Halloween for the rest of us

Halloween is not my favorite holiday… in fact, I really don’t like Halloween at all, and with the kids’ preschool this year, I have been both completely Halloween’ed out and frightened of how much more of this holiday I will have to recognize in the next 17 years or so that my children are in school. Gah! It is enough to make me run screaming from society for all of early fall.

But I managed a slightly more rational decision and instead of running and screaming like a lunatic I merely took the kids out to dinner and to the library in order to (meanly, I know) avoid the whole night. Of course, all the servers at the restaurant were dressed in costume and they wanted to give my toddlers candy, too, (clearly, they don’t have young children) so I didn’t manage to totally avoid Halloween, just reduce it.

Anyway, the one server was dressed as a bear and my boys were fascinated by him. 15 month old Luke watched him go around the restaurant the entire time we were there and would point and do his little roar. It was the cutest thing. Of course, when the “bear” came to say goodbye to us as we were leaving, not one of them would say a single thing. Stupefied, each and every one. Oh, well . Such is life. Then, as we walked out the restaurant and the entire trip to the library…?

roar… roar… Roar… ROAR… ROOOAAAAR.

I can’t win.

Another Monday

Here we are at another Monday morning. I was going to start the day off well today, you know… actually check things off the list, get out of the house early, make the most of my few hours of preschool.

But (and isn't there always a but?)

But then the baby woke at five, and six, and at six thirty he woke his brothers so no one went back to sleep and then there was no oatmeal of the "right" flavor and the day just became of the many days with small children. So here I sit while the baby takes an early nap drinking coffee and wasting time with the morning news. I suppose I should soon begin work on the plenty long list of things to do in the house (a list that has way to many entries related to laundry!) but for this moment right now I am going to sip and sit in quiet and just enjoy the sun shining through the window.

These are the moments that let me stay mommy through all the others, and I wish I could bottle the feeling and open it whenever I need it. Since that is impossible, I am going to stop now and just breathe in, and out…