Trick or Treat!

From last year, Calder was able to remember that he was supposed to knock on people's doors and then they would give him candy. What he was not able to remember: saying "trick or treat" and that he's not just supposed to walk into other people's houses.

Hackoween!

Here's a Halloween preview. Last weekend we once again attended the best Halloween party ev-ar, Hackoween. As usual, Calder kept his whole costume on long enough to take a few pictures but that was it. For most of the night was was "that blond kid in grey pajamas playing by himself." Of course Bruce and I dressed up, it's required. He even went whole hog and bleached his hair while I made a dress in four hours just to have something to go in.

Bruce is Corbin Dallas from The Fifth Element. Of course you couldn't tell. No one could.

Laura Ingalls Wilder. It's a good thing I had no idea how enormous I looked in this.

Watch out, ivory hunters!

Calder really would have preferred this to be his actual costume.

For tonight, I have told Calder that he has to keep the head of his costume on or else no one will give him any candy. Not like he doesn't have enough here already thanks to his day care's party on Friday. I guess Calder was really on trend with his more recent requests to be Iron Man. When we walked in to pick him up, we were greeted by one giant lady bug (teacher), four princesses, five superheros, one dragon and that blond kid in grey pajamas.

Fall-ing

A few weeks ago, we finally made due on our promise to get Calder to an actual pumpkin patch one of these years as opposed to hitting up a roadside stand on a 4 lane highway or just going all out and getting them from the grocery store.

Hello, sheep. Please don't give me hoof and mouth.

Bruce and I found this cool place in Wisconsin, the name of which totally escapes me right now. They have pumpkins and a petting zoo, hayrides and all that crap. They also have weird-ass displays of, like, Disney characters all made with pumpkin heads and whatnot.I will admit some were kind of cool but the SpongeBob pumpkin was terrifying. Of course my camera batteries were nearly dead so I managed to take pictures of none of this.

Did Calder embarrassingly fall off of the cart and make us look like awful parents? Why yes, yes he did.

Eventually we left with several pumpkins, a couple of hot ciders and a purse-full of cookies (like I would share) and headed off to my favorite place in the entire central time zone, Tim & Tom's Cheese Shop/Rustic Dairyland Antique Mall. I think this is why we picked forgotten-named pumpkin farm in the first place rather than go somewhere closer. That and Bruce wanted to snag some Spotted Cow. 

Stick my hand in there?

Of course it only took three weeks or so for us to get around to actually carving the stupid pumpkins. Calder and I set up shop on the living room floor last weekend and went to town on the pumpkin guts. Or rather, I gave myself a pumpkin-induced case of carpal tunnel and Calder watched.

Don't be fooled. I am just poking random holes that will ultimately ruin the stability of the design.

Since pumpkin carving generally requires a great deal of knife work, I most did all the decorative carving too. Bruce may be cool with letting Calder chop onion and peppers for fajitas but I wasn't really in the mood to tempt the hands of fate seeing as how Bruce had the car with him and I wasn't really in the mood for carrying Calder all the way to the ER when he inevitable cut own his hand.

This is where you are supposed to feel bad for me.

As it turns out, I wasn't much in the mood for carving pumpkins either. Due to a lack of structural integrity and toddler interference, my attempt at "black cat" ended up more closely resembling "giant gaping hole". Bruce came home just then, right in time to see me slam down the carving knife, throw some choice words in the pumpkin's direction and retreat to my bed to sob and clutch the fattest of my cats. Bruce started in on the second pumpkin and came to fetch me once its contents had been emptied, thinking I would have recovered enough to try my hand at ruing another one. Seeing as how my hormones were already totally out of control (see: freaking out over pumpkin carving) I told him thanks for cutting a circle for me and to kindly get bent and then returned to weepin into Molson's fur.

The skewer just adds a little something extra, I think.

No, really. It's a bat.

I tell you, reader, those pumpkins sat mutilated and dessicated for another two days before I could bring myself to cut out that goddamn bat. I still have not brought myself around to toasting the seeds, seeing as how I have scorched them in years past and who know what kind of toxic meltdown that would trigger.

The Magic Envy-dom

Is it wrong, at thirty years of age, to be insanely jealous that my parents went to Disney World (for what I believe to be the first time) without me?

Braaaaaains.

Calder decided to top off his evening by getting into the holiday spirit and doing his own zombie makeup.

Bleeergh!

The grossest thing of the week award goes to Calder who just now vomited up his entire dinner directly on top of the dog. And on me. And most of the bathroom. What can I say, this kid has great coverage.

I would be way more squicked out about all the yak save for the fact that it is hi-larious watching Cheefers try to figure out how to lick the middle of his own back.

