Bits and parts of things

Some bloggy bitz first: Today is a mommymatic first. Andrea the beautiful and brave nominated this post as a perfect post. I have never gotten one of these coveted awards before, so I'm kind of like a little kid who's been told she's getting the exact brand-new bike she wanted and not the hand-me-down bike from her older sister. It's like when Roger said I had nice hair. Makes me want to cover the world with kisses.

Speaking of Andrea, she used the Best Metaphor Ever in a recent post, so good I have to share it with you: "I could smell her exasperation like a fart in a car." WHY do I never think of such sparkling analogies? It's so PERFECT. And Mrs. Fortune summed up my feelings about my family in one perfect sentence she wrote this week: "I can say with confidence that I must have showed up early and with doughnuts the day god was handing out families." Word to you, sister.

Speaking of my beloved family, I'll say now that spending Thanksgiving with only my immediate family was actually pretty good. We did the orphan Thanksgiving thing with my nabes who were delightful despite their predilection to put their feet in their mouths (they called my work friend "old" and always seem to whine about "the religious breeding freaks" in SLC, to which I almost always reply, "Move your car. My kid and I are late for church."). The rest of the weekend we rolled downtown to see SLC ring in the Xmas season by blazing up Temple Square and surrounds with lights, lights, lights. Is pretty, no?


Saturday, we watched the crazy shoppers at the Overly Kiddie local mall. Which is to say that we rode the escalator for 20 minutes and the elevator for 15. I can't even grouse about it, though, because it saved me from having to shell out $1.50 for the carousel (or worse, stand in line for a ride on the carousel) or $5 for a shopping cart shaped like a car. Thank you, Elisha Otis and Jesse W. Reno. You are totally my homies now. And a big shout-out to the City Library and its 5 stories of completely glass elevatorness. LOVE YOU. We also set up the tree, per Daddymatic's strict guidelines about When the Tree Shall Be Put Up (day after Thanksgiving, always. Down Jan. 6) and When the Christmas Music Shall begin (day after Thanksgiving. Ends the 26th.). This video is dark, but incredibly cute, as D-diddy helps decorate the tree by getting Daddymatic a " 'Nother ooooone" ornament.


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

By Monday, though, I was ready to get back to work. It seems the Incredibly Mommyloving D was even ready, though--Monday was the first day EVER that I have left the house without the wailing and gnashing of teeth to accompany me. I kissed him on the head, and he beamed and said "Bye-bye, mama!" I'd love to say a part of me was sad, but I'd be lying. All I felt was relief.

Of course, for the last two days, I've gotten home after D's been put to bed, and now I am ready to get refilled on toddler love this weekend. Especially since he now sing-songs "yummy tummy" while he eats and this very evening observed "Daddy broke head!" when daddymatic hit his head on something. It makes me feel I have to absorb every moment, even the annoying ones, and really enjoy them. That, or I need to cryogenically freeze him in this current state of sweetness.

Thanksgiving tradition-delurk for charity

All is well--thanks for the concern over La-la's being on the lam(b) [Thanks, Nancy--you know I love a good pun]. We do have a spare--we have to have a body double for Lambie so that she can occasionally be washed. We've ordered another one (thanks, Gund for continuing to make this critter!) and for now, crisis has been averted.

But posting about losing one of my child's many, many stuffed animals (some of whom should, as Toyfoto suggests, probably be sent to Iraq) and then reading this post (thanks, Granny, for posting about it) made me feel a little sheepish (if you'll, ahem, pardon the pun). I've been hunting the interwebs lately in search of a new Family Tradition, because I think we need to start one this year, this being our first Orphan Thanksgiving since we were in the Peace Corps.

So it looks like I've found one. I admit it, I want D to grow up comfortable, yes, but more than that, I want him to understand the responsibility that living a comfortable life comes with--the compulsion to notice that there are those not as comfortable and to do what you can to share what you have. I complain about my mountains of consumer debt, repairs to an old house, and the money-suck that is the diaper industry, but this Thanksgiving, I need to remember that my kid has both parents around, and, as lousy as we may be sometimes, we are committed to him and his needs. This alone makes him Fortunate. In addition, he always has diapers, he has toys "enough and to spare," and we could probably feed another whole child on food he has the luxury to refuse to eat sometimes. So our new Thanksgiving tradition will be to help out kids who don't have what he has and to remind ourselves to be Very, Very Grateful that we have So Very Much.

