As tired and overwhelmed as I am, there’s one thing I am throwing all my energy into. Making magic for the kids. I have a bunch of unread emails I keep meaning to reply to, and projects half done or not started, but I already have two Christmas events booked and ready for us, and I think Halloween went pretty well too!
There’s a thing we have to do as parents, where we decide what events to go to and what events to skip. We had a lot of extra events we decided to pass on this year because they were too late at night or going to be too crowded or long, and we decided it was going to be overwhelming for the kids. They got plenty of magic, though. Pumpkin patches, corn mazes, trunk or treats, and plenty of candy. We wore our matching PJs and did crafts, but of course the main event was Halloween night!
Every child had a parade at their school, so there was a lot of running around to watch kids march in costumes, and then after school we went to have a playdate with our best friends. The kids played, we ate pizza (well F devoured pizza while the other kids were too excited and continued to run around). We got everyone into their costumes (which involved another change from G who has been in an impressive 4 costumes this month) and somehow managed a group photo that isn’t horrible. It’s always the hardest part, because they get too excited the closer it gets to Trick or Treating time, but we don’t want to get their costumes on too early.
I was a little worried how everyone would do with the late night. When G was just under a year we sent him home with Tom so he could go to bed and skip Trick or Treating. Other years we've only gone to a few houses and then went home early. But this year we just decided to go for it. We did pull the stroller out, which I was 50/50 on whether or not we’d use. I thought F might want to walk or be carried and we’d have to fight her, but when she saw the stroller she couldn’t jump in fast enough. I think she was getting tired and overwhelmed, but she loved watching from her stroller all night (as long as Tom kept feeding her animal crackers!)
The other two did pretty well and kept talking about how it was the latest they’ve ever been awake! At one point I asked E how he was doing, and he just managed “yeahhh…” as a response. That was about when we decided to call it. We already had everyone in PJs, so we stripped costumes off and loaded them in the car home. F melted down about 10 minutes from home and just sad screamed until she was able to collapse in her crib.
In the end we managed to get them all in bed by 7:45, which was definitely super late for them, but they survived. It was well worth it for the candy, memories, and beaver and hedgehog the kids got to see!
Oh and in other big news, G is officially forward facing in his car seat! He was 2 lbs from the limit and his head was almost to the top of his seat, and I didn’t feel like checking daily to see if he was still under the requirements, so we decided to flip him now. He’ll be 4 in two months, so I think we met our goal with him! He was SO excited. The entire drive he kept calling out all the things he could see: “A bridge, mama! Why is there a yellow boarder on the road? Look at those people!” My favorite was when he asked why it felt like we were going backwards - I guess that’s what happens when you spend your entire life riding rear facing!
