Happy Thanksgiving...

...from some of the cutest little turkeys I know:

 

We had a very tame Thanksgiving this year. Turkey Trot 5k with friends in the frigid morning, relaxing with pie and Christmas movies all day, dinner at 5pm at the Whites' with our friends the Weavers. I made 85 rolls and 4 pies to contribute to the feast, but only 3 of the pies were left by the time everyone walked over to our house after dinner for pie.

It was the first Thanksgiving for both Layne and Tate (since Layne was born after Thanksgiving last year), so we took some pictures of them in their cute turkey shirts. That's all the photography we did. I know they aren't my kids, but how could I  resist adding these pictures?

Thankful.

Aww, it brings me back to the same green chair, almost 3 years ago…

Thankful.

Thankful.

“This feels like a family... The cold on the outside and the warm inside. The usual food on the table, the same jests repeated, and conversation as familiar as looking down at her own hands.” –from The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale, p. 233.

 

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PS yes, I cheated and set the day of this post back to November 30th, even though I wrote it on December 1st, because Thanksgiving NEEDS to be in the November folder, not December. It’s all about the organization.

Baby-week

That’s what it’s been around here. There’s no faster way to go from deep slumber to adrenaline-pumped wide-awake than a water-breaking phone call. Believe me. I got two such phone calls this week. As I’ve mentioned, there was one last Sunday at 5am for my friend Britni’s labor. Then 4 short days later, once again my phone sent me leaping out of bed practically to the ceiling at 6am (the image in my head is of a wide-eyed cartoon cat with its hair sticking straight up, hanging by its claws from the ceiling). This time it was Steph. Yay! One week early! Bring on the nephew!

Tate Treadwell Gibbons was born around 5:20pm on Thursday, November 21, 2013. That’s exactly one week before Thanksgiving and one week before his big sister Layne turns one year old. Awesome Irish twins! I love them both. The little Tater tot is so tiny and cute: 6 lbs 8 oz with a thatch of fuzzy black hair and blond eyebrows. I don’t have any pictures of his fluff after his bath, so just imagine it all fuzzed out.

I was watching Layne all day while her parents were at the hospital, and Steph called about an hour before Tate was born and told us to come on over any time. I got Layne an early dinner and cooked up some chicken puffs for my family before heading over to the hospital. By the time we got there around 5:30, Tate was already born!

Layne is a big sister now. Let’s pummel him!

  
One of my very most favorite families. I’m so glad that they are a part of my family.

This isn’t auntie-heaven. It’s auntie-nirvana. I realized this when Layne was born, but I’ll say it again: holding a newborn baby is such a different kind of joy when I’m not the one in various forms of post-birth agony. Of course I want more babies of my own, but I can’t deny the fact that aunt-hood is awesome.

Normal…

Today was an incredibly normal day. Or at least it was what I remember normal feeling like. We had no extra kids over to babysit. I didn’t have an enormous to do list. The house was not ready for a scrub-bathroom/vacuum-a-thon quite yet. There wasn’t even any laundry to wash, and it was my day off from running. It was Jay, Rose, their Mom, and a Day.

I was surprised with how slow things felt for a while this morning. Normally I’m such a home-body (slash hermit) and I always find so many things to occupy our time that the day flows by without my notice. But today’s lull in our most recent version of everyday life (babysitting, housework, etc.) made me feel sort of limp. It felt like I had been pulling hard on a rope for days when the other end came loose unexpectedly and I suddenly had a big floppy, slack pile of rope in front of me. I didn’t quite know what to do with it.

This feeling was probably intensified by the…intense weekend we had. Saturday morning I had my most therapeutic, glorious run all month. It was sunny and in mid-50s. I picked my safest almost d0g-free route. I managed to kick the only pip squeaker that chased me, without even breaking my stride—a classic heel-extended jaw-clip. I wish it was always that easy to get rid of evil dogs while running. That run gave me a much-needed boost of vitamin D and endorphins. I even extended it because it felt so good. When I got back, we did almost 2 hours of family yard work, clearing out the old garden and taking down the wobbly section of fence. Saturday afternoon, I drove into “town” to run some errands. It was a go-go-go kind of day.