And I will donate an additional dollar to Little Wishes (or, if you prefer, another foster organization--just specify) for every person I can get to comment, so if you've been wanting to delurk, do it now. For those of you who don't know what delurk means, it means if you never comment, this might be a good time. I'd love to hear where you read from and how you found mommymatic. If you are a regular commenter, you still count, just leave a comment you'll earn your buck. IT'S FOR THE KIDS, PEOPLE.

Also, because I know you are all going to be shopping online like moi this season, you can do it through this link and companies will donate a certain amount of their proceeds to the cause.

I'd love to hear about your Thanksgivings traditions, philanthropic or otherwise (one of our other traditions might be "Feast for the Beasts" at Hogle Zoo, wherein they feed the animals traditional Thanksgiving foods on Thanksgiving night).

M.I.A.

Name: Lambie. Also answers to "La-la."
Age: 24 months
Description: White (ish) with smudgy grey-ish ears, nose and tail
Noteworthy marks: Rattleodectomy scar on abdomen.
Last seen: November 20, 2006 at ____ Preschool, Salt Lake City, UT
If you see her: Do not approach! Her eyes are always closed, so she may appear to be asleep but could, at any time, go ninja-lamb and escape again. Please contact the Matic-Operated Lovey Department (MOLD) if you see this individual. Please use caution--a little boy's comfort depends upon it.

More breaking news as we have it. Stay tuned.

Happy birthday, Peanut!

This one's for you, big guy! Enjoy your big day this weekend! And mama, enjoy the 2s. We expect a full report. :)


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

NB? PM?

Ok, so if I only post half the month, can I say I did NaBlo? Or is it PoMo?

Maybe I should just enjoy the collective sigh of relief that I've given in to dropping out (yes, I heard that). I really, really, wanted to be able to post every day, but I'm being crushed by a deadline just now and I don't want to record Memories of Stressed Mommy for D to have when he's older. I mean, if I'm keeping this blog for him (because I am lousy at keeping scrapbooks), I get to pick and choose the memories, right? And witchy, stressed-out Mama who makes a little boy eat his dinner in the car so she can make yet another trip to the office is not a memory I choose.

Except that I just did. Dang. But I can addend that by saying at least all the way home in the car, we sang Happy Birthday to, well, everyone: La-la, Daddy, D (who refers to himself as "Didi/Diddy" now, and I am having a hard time not referring to him as D-Diddy), Mama, the Moon, the Stars, and his puppet Daikon (which is actually just how he says "Dragon," but honestly, who can resist using a funny-named vegetable moniker when given the opportunity?).

So if anyone out there has a birthday coming up (sorry I missed yours, Nancy), let us know and we'll try to get you your own personalized serenade.

Mommymatic the NoMoNaBloPoMo Blogger OUT.

Going on Record

I’d just like to go on record saying that in the event that my child ever, despite my best efforts to purge my own discourse of such things, overhears myself, my husband or anyone else refer to the event of his arrival in the world as an “accident” or something “unplanned,” that this is what that means: We wanted you for years before you ever appeared and when we found out you were arriving, it was as if someone called us up unexpectedly and said it had been decided that we were to receive the best present ever. And everyone knows that while sometimes, unexpected presents aren’t always welcome and that it’s great to get exactly what you ask for, there is a very small class of presents that is better than getting exactly what you asked for, and that is getting more than you ever asked for, and certainly way more than you ever felt you deserved.

That is what you are, to us. You are the most wonderful, fortuitous surprise baby ever, and you are, as one of my students told me you would be, daily proof that Someone does, indeed, love me a great deal to have allowed me to share part of my life with you.

Your mssion, should you choose to accept it

...Is to tell me one fairly unusual item you cannot, right now, live without as a parent. No fair saying crap like "crib" or "car seat" (and do not make me watch the 'Kyle' video on YouTube again, please. I am out of tissues) "diapers" or "my (or my wife's, for my male reader) boobs." I'm also hoping too get beyond staples like playdough and washable crayons, which, while both masterstrokes in the Evolution of Parenting, are, shall we say, somewhat obvious.

Products are fair game. We got one of these this weekend and it's pretty swell, but I think everyone has to buy some kind of booster seat thingy, so I don't think it will count as my entry.

