The Unspookiest Night Ever

I always wondered when Mark would lose interest in Halloween...the answer, apparently, was this year.

He feigned interest last month long enough to con me into buying a "costume"--a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sweatshirt. I realized there was only a 50% chance he'd actually wear it on Halloween (he's fickle), but I bought it anyway.

And true to form, on Halloween, he refused to wear the sweatshirt.

"Free dress day at school!" he sang happily to me instead. (That kid really hates school uniforms.)

"It's not free dress day," I reminded him. "It's COSTUME day. You are free to wear a costume."

"That's what I said," he repeated, slowly enough for my stupid parent brain to comprehend. "Free. Dress. Day."

We stared each other down for five seconds, until I broke.

"Not free dress. Costumes," I repeated. "Or uniforms."

He stomped off to his room, returning with a smirk, a Jamaican running jersey, basketball shorts, and his sweatshirt. He also sported a baseball cap and basketball shoes--basically, free dress.

"I'll wear the sweatshirt until I get hot," he explained. "Then my costume will be a Jamaican runner."

And that's how Mark talked himself back into his uniform for Halloween. 

"Fine, bye," he called out, walking out the door. He was totally unfazed, not angry or snotty--a dead giveaway he was up to no good.

"Let me check something," I said, before he got too far. I motioned to his backpack, and he handed it over with a loud sigh. I pulled out the clothes he'd stuffed in there for later. Mark thinks I'm totally predictable, but the truth is, he's just the same. He snatched his bag back, then stomped off to school.

Mark was much happier by the time I got home from work. He was still bummed to miss a friend's Halloween party (because of grades), but he helped me fill the candy bowls and wait for trick or treaters. And there was a Lakers-Clippers game on TV, so he was thrilled about that.

"That's a lot of candy," Mark observed, popping a candy bar into his mouth.

"I know!" I said. I'd never stayed home on Halloween, so I wasn't sure how many kids would come, but I expected a lot. Usually, we got 10 or 12 before we went trick or treating on our own. 

But not this year. I don't know where the trick or treaters went, but they skipped our house. We got a total of four small groups of kids, all girls, and that was it.

Mark jumped up when the first group knocked, racing toward the door.

"Slow down!" I said. "It's okay, you can give them candy."

"I don't wanna," Mark said, ducking past the front door. "I'm hiding."

And sure enough, that's what he did. He repeated this with the three other groups, jumping behind the couch, or slinking behind a wall. 

"There weren't any monsters at the door," I told him. "Just a bunch of little girls."

"They might know me," Mr. Self Conscious said, climbing out from behind the coffee table.

"They don't know you," I said. "They looked like sixth graders."

"Exactly," he said. "I know a lot of sixth graders."

I left that alone. I've learned you can't fight Mark with logic.

By 7:30, it was clear we'd get very few (if any) more kids. 

"Wanna go see some spooky houses?" I asked Mark. "I saw one scary house with a fog machine on the way home from work!"

"Nah," Mark said. He chomped another candy bar and changed TV channels.

"Wanna walk around the neighborhood and see kids in costumes?" I asked, but Mark just shook his head again. He'd realized that this was his most productive Halloween ever. He had all of his favorite things--TV, sports, and candy he didn't have to beg from the neighbors. And best of all, the candies were all his favorites.

"I kinda miss sorting through my candy and trading for the good stuff," he said. Then he fished out some M&Ms and brightened up. "But hey, this bowl is all good stuff anyway!"

By the end of the night, the living room looked like he'd been on a bender. Candy wrappers littered the floor, where Mark lay, holding his stomach and moaning.

"So...full..." he complained. That was my cue--with a little prodding, he cleaned up his mess and went to bed.

I thought this year might be a milestone for another reason. Mark doesn't have enough will power to ever turn down Halloween candy, but I thought this year, he was old enough to handle it, diabetically speaking.

"Just cover it," I pleaded. "You don't have to hide candy in your room and sneak it. If you eat it, just give yourself insulin." 