My friend went into labor on Sunday so I went to her house at 5am to stay with her two boys while she and her husband went to the hospital. When the boys woke up, I brought them to our house and they played with Jay and Rose until our 1pm church. Jeff left early for choir practice, and I somehow managed to bathe Jay and Rose and then wrangle 4 kids (ages 5, 4, 3, and 2) into Sunday clothes, load them into the van, and arrive at church a solid 3 minutes early. I was so pleased to see them all dressed up and ready to go that I took a cute picture of them sitting in a row together. But alas, my camera deleted it. I almost wish Layne had been here so I could have said 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off!

It was a fun challenge, and I actually really enjoyed having 4 exuberant kids running circles around me through the church parking lot on our way in from the van (in a slightly stressed, don’t-run-in-front-of-that-car way). Sacrament meeting was like an obstacle course. I was the obstacle and the kids were trying to get on me, over me, under me, etc. There were at least 3 kids touching me at all times for the whole hour-plus. A few times, Layne came toddling over and requested a piece of my lap too. I sat there and just hugged all those sweet kids and tried my best to keep them from wrestling or throwing finger puppets across the pews (don’t ask me what the speakers said).

The baby was born and my friend’s husband came and picked up the boys after sacrament meeting. Then Jeff and I went and subbed for the Sunbeam class in Primary. I was pretty tired after that long day, but it was fun too! Just yesterday, I got to go over and hold that tiny new 2-day old baby boy. For a whole hour. It was divine. So maybe all the excitement over the past few days has left me feeling kind of flat. Maybe I’m in kid-withdrawal. I only have time with just Jay and Rose all day once or twice each week these days. I definitely cherish days where it’s “just us” at home (for one thing, it feels so easy!). It just caught me off guard today. We did projects (plural)! We went to the library! [the friendly librarian who loves Jay and Rose noticed that we didn’t have an extra baby in tow, ha ha] We read a stack of stories! We had grilled cheese for lunch! And it was all smooth sailing!

This morning, the kids obligingly played in the basement while I read my scriptures. They stayed down there without coming to visit me for longer than usual, so I, in turn, read my scriptures longer and more peacefully than usual. I’ve been studying the creation this week, and I’m really basking in the single verse: “And I, God, said let there be light, and there was light.” Obviously I haven’t gotten very far in the story. But LIGHT! It’s beautiful. It is the result of TRUTH. It forsakes the evil one. It defines the Savior. Eventually Jay and Rose came up and we did a turkey-handprint project per Jay’s request (it had been a while since our last project, so we had to make it a good one). I mailed visiting teaching notes to my non-phone-answerers. At 9:30am, I looked at my watch and thought “Wow, it’s not even 10am yet? What now?”

So I voluntarily tackled the mountain of clean laundry on my bed. Before lunch. Less than 24 hours after it was washed. Without Netflix. Without calling and moaning about it to someone. And guess what? Without all those distractions, I folded a giant heap of crumpled clothes in record time. Normally I can barely finish the task in one Netflix episode (45-55 minutes) or two hefty phone conversations (20-30 minutes each). Today I coasted in at a shockingly speedy 24 minutes. I detest laundry-folding so much that I always put it off or find some elaborate distraction to help ease the mindless agony of folding it. But until today I didn’t realize that those distractions actually prolong the agony. I wonder if I’ll have the fortitude to fold it alone again next week. Laundry brings out the hidden procrastinator in me. Laundry and toilets.

These rosy little bedheads loved pasting scraps of paper “turkey feathers” onto the outlines of their hands. I was so pleased to have thought of an age-appropriate project for once. It seems like I usually have to help with their projects way too much. Maybe they’re just getting older. Sniff.

Jay and Rose have such issues looking at the camera. They always look at each other instead. I tell them to say “cheese” or some other phrase designed to put a smile on their faces for the picture, and right when they start to say it, they look at each other and grin. I guess it’s pretty cute, but I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever get a picture of them full-on smiling at my camera.