No, the most useful thing we've acquired 'round these parts lately was free. It came from Cosco, but I'm sure you can get one anywhere. It's a box that used to hold boxes of Clif bars, but it has reached a new level of utility in its new job: it's a perfect desk for a small toddler who loves to sit on the floor. It's all open in the front, presumably for easier Clif-bar access, but his little legs fit right in the opening and it's the perfect height for him to sit and color. It's cardboard, so he can smear it up/color on it/go Russel Crowe on it all he wants and all we have to do to get a new one is to show up at our nearest wholesale store and look pitiful. It's AWESOME especially for the New To Crayons set, because it's sort of a nice continuation of drawing paper.

So what can't you live without this week/month? I have no prizes to offer, but if nothing else, you will sound cooler than me.

The Devil(ish) Wears Oshkosh

Okay, I don’t want to sound harsh and actually refer to my spawn as “devilish” but honestly, sometimes I have no idea who has taken over his body. He screams, he throws things (big, hard things, too, like bikes and toy vacuum cleaners and stuff) and slaps. Were it not for all the singing and counting he engages in, I would wonder if we were sending him not to preschool but to a cleverly-disguised street-training gangsta-camp. The other day when he launched into a rehearsal of his new tactics, we managed to remain calm while he systematically emptied the living room simply by throwing an object so that promptly “went bye-bye” per Mommy and Daddymatic’s rules. But then Daddy kind of lost it when D slapped me, and I kind of lost it when putting the child into time-out appeared to have no measureable effect save inspiring great mirth, and finally, Daddymatic concluded that we just had to “save him from himself.” Or from us. Or something.

We decided he was tired, and though he insisted he wasn’t and that the clear solution to all our problems was for me to read his new favorite “fluffy” book to him a half-dozen times.

But even six times is never enough, so I finally turned his light off despite much protest and within minutes, his body was limp with sleep in my arms.

And I wish I could say that all these tender thoughts about him rushed back once he was asleep, but dude, I was so stressed and tired that all I could think as I flopped on the couch and turned on the monitor was “Well, that didn’t kill anyone.”

Bloggers beware

In case you're wondering what the FREAK is going on around here, I logged in to post the last post today only to discover that HALF MY TEMPLATE CODE (the part with all the links, buttons and fun stuff, naturally) had been deleted. As in GONE. What?? So let this be a lesson to you: back that thang up, and I am not talking about your booties, people (though, it is a free country, so you're welcome to do both). If you have a blogger account with lots and lots and lots of modifications made to a template, navigate over to blogger RIGHT NOW, go to your template section and copy and paste that code into a notepad document or something. NOW!

If you were on my blogroll, I will be adding stuff back in over the weekend. If I miss re-adding you, LMK. Sorry for the administrative nature of this post, but hopefully things will not suck so much once I've had a chance to move in and make this place homey. Again.

It freaking figures

It just figures that the day after I post the NaBloPoMo link on my sidebar is the first day I miss posting. Dang. I don't care--I'll just post twice today, so you're not dodging any bullets here. Nice try. Oh, and refusing to leave comments? Doesn't phase me one bit. No, no, despite the fact that we are all about the approval here at Chez Mommymatic, I can handle your rejection. Really.

So in the "riddle me this" category, we have these linguistic moments, brought to you by the letter D:

As D totes around his pumpkin from Hallowe'en, he starts shoving things inside it and says something that sounds like "showering" or "showing." It takes 5 minutes before I figure out he's saying "Shopping." Good Lord. I can't even blame this recent spate of avid consumerism on the preschool.

I made some playdough (LMK if you want the recipe--it's super-easy and makes me feel like Sally Homemaker just to be able to offer to pass it along! And to say super-easy!) and he went insane. INSANE. One thing that was particularly puzzling was that he would smash, squish or mold it and, in perfect Greenlandic, say "LAKADAT." Daddymatic and I laughed because there appears to be a direct correlation to how well I understand some phrase and how earnestly D says it. "LAKADAT, Mama. LAKADAT." Finally, we figured it out: He was saying "Look at that!" I think he got this from Bee-bee.

Finally, he kept ducking behind the table and sticking his butt up in the air and saying "Hiney." Or so I thought. I finally realized he was saying "I'm hiding." Oh, right.

Poor guy. He must seriously feel the way I felt when I'd try to speak Polish. Despite the fact that the entire Polish populace around me had all been speaking this language for, oh, say, hundreds of years, when they didn't understand me, I always thought, "God, what idiots. Don't you understand your own language??"

The difference is that I realized later that I'd been asking the secretary why there was no "Pope" for the copier and I eventually learned how to correctly (mostly) pronounce "paper," whereas D just taps his foot impatiently while we catch up and learn what, apparently, is the correct pronunciation for "shopping."

Am I biased?