"I will," he said, confidentally. "Geez, I know how to handle myself around candy, Mom."

Which I totally agreed with--right up until the next morning. I made my coffee, then noticed his huge cup of hot chocolate with weird things floating in it.

"I added M&Ms," he told me. "It's the best hot chocolate ever!"

That's when I realized that no matter how hard I tried, or how much faith I had in him, he's just a 14-year-old boy. Who sees nothing wrong with starting his day with a giant cup of sugar.

So that's how our uneventful Halloween ended, as all the others before it had--with me taking away a giant bag of candy to keep my son out of a diabetic coma. 

But this year, it was much easier to do--I didn't have to buy the surplus candy from Mark (a kid only gives up his candy for cash). Technically, I'd already purchased the candy so Mark couldn't protest--he'd put no effort into collecting it. 

And, in the end, that sugary collection did make a lot of people happy, even if they weren't cute little trick or treaters. Just ask my co-workers, who gladly accepted the leftovers.

Halloween horrors

I asked Mark a few weeks before Halloween what he wanted to be this year. He thought about it, then answered, "The Kool-Aid Man." 

So I scoured the internet, but all I came up with were patterns for making your own costume. I told Mark, who looked horrified, and shut me down with a simple, "Ummm...no!" I agreed, and we both exhaled, relieved, because on the list of super crafty people, I'm pretty much near the bottom.

But Mark never came up with a second choice--in fact, he seemed completely indifferent to the entire concept of Halloween.

"What do you want to do this year?" I asked. "Go trick or treating with your friends? Your cousins?" 

He just shrugged, saying "I dunno."

"It's a whole night of free candy!" I reminded him. "You don't care about that?" 

He just shook his head. He's done a lot of things to confuse me, but this was one of the craziest.

"OK," I said. "We'll figure it out when it gets closer."

And so there we were, the day before Halloween, with no plans and no costumes. I fixed the first issue by texting my friends Karen and Liz, who we'd spent the last four or five Halloweens with.

Karen said her son Jonah was going to scare kids at the house, and invited us to stop by. That solved our first problem.

"What about a costume?" I asked Mark again. 

"I'll be a football player," he said, donning a jersey. I suggested wearing his flag football belt as well, and he looked at me like I was insane. 

"What kind of a player wears flags?" he spat out.

"I don't know...a flag football player?"  I spat back. Geez, it's not like I suggested tennis shorts or a basketball shirt. (Awww, moody teens...hours of fun, they are!)

When we arrived at the Koch's, Jonah's graveyeard looked awesome. Strobe lights were flashing, and the fog machine intermittenly went off, giving the yard a creepy, scary look. I would have totally skipped the house if I was a little kid!

 

Mark joined Jonah and the other five or six kids on the lawn. This picture doesn't do it justice, but when the strobe light was on and the fog was going, you could barely see the kids lying on the lawn. 

 

The trick or treaters couldn't see them at all. And so whenever teens braved the path in search of candy, the kids rose silently rose from the fog, then shouted and scared the crud out of the trick or treaters. It was awesome!

I was especially proud of how our kids picked their marks. They refused to scare the little kids, and sat completely still on the lawn until the little kids left. They looked like statues, or part of the scenery.

Sean and Jonah devised a plan for really scaring the big kids. Sean (dressed below as a werewolf) sat stock still in front of the candy bucket. Whenever a teen reached in to pick some candy, Sean grabbed the bucket and pulled it toward him. It scared the teens half to death!

One nervous little candy seeker walked slooooooowly up the path, eyeing the scary stuff all around her. She picked her candy. Sean, not wanting to scare her, sat quietly until she turned to leave. He then walked over to his friends. But the sight of a walking werewolf scared the little girl nearly to death. She literally raised her arms in the air, let out a blood-curdling scream, and ran away, still screaming. She looked exactly like a cartoon character running off like that, and though I felt bad for her, I couldn't help laughing at the image of a cartoon character coming to life.