I had them each think of one thing they are thankful for so I could write it above their turkeys. Jay said he was thankful for turkey. Such a boy answer. Rose tried to copy him, but I encouraged her to think of her own answer. The next thing that popped out of her mouth was “I’m fankful fo duh gospel!” I asked her if she knew what the gospel is, and she said “no.” Jay piped in and said that it’s something about Jesus. Reigning in a belly laugh, I told them that the gospel is what we learn from Jesus—what Jesus wants us to know and do. Then I asked Rose again, “What are you thankful for?” ---again, the gospel. So I wrote it on her paper. Then we hung them all up.

   

Today was normal and not normal all at once. I’m glad that life is interesting enough to have more than one version of normal.

Dig a little deeper

It’s the time of year that requires an extra umph of motivation to get out the door and exercise. The mild, golden fall days are behind us and now we’re in for some months of bony-treed, gray-brown cold. It is all too easy to let that bleak chilly scene outside my window make decisions for me, like whether or not to exercise or do the dishes or fold the laundry… or move from the comfort of my soft warm chair. When a thick white fog settled on our valley yesterday and hung around for 36 hours, I knew that it was time to stop hiding and take control. The weather won’t be motivating me for the next few months—it’s time to dig deep and do it anyways. This morning, I shook out my Underarmor, loaded the stroller, braced myself, and faced the fog.

I told Jay and Rose that we were going on an adventure in the fog. They liked that idea. And it did feel like an adventure to go through the fuzzy whiteness. The edges of everything in sight looked smudged and out of focus. A foggy wonderland.

It was not even below freezing when we went out, but I bundled the kids up extra anyways—snowsuits and all—because that seeping fog made it feel colder. It requires such determination to run in the cold! First of all, it takes just about as long to get ready to go as it does to do the running part, what with all the bundling, potty-ing, layering, zipping, and loading necessary. Plus, I’m always stiff and cold for the first 5-10 minutes of the run, depending on how accurately I dressed for the temperature. Once the initial set-up and warm-up was complete today, I was left with the mere matter of pushing 100+ pounds safely through the gloom. We stuck to sidewalks and the bike path today, but we still had to bump through a few nerve-wracking street crossings in there. Thank goodness for my neon shirt.

I have to wear extra clothes when I run in the cold with the double stroller because I go a solid 2 minutes slower per mile when pushing that heavy thing, and I don’t get as warm. Today Jay asked me—“Mommy, are you walking or running?” a few times while I huffed along behind him. Hmph. Luckily the most I’ve had to run with the stroller lately is twice in a week. I can usually figure out a time to run alone for my other two runs of the week, whether it’s on the dreadmill—I mean treadmill—or later, after Jeff comes home.

The Mercado was invisible!

No matter when I run during the cold time, it is HARD to get both my motivation and my body temperature up to the task. Sometimes it feels impossible. Yesterday my friend asked me for advice on how to run with kids in the winter. All I could say was it’s hard. Ron Weasley would call it “deliberation, divination, and desperation.” Some days it does feel desperate, trying to divine when the weather will be most conducive for me to exercise deliberately. I  just have to make up my mind firmly to DO it. To quote Anne Shirley, “It’s been my experience that you can  nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you have to make it up firmly.” [yes, I am convinced that there’s an Anne quote for most everything]

That’s the only secret weapon I have for running in the cold: a FIRM mind. And a fleece hat.

Spoilers

Whenever I hear the word “spoilers,” I think of the BBC classic, Dr. Who. The Doctor’s perfect match is named River Song, but they are ill-fated lovers because they are traveling in opposite time streams—she’s moving one direction through time and he’s moving in the other. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and all. Whenever their timelines cross, he often badgers her for details about his future, which she has already lived. She stoically refuses to reveal what’s coming, saying “spoilers!” with her eyes twinkling in a delightfully mysterious way. Add a British accent to “spoilers,” and you’ll start to understand what I mean.

It’s time for some White family photo spoilers!

Here is a summary of my thought process around this time every year, regarding Christmas cards:

If we don't get a family picture taken in the next 2 weeks, we won't mail any Christmas cards again. But then again...we never have mailed Christmas cards so what does it matter? But Costco has those card printing deals...but stamps are at an all-time high...but I love it when people send us Christmas cards...but that's what my blog is for...

