Trips and Treats

Yesterday was a big day! Kelly left early on a trip to Turkey. So I began day one of my week without my parental partner. This is only the second time he's been away since we've had two kids and the last time it was only for 3 nights. It truly is amazing to me how single mom's handle the endless routine of the everyday - while I find one week more than a little daunting. Perhaps its even more dramatic of a change for someone like me who has such a great helper in her husband. When he's home, the load is truly halved for me, so I notice when he is gone. His being away would be a challenge anyway, but I have been battling a cold for a better part of the week. Jonah has it too, but it doesn't make him desire quiet and rest as it does me (Sigh). Fortunately, yesterday, I rallied and felt more energetic and more positive about the upcoming week. I even managed a trip to the store and took the kids out in the evening for a little Halloween action at the local mall.

This was Jonah's first year to show interest in the whole Trick or Treat thing - he's watched, "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" enough to know what it's all about and want to participate. While I'm not big on all the emphasis on death and gore, I do think it's fun to dress up; and who doesn't like candy. The Safe N Sane Halloween at the mall was supposed to be kid friendly, nevertheless there were a handful Grim Reapers, monsters and blood laden costumes. I avoided those folks as much as possible. One guy had a monster mask on that really got Jonah's attention and scared Elisabeth enough to make her pout and whine. But then later, she really got freaked out by a kid in a Transformers Costume - go figure!

Here is my Storm Trooper (a.k.a Clone Trooper) from Star Wars and my little pink poodle:


Elisabeth's outfit I picked up at a consignment sale thinking it would double as a snow suit of sorts. Of course, it was a balmy 80 degrees yesterday, so I was concerned about her getting over heated. I wish I would have gotten a better picture of the back - you should see the poodle tail. Oh well, looks like all the pictures have a glow anyway - no doubt a small finger print on the lens.

Here is Jonah getting candy. I would instruct him to go up and say, "Trick-r-Treat", to which they would reply, "Happy Halloween." Then I would remind him to say, "Thank you." Sometimes, he'd forget and would just say, "Happy Halloween" in response to their, "Happy Halloween."


He was really quite overwhelmed with it all. He was walking really slowly and rubbing his eyes very soon into the walk around the mall.

As you can see, the mask part of the costume stayed on for all of a minute. Although, I can't say I blame him. I wouldn't want to be walking around a crowded mall with a mask obstructing my view either.

After walking the entire mall, we stopped at the play area. Jonah was energized by this and ran around playing for probably 30 minutes or more. Elisabeth got into some of the action too.

We got home past their bed times which turned out to be a good thing - I had forgotten about the time change. And I didn't have to deal with 'trick or treaters' disturbing the bedtime routine. Jonah and Elisabeth went to sleep quickly, while I was up past midnight.
So this was my day. If your interested in how Kelly's day went you can check out his travel blog.