My other favorite was a little kid dressed as a ninja. He was about four or five years old, all decked out in black, with two swords on his back forming an X. He surveyed the scene, turning his head slowly from left to right, taking it all in. Then, just as slowly, he reached his hand over his head, slowly gripped one of his swords, and drew it out carefully. He held the cheap, curvy toy blade in front of him, then took five steps toward us before issuing a guarded, "Trick or treat." I loved that kid, and all the faith he held in that plastic sword. 

Our kids took turns running off through the neighborhood, and scaring kids. They'd run off, two or three at a time, to collect candy, or to search for people to scare. At one point, the whole group ran off, and I sat back, enjoying the evening, and chatting with Greg, Karen and Liz.

A few moments later, my joy turned to concern. I heard screaming from a block or two away.

"Is that our kids?" Greg asked, and I answered, "I think so." We couldn't tell if they were scaring people or being scared.

Mark explained later that it was neither.

"Sean was throwing packs of peanut M&Ms at our arms," he grumbled. "It really hurt."

Liz gasped--Sean may be small, but he's a star pitcher on his baseball team. Mark's told me before how Sean can pitch 63 miles an hour.

"He's got good aim," Liz said, and Mark nodded, repeating, "Yeah, and it hurt!"

I decided it was as good a time as any to wrap up the night.

"But it's only 9:30!" Mark whined.

"And you have school tomorrow," I reminded him. I also pointed out that nobody was gonna open their doors to trick or treaters this late. Mark started to argue, and I asked if he would open our door to someone knocking at 9:30. He allowed that he wouldn't, and that killed any further arguments.

I ordered Mark straight to bed, but he asked if he could sort his candy first.

"Nope," I said, then he looked at me, pleading.

"But it's my favorite part of Halloween," he said, and then I melted. It's every kid's favorite part of Halloween, and really, was 10 more minutes gonna make that big a difference? I decided it wouldn't.

Mark set about dividing up his candy. It was then he realized sorting is not as much fun by yourself--the fun part is actually trading the candy.

I pointed out that he wasn't exactly sorting by himself--he had a big fuzzy friend who was totally absorbed in what Mark was doing.

"Here, Fernando," Mark said, giving Fernando a little treat.

But Fernando was not interested--he wanted to play, or to at least distract Mark from ignoring him. So he stepped over the lollipops, and sat right on top of Mark's candy pile.

Mark just sighed, and moved him. Fernando might be a pain in the neck, but I smiled as Mark popped one last bite-size candy bar into his mouth. He might insist he's too old for Halloween, but watching him eat and sort the candy reminded me that he really is not.

And being reminded that my boy still enjoyed the spoils of one more Halloween...well, that made me very, very happy.

Halloweeeeeeen

Ah, Halloween. I love seeing all the tiny kids in their adorable costumes. Mark's well past that stage, and now into costumes that are either funny or gory/scary.

Luckily, he fell into the former category this year. I'm not sure how to describe his costume, other than to say he was an...ostrich jockey?  

Whatever, it was hilarious.

He tried it on for a party on Saturday, only to find the battery pack for the fan that inflates it had a tiny screw in it, and I did not have a screw driver to open it. (I did my best to strip the screw with my house key, though--almost succeeded, which would've ruined the whole thing.)

Luckily, we got that whole debacle out of the way, so last night we were super prepared. Mark climbed into the ostrich, and tightened it up around his waist. He turned on the fan and immediately complained it wasn't working.

"Give it a minute," I said. And sure enough, his pants started filling up with air, and the ostrich came to life. Mark literally became an inflatable ostrich, and I couldn't stop laughing about it.

I always get lots of questions about Mark trick or treating at Halloween. People mean well, but they worry about a little diabetic kid eating tons of candy. The ironic thing is, all the running around usually makes Mark go low, and he eats the candy because he NEEDS to, not just because he wants to.

This year, Mark set a new record--he STARTED out low. His blood sugar was down to 48--talk about a Halloween scare! (It should be between 70-120.) So he started his sugar intake before he even went trick or treating! (He was trick-or-treating a low. ;-)

We headed over to his friend Jonah's house, but Mark had to deflate himself for the car ride over. I was still giggling.