Size Limits

Last night while looking after the kids from downstairs for a few hours I discovered my tolerance limit for screaming children lies somewhere between zero and three children with two perhaps being the ceiling. Even though one of those three screaming hellions was my own, I was ready to put them all outside, 8 p.m. be damned. Now, the downstairs kids are pretty great, they like playing with Calder even though they are years older and are pretty well behaved, so I don't generally mind them hanging around. I don't know if it was the promise of having cake later combined with the feeling of "hey! someone else's toys!" but the three of them managed to go cowsuit crazy ALL OVER MY APARTMENT. Even the magic of the How to Train Your Dragon blu-ray was not enough to keep them all still, Calder included and he's usually mesmerized by that movie. (I may never have to watch Ice Age 3 again, huzzah!) I had thought we had done a pretty decent job of corralling the chaos to the play area and Calder's room until I got a series of emails from Bruce today, detailing what exactly had been found where and in what condition. 

So, after last night it's pretty safe to say that after little Rusty pops out, we are done. DONE. Two is enough. I grew up in a family of four children who were all obscenely close in age. All within five-ish years, I believe. I would tell you exactly but I cannot for the life of me recall what year my brother was born at the moment. I'd blame the pregnancy dementia again but this isn't something I usually remember on a good day. Anyhow, large family. NO IDEA how my parents coped. I have a feeling that their tendency to watch the same thing on different TVs may be related to our somewhat cramped lifestyle growing up. Six people, four bedrooms, one bathroom. Then I think about my dad's childhood in that house with seven siblings with almost half of the house not having been built yet and pass out from the inability to process such a concept.  Right now we are again searching for houses to rent in the 'burbs since we absolutely cannot have another kid without getting more space first. We've already filled 2000 sq. feet with Calder's crap, I fear what kind of space requirements the second one will have.

10 Weeks

One quarter of the way there! And more importantly, 30 more weeks of not having to change the cat litter. Muwhahahahah! That may be my most favoritest thing about being knocked up. I have to do every other disgusting thing around here, it's about time I got exempted from something.

The actual pregnancy experience just seems to be crawling along although I suppose my little mistake wit the plane arrival time could have been due to some early onset preggo brain rather than sleep deprivation. I mean, I did have to check babycenter.com to figure out the title for this post. Kumquat, by the way. I also have no idea when my desk doctor's appointment is supposed to be. It IS scheduled, I just hope they still call to remind me about it so I know when to show up.

What I am really gunning for is the chance to bust out my maternity clothes. Who doesn't love being permitted to wear stretchy pants all of the time? I feel like 10 weeks might just be jumping the gun slightly but my pants are already a bit tight and I definitely do have a belleh. The thing is, I have gone on two relative food-centric trips since I found out about all this new baby. Perhaps I am justified in wanted my elastic waistbands this early or perhaps it's just my replacing alcohol with sugar and carbs. As we were getting dressed for the big night out in NYC, another party goer commented on my fitted, satiny dress and said, "You always show earlier with the second one." Well, yes. This is probably true but I had to point out that no, this was just the way my gut normally looks in control tops under a thin fabric. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go eat some pancakes. And bacon. And maybe some scrambled eggs if there's still some room.

Progress

After several weeks of procrastination I have finally made significant progress on Calder elephant costume.

Of course it's missing pretty much any and all signifiers that would indicate it's supposed relationship to the pachyderm family but what the hell, we could always just make him go as a mouse.

And then I made Calder put on these jammies because he's been a pain all day while I tried to sew and I am mean. Please ignore the grease-nasty hair on him. He's been coated in baby oil to combat some sever cradle cap issues. Goes away after 12 months, my ass.

Texts from Last Weekend

Guilt inducing:

#1 Bruce to me- "as calder went to sleep last night..he was like i smell mommy...i smell mommys hair"

#2 Bruce to me- "calder says...i sad"

Awesome:

Bruce to me- "calder says i find mommy sewing machine piece"

Hilarious:

Me to Cary- [photo of Julie's cleavage] "im sexting!"

Worrisome:

Bruce to me- "cool..i taught him how to cut peppers onions and decase chorizo0"

Sleep derived:

Me to Bruce- "We get in340"*

In all, my weekend away was a success. I learned that I can still stay awake past 4:00 am for three consecutive nights. I also learned that I probably shouldn't do that anymore unless I enjoy pissing off my loving husband with a sleep deprived brain. Most importantly, I had a ton of fun with my bestest of besty friends, Bruce and Calder were still alive when I got back and the kitchen was exactly as dirty as I had assumed it would be.** Calder made it through the weekend OK without his Mommy and I made it through too since he seemed to express an appropriate amount of distress at my absence.

*Scheduled arrival - 5:38, Actual arrival 6:20. Bruce was at O'Hare before our delayed flight even took off. Oops.
**But only because Bruce was in the throes of preparing a Canadian Thanksgiving feast, for which I, for some reason, still did the bulk of the cooking.

Little Things

Last night I was modeling the dress I had purchased for the NYC trip so Bruce could make fun of me tell me how nice I look when Calder wandered by and gasped, "You look like a lady!"