I go around and around and around that circle every year until it’s too late to do anything about it and then I feel slightly guilty but also rather relieved that the choice was delayed long enough to take it off my hands.

We love White sandwiches. Since I still value family photos even as the Christmas card debate rages within me, we attempted some self-inflicted family photos on Friday. We strapped Layne into the booster seat, set her behind the camera tripod, and told Jay and Rose to look at her and smile. It kind of worked, surprisingly. So we had an almost-one-year-old do our family pictures this year. I emailed them to my sister Em and she worked a little PhotoShop magic on her favorite one:

This one looks good and all, but it’s not really US, you know? It feels a little stiff. So we took a few spunkier photos too.

Then I actually got onto Costco.com and ordered some real-life family Christmas greeting cards. GASP. Yes, I actually did it. I have a lurking feeling that ordering them was the easy part. I still have to figure out how to address over 50 envelopes. Anyone remember how to mail merge? Me neither.

And stamps! They are outrageous right now. But we like our friends enough to invest at least 45 cents in each of them, ha ha, aren’t you glad. Our family is almost 7 years old and this is the first year for our Christmas cards. Hopefully it’s not also our last year!

Sorry about the spoilers, but at least you don’t know what picture(s) will be on the card. A small bit of the mystery remains intact.
[oh, and if you think I may not have your address and you want a card…email me]

Books

They way people feel about books is a window into their true self: whether or not they like to read, whether they prefer paper or electronic books, whether they want to own books or borrow them, whether they read more short books or long ones. And then there are the genres, authors, and styles of choice. If you want to get to know someone, ask them about books! A person’s opinions about books speaks volumes about his/her personality (pun intended).

Here I am:
-LOVE to read, but not just anything—I want quality!
-Paper books=ideal, but electronic books=too convenient to resist
-I prefer to borrow a book the first time I read it and then put it on my “to buy someday” list if I love it.
-Length does not matter—if it’s an amazing book, however, I prefer it to be extra-long so I have time to bask in its amazingness.
-Genre/style: well-written, preferably with some sort of love story. Not so much sci-fi or religious historical fiction.
-Authors: not enough space

You can decide what exactly these responses say about my “true self.”

Every now and then I feel the need to define my book-love (click for a previous booky posty). It’s fun to explore my motives and reasons for reading in general and for reading certain books in particular. Hopefully when I discuss my own feelings for books I reveal positive personality traits!

So here I go, embarking on yet another valiant attempt to catch a few floating feelings, attach words to them, and organize the words into a description of those thoughts and feelings. It’s a delicious challenge.

Words. Sentences. Grammar. Paragraphs. Pages.

When the bones of a book are assembled correctly, the book becomes FAR more than the sum of its parts, more than a group of words heaped onto a page. There’s an electricity behind a carefully chosen word placed delicately in a well-constructed sentence, aligned at a precise point in a paragraph in order to convey a certain thought or feeling. It’s fascinating how the same well-formed paragraph can elicit a different response from each reader, based on the readers’ own situation and experiences. It’s also fascinating to see my own response change when I read the same passage at different times in my life. When I read Little House on the Prairie as a 5th grader, for example, I loved the adventure of Laura’s covered wagon and how happy her family was with so little. When I read it now, I admire her parents and their courage to travel into the unknown with their small children to make a home out of nothing. Two vastly different feelings from the same classic story!

That same element is what makes the scriptures so powerful. They weren’t merely written to please a wide audience, they were written under direct inspiration from God. Those inspired words read over and over throughout LIFE make them the most powerful books out there. I had to acknowledge the theological side of the power of good books, but I am focusing on other, non-scripture good books here.

Stories. Worlds. Thoughts. Ideas. Emotions. Dreams.

I love reading. The escape, the expectation, the tingly satisfaction of an eloquent paragraph. Reading is unlike any other pastime. I am free to create my own personalized mental illustrations and then let the author fill it in with people and words. One of my favorite authors, Wendelin Van Draanen wrote that she gives just enough details to describe a character, but not so many that they limit the reader’s imagination. She recognizes the value of  imagination in reading. Maybe that’s what makes a good book: saying just enough, but not too much, creating a balance between description and imagination. At least that’s what a good book is to ME.

