The Joy of November 1st

And how nauseous are you? Oh... so are you saying you DIDN'T eat a shitload of your kids' candies from last night? Well to hell with you then. I did. Then I had some of my homemade cookies. Okay, a lot of my homemade cookies. And today I don't feel so hot. Or so slim.

But I suppose that's neither here nor there, so I'll just march forward like the brave soldier I am and tell you about Emma's first Halloween experience. (It's actually her third Oct. 31st, but her first 'experience' so to speak. The initial one she was only 2 days old, so that doesn't count. The next one, well... I think I just thought she was too young to participate in Satan's holiday without her given concent. But this year, THIS YEAR, now that she's ALMOST TWO YEARS OLD, she got to enjoy Halloween. Thus, her first "experience".

Having been born on November 2nd, she's gonna have Halloween birthday parties for the next 14 years of her life. Inevitably this will make my job as her horribly uncreative mother much, MUCH easier in the party planning department. Except for this year, of course, seeing as we're not actually having her party till the 12th... Blame Jeff & his need to see James Blunt in concert for that. Of course I only found this out AFTER I mailed out all the invitations. AND everyone RSVP'D. Then had to reschedule using evite. Just not the same... Ugh. Men. I so hope he has a great time.

But back to Halloween, the day devoted to devil worship by one and all. And then we get treats & smiles all around.

And speaking of treats, I discovered an absolutely fantastic new cookie recipe. They're called Oatmeal Cookies, but that's only to make them sound healthy. They're not. They've got raisins AND chocolate chips. That's gotta tell you something right there.. If it weren't weird & creepy to hand out homemade snacks to treat-or-treaters, I would have given these out. That's assuming I actually turned my porch light on. I didn't. But to be fair I wasn't home. but it's not like we ever get anyone anyhow. Every other year that we've lived here, I've stocked up on candies, had one or two rings, then I'm stuck eating all the crap. And I do. But anyhow, if you're a cookie lover, you must try these. They are to die for. To. Die. For. But cook them at 325 for 12 minutes, not what the recipe says. Trust me... And eat them straight from the freezer. Again, trust me... I know my cookies.

Okay, I keep putting off writing about Emma's Halloween... here goes. So Emma, Michael & I went trick-or-treating with Martine, Jordan, Zachary, and Hunter. (Jeff was working.) You've read about them before - to recap, we went to the zoo with them not too long ago and Zachary was all over Emma. Emma was into Hunter who wanted nothing to do with her. Fortunately she's since smartened up and is now into Zachary. Anyhoo... that's another blog..

So we all met at Diane's house - that's Martine's mother who has known me since the day I was born. Literally. As has Martine. Again... off topic. Hell, you'd think I've been into the bottle tonight. Not so. Just the cookie bag. But we're talking alot of butter... and that can do some funny stuff with the brain waves I tell ya.

About two weeks ago I went to get costumes for the kids. I thought that was plenty of time to find something cute. I was wrong... At least for Emma. For Michael, I found him a little caterpillar outfit right away. For Emma, nada. Nothing in her size except a funny looking pumpkin that looked horribly uncomfortable. She wanted nothing to do with it. Refused to stick her bony little ass any where near it. One look at Michael's adorable little caterpillar and she was hell bent on being the same. So for the past two weeks, I've been running around like the crazy lady I am trying to turn my kid into a caterpillar. Or at least a butterfly. Okay, not really a butterfly.. To demonstrate just how embarrassingly uncreative I am, I didn't even think of that till two nights ago. Okay, that's a lie. Michelle suggested it two days ago and now I'm stealing the idea and making it my own. Not the first time, and won't be the last. Deal. (Or, as Emma would say, "NO DEAL!")

Final attempt for a costume on Halloween Day - went to Old Navy to see what they had left, if anything. Sure enough I found a Mermaid outfit in her size. Reguarly priced at $29.99. But not on October 31... I got it for a whopping $1.97! Never again will I pay full price for a Halloween costume!! EXCEPT... always an EXCEPT... Emma refused to wear it when we got home. I figured to hell with it, and I'd let Martine deal with her - kids always listen to other people, don't you find?

Then we went to Zellers to return Michael's caterpillar because I decided spending money on it was really just flushing it cuz he wasn't ever going to leave the stroller - too damn cold here these days. Running through Zellers to make the return before meeting up with Martine, I spotted what was going to be Emma's second option for the evening... should she decide to pull a Lindsay Lohan and change mid-event, she was ready - she could also be a Cave Girl! And this one was a whopping $3.97. Canadian, might I add!

So we finally finally FINALLY got to Diane's house and Emma refused to wear either outfit. She was bribed with all sorts of chocolates, but no. NO. My kid was NOT dressing up. She was way too cool in her sweater & jeans to even consider it. Everyone was waiting. And not so patiently, might I add.

Then Zachary took her by the shoulders, looked her in the eye, and so calmly explained that if she didn't get her costume on she wouldn't be able to go trick-or-treating. And she wouldn't get any candy. So wouldn't she please get dressed? And she did. Did I mention he's not even 4 years old?

The mermaid was a no-go. The cave girl was the winner. We kept her jeans on cuz, like I said, it's fucken COLD here at night now. So cold that it deserves the expletive, nevermind the capital.



They all had a great time going from house to house getting chocolate, chips, gummies, and suckers. And fortunately none of those really shitty orange & black cheapo candies that nobody eats. Do they still sell those?



I thought Emma would be super shy going up to stranger's houses and begging for food. No so. Apparently my little one is quite willing to sell her soul for a Smartie (TM). If she was given two, without hesitation she'd reach into the bowl and grab a third. If she was given three, well hell.. she was goin' in for a fourth. But she always remembered to say a happy "Thank You!" and finished with a "B-Bye!"

And nobody was allowed to actually put the candies in her bag. They had to HAND THEM TO HER and SHE would be the one to place them in the bag herself, thankyouverymuch.

Here is Superman, cleaning some schmutz off Cave Girl's face...



Back at Diane's, Cave Girl examining the haul...



Hunter, the cutest (err... scariest) skeleton EVER...



Pigging out on chocolate and chips... Emma was like a crack whore in need of a fix the way she went about demolishing box after box after box of Smarties... She ran through the hallways of our house till 11:00pm, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Then, like any hard core junkie, passed out cold till morning. And she woke up early and miserable. The kid had a full blown chocolate hangover.



And even though he stayed asleep in his stroller for most of the evening, and I have no photos of him in his "I am a lumberjack" outfit, here's Michael hanging out at home today. Just cuz he's so damn cute..