Because I feel like one of "those" mothers when I admit this, but I really do think he might be one of the top ten cutest toddlers ever.

Yes, Bee-bee raked all these leaves and managed to play with me at the same time. Mommy was just taking notes and muttering the whole time.

This cute smirk, Bee-bee? Is only for you.

The autumnal equinox brings out my inner cutie. And I even held still long enough for someone to snap a picture, because that's just the kind of guy I am.

P.S. Thanks to all of you who voted for Nancy. She won MOTW at Crazy Hip Blog Mamas. I like to think my 6 readers and I played a part. You rock. I have several other victims nominees in mind, so I'll be contacting many of you in the weeks to come. If you are on my blogroll and you've never won before, you are fair game. If you don't want to be nominated, just let me know.

Boobies II

As proof my husband is in on this scheme somehow, some way, I offer you D's actual monologue of molestation the other day:

“Mama, shirt off. ((tugs shirt upwards, exposing new bra-ensconced friends.)) Boobies! SHIRT OFF. Boobies! Show daddy! Showwww daddy!”

BOOBIES

That’s how I was greeted Saturday morning. My son laid his hands on my chest, patted firmly, and said “Boobies.”

“Yes, those are my boobies,” I concurred. “Are you ready to get up?”

“Daddy’s boobies.”

“Well, daddy’s boobies are still sleeping, sweet. We’ll have to wait until he gets up to see them.”

“Sorry, son. It’s Oedipal enough for you to be fondling my boobies, and I don’t think there’s enough Freudian analysis for the two of us if you start petting your grandmother’s boobies.”

“La-la’s boobies.”

“Does La-la have boobies? She’s the only lamb I know who has a belly button, so why not boobies?”

I haven’t nursed this child in a year, and he hasn’t shown any interest in my breasts before now, so what gives? Has his fascination with his own stickie-outie finally waned and he is now seeking other Bits To Be Entertained By? I’m sure this is normal, but what to do about it? He has become more and more interested in them over the last week, and I’m a little nervous that his Well-Endowed Preschool Teacher will wonder what kind of perverts we are when he sticks his icy cold little hand down her shirt and yells his famous war-cry.

Surgeon General's Warning

This morning when he woke up, D started singing his new favorite song, the itsy-bitsy spider. I might mention here that I am not the least bit bitter about the fact that he had no love for this song during my endless renditions of it during the Pre-preschool Era, and now loves it so much that he insists we sing it in chorus to him (ie, if I begin, he says, “Daddy sing bitsy spider.”). When he is in his crib alone, however, he has no choir of willing voices and has to make do, and thus sings over and over to himself the only two words he knows from the song. Often, then, we hear “bitsy spiiiider, bitsy spiiiiider” sung in a high, free-wheeling tune, and it is so sweet that I think we are just going to have to slap a label on him warning diabetics and dentists to STAY AWAY.

And here I thought object permanence was a pain….

This kid’s memory is getting to be amazing. Last weekend, for instance, he begged me to help him put on one of his many “truck” shirts—this one has diggers and dump trucks printed on it, and he would not. stop. hassling. me. about putting it on him. Normally, I am extremely patient with the numerous costume changes that must be effected hourly around here, due in part to one or more of the following: poo, yogurt, applesauce, oatmeal, milk (from drinking like a “big boy”) and personal preference “Airplane shirt! On!” This time, however, it was approaching bedtime and it was time to put on “motorcycle jammy-shoes” (“jammy-shoes” = footed sleepers). I convinced him to let me put the shirt on Elmo and promised him he could wear it on our weekly bagel shop visit the next morning. This placated him, and I assumed the issue was closed, forgotten, deleted like a picture on a well-shaken Etch-a-sketch, which is always the way it was Before The Rules Changed.

Not so. The next morning, the monitor blared like a loudspeaker in a barracks: “Daddy! Wake UP! Truck shirt! Bagel! Daddy, wake up! Bagel! Truck shirt!”

This memory thing may not be all it’s cracked up to be. How is it fair that his is getting better and mine is getting....what was I saying?

P.S. Is it still Sunday? Then go here and follow the directions to vote for Nancy for Member of the Week. You don't even have to be a member, just have a website. And remember, I could medal in Olympic level Nagging, so you do NOT want me to have to do this another week. Also, you should do it because you will be one of my next nominees.