There are those less-cleverly-written books that I still, inexplicably, enjoy. The only answer I can find to this anomaly is VARIETY. Variety is permissible. Not everyone can write as well as Jane, Wendelin, J.K., and Georgette. That’s fine. Sometimes the story is better than the writer, but I’m ok with that.

I have been reading reading reading up a storm lately. My Mom is even more of a reader than I am, so she always has a dozen quality recommendations. We have our own phone-book club. Whenever I read either a book she suggested or a new goody, I MUST call her and we talk books. I have also discovered more new reading material in our Relief Society book club. These two plus various reader-Facebook friends and the monthly Goodreads newsletter (which announces new books for the month), I have been flooded with POSSIBILITIES lately. Yum.

In the past three weeks, I read…8 books. Chowed them down. How on earth? Well, I do my exercise and household-homemaker work in the morning during my most energetic productive time, and then once Rose is napping, I sit back and indulge in an hour or two of reading before it’s time to be responsible again. Or until Jay rouses me from my cozy snuggle-dom to discuss the ins and outs of the Galactic Empire over blocks in the basement. And there’s always an hour or two of time to read before bed each night if I want it, even after plenty of quality time with my beloved Husband. Obviously I don’t do things this exact way every day, but I have been reading a whole lot more in my free time over the past few weeks rather than watching a show or getting on the computer or other such pastimes.

Monday was my birthday. (I’m 27!) I picked out a new Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday present and ordered it for myself (Jeff and I are so romantic like that). It came an entire week earlier than I thought it would, so it sat on our dresser in its sweet black box, tempting me for seven whole days before I finally got to open it. I have had a Kindle Keyboard for 2 years and Amazon finally updated the device to my satisfaction, so it was time.

    

My idealistic side prefers paper books, but my practical side adores reading on the Kindle. The book never falls shut. Rose can’t steal my bookmark. I can carry a hundred books around with me in one hand. I can read in the dark without a flashlight. I can look up words instantly with the tap of a finger. The classics are free. I can order a book and start reading it in 10 seconds flat. And, even better, our library has a relatively healthy collection of ebooks for borrowing. So many choices!

If I had to pick a favorite kind of book, I’d probably choose a love story, because most of my favorite books portray some aspect of love, whether it’s a romance between a knight in shining armor and a lovely maiden on a breathtaking adventure, or the gentle caring type of love between a parent and child on the everyday adventure of life.

That’s what life is all about anyways, right? Love. Finding it. Keeping it. Appreciating it. A good love story reminds me of how glad I am to have a True Love of my own, with other little tender loves and joys to round it all out. Good books = love.

Halloween

It’s November first! I wish I had had the energy to write about Halloween last night while it was still October. Poor beginning of November is always overshadowed by the end of October. All the Halloween merchandise and candy is on sale. People still have their spooky ghosts hanging up and shriveled pumpkins on the front doorstep. Poor November. Maybe I feel this way because my birthday is in early November, and I’ve almost inevitably received some form of secondhand candy as a gift. Not that I’m ever unhappy about a birthday present (especially if it’s Reese’s), I’m just illustrating how early November gets lost in October’s shadow.

Even my good friend Anne Shirley doesn’t seem to like November. She said, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it?” (from Anne of Green Gables) She said that when she was still quite young, though, and I can forgive her because later in life, she found and appreciated the beauty of November: “It was November—the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park, and as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.” (from Anne of the Island) It’s comforting to me that Anne grew in to liking November. I’ve always liked it. November is special. And here I go tainting its purity with memories of waxy chocolate and bad sewing. But then again, Halloween so often spills over into November that it feels normal and acceptable, even if I’d rather keep November free of the creeps.

What we did on Halloween this year:

1. We made our favorite green witch finger cookies the day before Halloween. I didn’t feel like making the red blood frosting to go under the almond fingernails this time, so they were a little less gruesome this year. Jay and Rose made most of them, and I think they look a bit more like troll toes than witch fingers.

