling like I was stunting my child musical growth allowing him to appreciate Swedish pop music from the 80's. As if!

Lazy Mom

I have been a bad blogger lately. Over the last month I have felt overwhelmed, sad, a little blue and otherwise preoccupied. I am feeling the pinch of taking on too much and having to deal with it. I must be suffering from Super Mom Syndrome. Yes, I can do it all. I am Wonderwoman. I send emails at 4am, try to make perfect homemade whatever and never say no to others when they ask for help. I just need the nifty outfit and the invisible jet. Honestly, right now I think I just need to get to Thanksgiving and

take a deep breath and start over.

My case of the blahs happened upon the death of my grandpa a few weeks ago. I had the drop all of these juggling balls, re-focus and head home. I have to say that Pa-Pa was the sweetest man. He adored my grandma for 70 years and almost made it to his 94th birthday. He loved hot peppers, Louisiana Hot Sauce and dominos almost as much as her, I think. I have just one grandparent left, and that is a strange feeling for me. I was so lucky to have all of them until my 30th year.

I have not really felt like writing anything. I have so much to do at home that sometimes I can't get started, so I goof off. I started reading a woman's blog about her sister and her husband that were in a small plane crash and severely burned. They are the parents of four small children. It is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. The woman is taking care of three of the kids while blogging about her sister and brother-in-law's recovery. Apparantly the sister is a blogger, too and has a very charming site. I have been so hooked, checking if she is out of her medically-induced coma and seeing what her kids are doing. It is addicting in a trashy romance novel on the beach sort of way. It is also quite voyeristic. But it makes me thankful.

Thankful that we are all healthy, that I have children to mug on, and that I am so in love with my best friend. The person that I think is both the most annoying person alive and one of the smartest people I know. I can want to wring his neck and miss him terribly five minutes after he leaves the room. It's complicated and exciting at the same time.

Has been for fifteen years. Too much information?

And just when you are thinking, good gravy, what a heavy post......Halloween is approaching. The kids have decided that they will be Hannah Montana and Darth Vader. I told Georgia that I would buy her the wig, but that she could pick from her own clothes and vast dress-up wardrobe since I think store bought costumes are cheesy (sorry I do-no offense) and she has more than enough sparkly, jewel-encrusted this and that to pull it off. She has seemed fine with this, especially since I broke my own Halloween costumes must be homemade rule with Vader. Until today when she expressed her disdain for me to the check out lady at Wal-Mart. I am unloading my cart and overhear "that I am going to be Hannah Montana, but my mom is too lazy

to make me a costume, so I have to pick from my sparkly clothes and make my own."

Did I say I was thankful for this little ingrate? I did.

Eat and Get Out

This is how I feel sometimes.

We headed up to Chicago to drag another relative through some of our favorite places and a few new ones. So far we have hosted Honey, Uncle Drew and now Aunt Amy, Chris' sister. Just a few more to go.

Georgia and Aunt Amy in their stylish diner hats

We tried the Field Museum, had another Meaty Legend at Gino's and were there for the grand re-opening of the American Girl Place. Georgia was so excited because we were having her doll's hair done at the doll salon for the very first time. I wish I had a picture of it...dropped the ball on that one. I even acquiesced to having Gabriella's (the doll) ears pierced-a totally new service. She was a little bummed that she could not watch it being done. I thought to myself that this was a good call. No one wants to watch their beloved doll get a spike hammered into its head. Probably would not fit with the oh so "pretty in pink" image they have going over there.

Our new stop for this trip was a diner called Ed Debevic's. Gigantic portions, cheeky waitresses (think of the PG version of Dick's Last Resort), and yummy, yummy food. Chris' milkshake was one of the best that I have tasted. We split this ginormous chili cheese hot dog. The darn thing was a foot long and not one of those skinny ones, either. Our waitress brought it to us saying "I've got a big wiener for you!" and calling out in passing,

"How's that big wiener going down?" and "Do you like my big wiener?"

We did.