Doing the best we can

There's a tree on our property that has been dead, evidently, since God was a child, and we have finally gotten around to removing it. I've been calling and getting estimates for a week, and one guy said he could do it this week because it was so dead that he was afraid parts of it could fall and hurt someone. D has been trying to get in good with the little girls next door who have absolutely no time for him, and I thought ithat removing the large arboreal hazard that hangs over their house would be a nice first step towards détente.

So when the guys showed up today to cut it down, I was a little irked not to get so much as a warning phone call, but I rolled with it because basically, we wanted it done ASAP. Of course, when my mother called to let me know they were cutting down the wrong tree, I thought, "Idiots. And you thought they'd do a good job. Nice going." So I instructed my mother to ask them to stop and called the dude I'd been back-and-forthing with about the tree, and he agreed to skibble on over and take care of bidness.

When I called my mom back, she explained that no, actually, they just had to trim part of the good tree out of the way to get the dead tree out and that um, actually, we had a bigger problem now, because the door had locked behind her on her way out. And, uh, D was inside. Alone.

We have no spare key. My mother had my keys, presumably inside, and Daddymatic was a bus and a tram ride away at work. To my credit, I didn't freak right away. To my shame, I did eventually freak out pretty badly. I envisioned every horrible possible scenario, I cursed my own stupidity for a) not having a spare key hidden and b) having jumped the gun on the tree guys, who knew what they were doing after all and c) not removing every possible hazard from my home and even d) having a job that meant I wasn't around to run the show. But every line of thought I came to led to one conclusion: there was absolutely, physically, humanly, nothing I could do to fix this. For at least 20 minutes, anyway.

And then I prayed. For the record, I am not in the business of informing God of stuff He/She/It (yeah, God isn't always He or She for me. Sometimes It. Sometimes not even a noun) should know, nor do I routinely talk as if She/He/It is a giant metaphysical Santa Claus--what Anne Lamott calls the "cosmic butler." Prayer for me is more a reminding myself that I am loved, that we have always been taken care of, and that there is Someone more responsible than me who is actually in control. I felt today like I was sitting in a car, driving and honking and turning my steering wheel, only to find out that I was really more like Maggie Simpson, holding a toy steering wheel that did absolutely nothing to control the car. I had no choice but to let go of my toy and my sense of control. I told the driver that I had confidence in Her/Its/His driving skills, and that I was going to let It/Him/Her figure it out.

Of course, two minutes later, my mom called back to announce that my neighbors had kicked in my back door, breaking the cheesy lever lock we'd been wanting to replace, and mom found D in his room upstairs, peering out the window at the tree guys.

The fact that I even mentioned prayer might sound stupid to most of you, who are thinking that this would have happened whether or not I prayed. You're right. I don't think praying made God like me or my kid any more nor did it induce Her/It/Him to intervene on our behalf. What it did was change me, get my heart out from under the crushing fear I had that Something Terrible would happen. It let me breathe and trust and assume that everyone, and I mean Everyone, as my mother likes to remind me, is doing the best they can, and the more I trust that, the better we all are.

P.S. I nominated my friend Nancy for Crazy Hip Blog Mamas Member of the Week award. And because I hate, hate, hate how last-person-chosen-for-kickball the blogosphere makes me feel most of the time and am mindful that others might feel the same way and am doing everything I can to make it stop feeling that way, let me assure you that there are many others I'm going to be nominating in the future, but I'm starting with her. Read this and this and this, (that last one might make you cry, unless of course, you have a heart made of stone) and then go vote for her, okay? If she doesn't get it this week (because votes have to be in by Sunday), I'll just nag you all next week about it and who wants that?

Paci-Posse II: The Land of Binky and Nod

So for weeks we've been trying to figure out why D only naps for, say, an hour at preschool but will nap well on 3 hours at home. Yesterday at his Parent-Teacher Conference, we think we might have gotten a clue.

To start with, you have to understand that yes, the child still has a pacifier and no, it ain't going nowhere. I'm unapologetic about this--the way I see it, I sucked my fingers until I was 8, so if he's weaned off of it before then, we're good. He only technically gets it in the car and at naps and night, and I figure if someone wants to call CPS on me, it'll be for something far more egregious, like the fact that I steal his Hallowe'en candy and let him run into other people's houses and try their shoes on.

His preschool teachers have told me they hate the pacifer (in general--they don't have a special vendetta against his particular binky) and are actively engaged in an anti-paci campaign. I don't mind this because D seems fine with it, too--he hands over the paci when Daddymatic drops him off without so much as a whimper. Of course, the afternoons are a different story: DM says pre-school pickup is akin to meeting a smoker friend after a day of working in a non-smoking office: he picks D up, and D starts all but searching his pockets, demanding "BAH-JEE-BYE?? BAH-JEE-BYE??" in this slightly panicky voice, as if to say "where's my stuff, dude? where's my stuff?"