2. We went for a walk in the Grandview graveyard. Not to be spooky or anything, just to explore a new kind of place. A few weeks ago when we were driving past the graveyard, Jay asked me what it was. So I explained all about what a graveyard is for. He wanted to check it out, but we didn’t have time right then, so we made plans to visit and take a walk through it soon. Life finally aligned 3 or 4 weeks later and we went at last, on Halloween of all days. The kids enjoyed exploring the tombstones and playing with sticks. We read names and talked about how long ago they lived and died. I taught them not to climb on the graves. It was a peaceful fall outing.

I didn’t know the graveyard had such big beautiful trees lining one of the paths. We walked up and down this road, enjoying their majesty. They healed my annual ache for thick tall trees somewhat.

 

Jay and Rose played in a landscaped alcove for a while, and it made me wish hard that we had some real woods nearby for them to explore. I grew up exploring nature like this. They loved tunneling through the trees and peeking around bushes.

Layne had her first ride in the famed White family baby basket. She’s heavy! And those straps are not padded. She kept jumping up and down. It didn’t take long for my shoulders to get sore.

We love this van! We ate some green witch fingers and then drove the 3 miles back home.

In spite of the short drive, Layne fell asleep on the way home and I actually managed to transfer her soft, relaxed, sleeping self into the crib without waking her up! It was so sweet to hold this normally stiff, squirmy baby when she was all limp and snoozy. Auntie heaven moment.

#3 should have been watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! like we do every year, but things got too crazy for us to fit that in this time, sadly. So on to the trick or treating! It was Jeff’s turn this year for trick or treating with Jay and Rose. We had a quick dinner of pumpkin cream pasta and green beans and then everyone costumed up and went out into the neighborhood.

Off they went, while I stayed behind to man the door.

At  least I had some company. Shudder. He was sitting up high in the entryway out of my reach. So we lived and let live all night. Groan.

This was my first year in charge of the door on Halloween. I usually have Jeff do it because he’s a teacher and he’s really good at dealing with masses of random children/teenagers. Last year was the first real trick-or-treating for Jay and Rose and also our first Halloween in a real house, so now we switch off years to ease both burdens. I can’t decide which task I like less—ahem, I mean more: weaving through hoards of slow-moving vehicles on the crowded pitch-black streets of our neighborhood and knocking on strangers’ doors, all while keeping track of two small children… OR being invaded by hundreds of unknown kids at my own home, opening our front door a million times to various costumes ranging from an utterly terrifying blood-dripping grim reaper mask to darling chubby twin monkeys. You never know what you’re going to get when the doorbell rings.

Grandview is a small town, 2 miles wide. There’s really only one neighborhood that people come to for trick or treating. We live in it. We have lived in the other two sections of town, on two other Halloweens, so it’s no exaggeration when I say that most people across Grandview literally lock up their houses and drive to the other side of the high school for trick or treating—to our neighborhood. It’s intense! I refuse to spend large sums of money on candy, and last year we ran out in less than an hour. Luckily, Costco had some great deals on large 150-piece bags of candy, so I got two of those for less than $30. We gave one piece of candy to each person, sometimes two if they were small or stuck together. We used up all of the candy except for the few Reese’s and such that I saved out for us. That means that nearly 300 people came to our door in less than 2 hours! It was intense and exhausting.

Answering the door a couple hundred times in 2 hours is a WORKOUT when you live in a split-level house. It’s either up stairs or down stairs to the front door. WHEW! After the first couple dozen kids, I started looking for a break long enough to grab a chair to set on the small landing next to the front door. Every time I got to the top of the stairs and headed toward the chair, our doorbell rang again and I had to go back down and pass out more candy. FINALLY, after another 10 minutes or so, I put on an extra spurt of speed and snagged the chair at lightning speed. It felt like I was standing next to a turning jump rope, trying to time my entry just right. I kept getting caught in the rope and having to start over.