After I changed out of it he kept asking me what happened to my beautiful dress. I think I am taking the kid shopping with me from now on. Waaaaaay more helpful than Bruce.

Shorts

Calder's current favorite word seems to be "humongous". Everything that is even slightly large than a AAA battery is "humongous!" Bruce and I don't really ever use that word so he must have picked it up at school. What a strange words to latch on to. I mean, there's a billion synonyms for the word big. Wouldn't it be more likely that a kid would hone in a word that is the only word that means that specific thing? Something... like antidisestablishmentarianism, such as.

So far, preggo symptoms have been pretty much the same as last time: constant barfy feeling, no payoff. I nearly threw up while brushing my teeth this morning. So close! Oh, and there are these terrible effing headaches. Constant headaches that I don't really recall from last time. Conventional wisdom is that you brain and body "forget" the pain of childbirth so that you'll be willing to do it all over again. Lesser known is the fact that you also forget about how friggin' awful the first trimester is; what with the giant, sore boobs, utter exhaustion,(apparent) headaches and permanent nausea. It's like those two days before your period that lasts for THREE MOTHS.

This weekend I am heading out to NYC for a BFF's 30th birthday party, sans famille. I have left Calder overnight with Bruce or my parents once or twice before but never for an extended period of time. I am somewhat concerned. Not that I don't think Bruce can do it but I am horribly afraid to see what the apartment will look like when I get back. So instead of wondering how long it will take me to get all the hypothetical jelly off of the kitchen floor, I am instead obsessing over what I am going to wear. You see, said BFF is a single, fabulous 30. Not a married, pregnant 30. BFF wants to thrown down and hit clubs which I am totally cool with as I have been known to tie one on before. However, I don't much like dancing even when drunk and I certainly don't like it when I am sober enough to know how terrible I am. Basically, my plan is go, sit down and look good. Problem is, I have no idea what one even wears to fancy NYC bottle-service clubs. For almost my entire life I have been wandering in a veritable fashion wasteland. As a youth, I would borrow clothes from my parents (yes, both of them) in order to look cooler. In college I tried the quirky thing but mostly ended up looking like a homeless Punky Brewster and now I just don't really give a damn so I spend most of my time dressed like an elementary school teacher. And not one of those artsy-fartsy Monetssori school teachers, more like a underfunded public school teacher. So all of this is to say, OMG, what if he doesn't miss me?!

The elephant is not progressing. In fact, Calder has since declared he wants to be either a jaguar or Iron Man for Halloween. He would also be OK with either me or Bruce going as Iron Man. Of course this didn't come out until after I had spent an obscene amount of money at JoAnn so he's going to be an elephant whether he wants to or not. It's a good thing I will have a second child to foist my Halloween ambitions on if Calder keeps rejecting my attempts. I mean, he may end up being Iron Man after all seeing as how last night he lost a key piece of my sewing machine moments after I had finally figured out how to thread and operate it. Calder really may be an evil genius.

Speaking of evil genius, Calder has located our hiding pace for all his birthday and Christmas presents. Granted it's only our closet and Bruce thinks the child is dumb enough or patient enough to ignore toys and books that have only been half-assedly covered with shirts. I keep trying to get Bruce to actually put some effort into the obfuscation of presents as we have already had to sacrifice one truck and a pile of books to the god of tanrums but he is stubborn. Or a moron, I dunno. So we have a pattern: On Tuesdays and Thursdays he buys crap at the thrift store and sticks them in the closet. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I come home from work, check the closet and relocate anything he has newly stashed in there. I mean, I am clearly waaay better than he is at this. There is still untouched Easter candy in there that even Bruce is not aware of, amazingly.

Things (vegetables) I have gotten Calder to eat in the last two months: Spinach, kale, Lima beans, one pea, pork rillettes and bacon pecan ice cream. OK, so that last one wasn't so hard to get him to eat but I just wanted to let people know that I had bacon pecan ice cream since it appears I am never going to finish posting about Louisville.

Did you know that some salad dressings, like bleu cheese and ranch, may have eggs in them? Yeah, I sure didn't. It's a good thing Calder isn't super allergic to eggs otherwise I'd have to start reading labels. To be fair, I have made both of these dressings from scratch and I don't recall either recipe calling for eggs and my usual cooking from scratch M.O. is locating multiple recipes for the same thing and picking and choosing what I like. So, keep your damn eggs outta my salad, Marie. You're lucky I remember to stock up on the big bottle of children's Wal-dryl.

Day care seems to be going better. The drop-off and pick-up freak outs have mostly ceased although Calder is still a little clingy in the mornings. Miraculously, last week, Calder had four consecutive days with no time outs. We were shocked. I almost got the kid a pony. Of course he blew it all up again this Monday so that pony will have to stay in my closet for just a bit longer.