Now, we had assumed D was being given his paci during his preschool naptime--he gets Lambie, or She Without Which There Is No Sleeping, and we just assumed that the paci-ban didn't extend into naptime because, for Pete's sake, people who work with small children MUST follow the "anything for sleep" rule, the long version of which is "Whatever Can Be Done Within Reason To Extend Toddler Sleep Must Be Done." Evidently, this is not so. And yet the teachers know he gets the paci at night, and still they were confused as to why, oh why he doesn't sleep better at school.
Now, I don't have a degree in young child development, but uhhhhh, seems to me it's worth a try to re-instate the bink and see what's what, yes?

Of course, we'll have to wait until next week to see if it makes any difference, because little D is home with my mother* today, who, saints be praised, has returned for her annual Bring The Light Back Into Our Lives campaign. I have even enlisted my boss into trying to persuade her and my dad into moving out here and, as I've mentioned, am considering offering to get her a pony of her very own to sweeten the deal if need be. My boss set her up with a realtor for Monday, which I feel is a huge step, so if you can think of anything else that might induce these people to come out to the Land of Trunk or Treat, lemme know, wouldja? (actually, the mere existence of Trunk or Treat might be enough for my dad, but...)



*I just realized my Ode to Bee-bee post was written one year ago tomorrow. Spooky.

Trunk or treat

Well, despite my best intentions to get all Pumpkin McScrooge on Hallowe’en and ignore it totally in the hopes it would just go away, I relented somewhat and created a modified costume for the One True Child (read: grey fleece jumpsuit with a sock pinned on as a tail, plus kitty ears left over from Mommymatic’s pre-baby, I-can-still-wear-skintight-velvet-bodysuits kitty-costume era) and took him to see our neighbors and, let’s face it, score some free candy for my trouble. He had a blast—played with the two big dogs across the street, tried on all our next door neighbor’s shoes (they were laying in the entryway, absolutely begging for a Small Boy to try them on), and saw his Big Boy Buddy Xander from down the street in his aaaaawesome dragon costume.

Which is where I learned about “Trunk or Treat,” also known as Reason #2 Why Mormons Will Soon Be Taking Over the World*. Apparently, each of the two LDS churches in a six-block radius hosts a Hallowe’en gathering wherein children come to the parking lot of the church, where everyone is passing out candy from the trunks of their cars. I find this to be a stunning innovation in Maximum Candy Acquisition Efficiency—you don’t have to do all the dreaded walking in order to get your sustained sugar high—just come on up to the church and get your loot concentrated in one candy-rich environment. And parents can hardly protest, because children no longer have to walk around the dark neighborhood, worrying about dogs, hooligans, drunk adults or any other assorted Hallowe’en shenanigans. And it’s hosted by a church, which means not only is the candy free, but, apparently, Deity-approved. What could be better?

Of course, I didn’t end up taking D up there, despite the siren song of the thousands of mini candy bars up for distribution, because it was his bedtime and because, frankly, as utopian as it sounds to go to a big parking-lot-candyfest, it seemed a little weird, too. Not, maybe, as weird as keeping a 6-month-old up so that she could go trick-or-treating, but weird. (And yeah, seriously. Six months. D wasn’t even sitting up at six months, let alone interested in dress-up, scary adult holiday weirdness—and let’s face it, most of this holiday is for adults’ entertainment, not kids. And it wasn’t like the baby was with an older sibling or anything. Am I just a fogey or does that seem odd?) But anyway, the parking lot thing seemed weird, so we skipped it. I’m sure I’ll be all over that like a cheap suit next year when the whole capitalist concept of Hallowe’en is more firmly planted in D’s mind , but this year, I was thrilled to give him a taste of the best what Hallowe’en is like and to let him show off a little for his ‘hood.

Pictures to come…


* Reason #1, in case you're interested, is the phenomenon that is the Young Women's group. Apparently, one can call the local LDS Ward and get access to a ready-made list of babysitters through their Young Women's group. Considering the fees one might need to pay an agency for such a service, I feel this is truly serving one's fellow man (or mom, if you will)---to provide a kick-butt (and yet totally free!) screening service to find wholesome, fresh-faced young women who want to take care of my child?? Um, yes, please. I haven't done this yet, but I'll keep ya posted.