At last I was settled into the comfy bouncy Ikea chair by the front door, with a Reese’s or two and my Kindle, all set for some reading. HA! HAH! I barely had time to open the Kindle, much less a Reese’s, before I was answering another FLOOD of trick-or-treaters. Every time a group left, I leaned way out the front door and looked left and right, checking to see if another group was converging on our house. When the coast looked clear and nobody was in sight, I sat back down in my chair with a sigh, picked up my Kindle, and…DING DONG! The doorbell rang. Well, our doorbell is over 30 years old, so it sounds more like DINNNG-UHH. Decrepit doorbells notwithstanding, HOW do those kids move so fast? I stood in the doorway staring up and down the street and waited for signs of motion before closing my door, only to have to pop up the next half second right after I sat down. It was unnerving and a little stressful. It took me nearly 20 minutes to finish my Reese’s, what with all the jumping up and down, and I got zero reading done.

When Jeff hands out candy on Halloween, he reverts to Mr. White high school teacher-mode and completely grills the kids before handing them candy. He asks them all what they’re dressed up as and if they’re not dressed up, he often refuses to give them candy at all! Then when older teenagers come, he asks them how old they are and if they seem to old for his liking, he refuses them candy too! I just gave candy to everyone because really, who cares? Not me. I mean, it bugs me when kids come up with a plastic grocery bag and no costume expecting candy, but whatever. Of course I want them to SAY trick or treat and thank you, but I’m not their parent! Jeff is good at getting responses out of kids (it is his profession, after all), so he likes doing his thing, and it works for him. But it’s all I can do to open the door and get a piece of candy into each orange plastic pumpkin hovering under my nose.

Grandview is more than 80% Hispanic, so there was a lot of Spanglish going on. A cute little boy dressed as Clifford the Big Red Dog said “hola” to me instead of trick-or-treat. Sweet! Lots of the older kids told their younger siblings “dile trick-or-treat!” (dile meaning tell her). Plenty of little cute kids said “gracias!” in the best little-kid accent ever. Ah, diversity. It’s great!

At last the cutest Rapunzel and knight returned with their treasures. They immediately sat down on the steps and dumped the loot out, mixing it all together. I love how they didn’t care whose candy was whose. They made a big pile of it and swirled it around, reveling in the crunchy crackle of wrappers. We let them each choose one piece to eat, and then we weeded out the goods from the bads, added the bads to our give-away candy, and plunked the remaining handful of goodies onto the kitchen counter for later. Jay and Rose enjoyed their treat of choice, and then Rose came down and took OVER the candy-handing. She opened the door, counted how many people were coming, and tried to fit that many pieces of candy into her hands. It was so cute! Everyone liked having a 2-year-old Rapunzel hand out candy. She was very good about putting one piece of candy in each open bag. I let her handle it. She handed out candy for the last half hour or so. A few times, Jay came down and wanted in on the action, and they would compete over who got which bags. Sometimes the trick-or-treaters benefitted from this and got a piece of candy from Jay and one from Rose. I watched and chuckled from behind.

Once, when one of the scariest masks came up to the door, Rose was all ready with her fistfuls of candies. She stepped towards the masked guy, looked up at his awful face, and immediately backed into me, shrinking away from the freaky guy and refused to give him candy. It was awesome. I took over and gave him a piece anyways, even though I agreed with Rose about his level of creepiness. After that, Rose was a lot more cautious about answering the door, so I opened it and told her what the costume was. Then she decided if she wanted to give them candy or let me do it. She said “I don’t wike people wif bad masks. Dey are stary.”

At last, at 7:45pm, we ran out of candy. A huge group of kids was approaching and Rose and I each had two pieces of candy to give. I called out to them “we only have 4 pieces of candy left!” and they raced for it. The rest of the kids said “awwww!” in this whiny voice that made me want to slam the door in their faces. One kid even had the audacity to suggest that I go and buy more candy! Seriously, kid? Just because we live in the trick-or-treating hotspot, it doesn’t mean we have unlimited funds to spend on sugar for ungrateful children! And even if we did have unlimited funds, I still wouldn’t use it on Halloween of all things. ARG!

I dashed upstairs to scrawl an “out of candy” note, but I still had to tell another large group that we were OUT before I got the sign taped to the door. WHEW! Jeff and I put the kids to bed an hour later than usual and collapsed onto the couch together. I don’t remember Halloween being this hard when I was little.

Now, WELCOME TO NOVEMBER! A calm month focused on gratitude and pie (and a few birthdays!) sounds about right.