Now Give Me A Piece of Candy!

Ah, Halloween.

We survived. I think we all have a hangover today, however.

Personally, I’m feeling like I haven’t stopped moving.

It started with B’s Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) Halloween party in the morning. Naturally, I am insane enough to also be a Room Mom for this class so this entailed planning the party for the kids, in conjunction with the other Moms. Yeah, notice how I say Moms…no Room Dads volunteered. LOL

Anyway, the group (2 other women in B’s class and 1 in the other class) has been e-mailing back and forth setting up what we were responsible for: craft and food. By the end of it all I oversaw the food (the pressure!), which of course not only has to be peanut free/nut free but also have to have some gluten free choices and needs to be HEALTHY. Aroo? This is one time that I’m thankful that B does not have any food allergy (that we are aware of).

Back to the party, there is also a parade throughout the elementary school. It’s super special, because the ECSE classes and Kindergarteners are the ONLY ones that dress up in costume and walk around. The other kids line up in the hallway and cheer them on. It was so cute – B was Thomas and he totally was groovin’ on the fact that kids were hollerin’ out “THOMAS THOMAS THOMAS” and giving high fives. They were awesome. I’m not sure if they are always this behaved or the teacher put the fear of God into them…but whatever.

However, what I apparently missed the memo that I would actually BE.IN.THE.PARADE. So I ended up also being part of the show, walking around with B. Of course taking pictures was a LOT harder doing this – most photos were blurry and I haven’t look at the video yet.

Look at me I'm POPULAR!

Back to the party after the parade, there were two crafts between the two rooms. Our wonderful craft mom T came up with a simple mask, and the craft mom V in the other room got tiny pumpkins to draw faces on. And all the FOOD. Massive spread over the two rooms…but everyone got plenty to eat. I ended up making meatballs which turned out to be a big hit. I thought for sure I made too much and we would be eating spaghetti and meatballs for a week. Husband was very disappointed to find out that alas, they were all gone. Even the Assistant Principal made a trip back to the classroom to get some.

Arts and Crafts

And after all that (including cleanup)…I had to go to work. I really wanted to take a nap, since I was zonked from the party (you know walking the halls does burn calories). Gah I so didn’t want to go in. That was one of those days where I wished I could just work from home. And poor B was exhausted and he still had to go to the aftercare.

But we all had to push through get to Round 2 – ‘hood trick-or-treating. As I wrote previously, he did pretty well his first time out last year…so I had high hopes this time around. I was not disappointed. I was really really proud of him. We were able to walk with some friends at first, but then we finished on our own. And it was totally ok. He didn’t have any major issues (some houses he didn’t like the pumpkins so I said that was fine) and he tried using his words like “please” and “thank you”. Even the buckets (you know the people either taking their own kids out or too lazy to answer the door) he only took one or two.

Of course, he had a big ole stash of candy booty in which he wanted to inspect when we got home. And it was already 8PM (um, we were out an hour and half? Seriously?) so of course the bedtime routine had to be smooshed (no bath, one story, bed). We were all tired; Husband had to stay home with M and handle the “waves upon waves” (his words) of kiddos that came through after we left.

And the day after…was…well, rough. Because even after such a fun night, the morning comes all the earlier. And for the poor kid whose bus comes at 6 frickin’ 30 AM, it wasn’t pretty waking him up. Well, kid, Mommy wasn’t quite chipper either at being up! But as all the teachers keep reassuring me, ALL the kids are like this the day after Halloween. Which kinda warms this heart, meaning that he is somewhat typical for being a grumpy preschooler today.