Jonah's house looked AWESOME--his dad Greg had decorated it like a graveyard, with screeching monsters and flying ghosts. There were random body parts littering the lawn, strobe lights illuminating the whole scene, and occasionally, a fog machine hiding it. It was spooky and exactly what Halloween should be.

My friend Karen was sitting in the front yard, passing out candy. She was dressed as a witch, but a happy one, and she was greeted us cheerfully, in total contrast to the spooky yard.

Jonah was all decked out in a Jason costume, complete with a blood-spattered chainsaw he revved up as soon as he saw us. He kept disappearing into the shadows, alternately trying to scare people and to reload his candy bag.

The boys were itching to get out and get sugar, but I made Mark re-test first. His blood sugar had come up, but only to 96, which wasn't great, considering all the running he was about to do, and the fact that he'd eaten a whole dinner (including soda to bring him up) without giving himself any insulin. I knew I was risking a re-bound high, but I insisted he down a couple Pixie sticks before he left, and for once, he was happy to comply.

Our friend Liz showed up. Sean had gone to another friend's house, but Liz came to hang out with us, and we decided this should be a yearly event, even after the kids grew up. Who says trick or treating is just for kids?

Mark and Jonah returned a few times, almost as if they were unsure what to do with the independence they so badly craved. We kept sending them back out until the third time, when Mark insisted he couldn't run in his big old air-bag ostrich outfit. He borrowed a black cape from Jonah, then started crawling around the dark lawn, freaking me out. They left, and returned a bit later, when Mark borrowed another costume from Jonah:

He sat dead still in a chair, and looked like a decoration. Until someone reached out to touch him, and he scared the bejesus outta them!

Jonah was really into scaring people. He did a great job, carefully picking his victims. He sat dead still in a chair, until a few middle-schoolers asked if he was real. We said no, so they bravely inched closer and closer to him...

...Until he jumped out, chain saw roaring, and sent them screaming. One kid literally jumped a foot in the air, and we all burst into laughter. Well-played, Jonah, well-played!

Some other friends came by, and the boys ran off into the neighborhood again. It was fun and sad to see them go off into the night on their own. My little boy suddenly seemed like such a big boy, and I wasn't quite ready for that yet, but hey, nobody ever asks me.

Greg, Liz, Karen and I sat out front until the trick or treaters stopped coming. Mark and Jonah ran inside to sort and trade their candy, but that ended when Mark just donated all his to Jonah. (A consequence of the Great Marshmallow Creme Fiasco the day before.) I was expecting a lot more resistance from Mark, but was proud to see him accept his punishment like a man.

And so ended another great Halloween. I'm guessing we only have one good one left before Mark decides to hang with his friends instead of his mom (even if it was only in brief spurts). So I relished this year...and I still can't stop laughing about that ridiculous ostrich!

Sweet tooth

Halloween scares the crap outta me, and not in an "Ooooh, ghosts and goblins" kinda way. No, living through Halloween with a diabetic child is like living next to a dynamite factory with a pyromaniac child. Each year, I literally wait for the house to explode.

Halloween is like a bad after school special that re-runs each October. It's the episode entitled, "Sugar--it will KILL YOU." And it stars a very cute little brown-haired boy, cackling, scoffing, and swallowing copious amounts of sugar all at the same time.

Our annual Halloween Disaster came early this year. Usually, Mark's blood sugar-raising adventures wait until after Halloween, but this time, he was ahead of schedule.

I stumbled across Mark's latest folly while putting away a bag of cat food. I knocked over a jar of marshmallow creme in the pantry, and it rolled kinda funny. Something about it just hit me weird.

Sure enough, when I opened it, half the jar was gone.

I know I didn't eat half a jar of marshmallow creme, and the cats don't have opposable thumbs or they would clearly be guilty. (They are seriously naughty cats.) So that just left one other critter in the house...

Maybe it wasn't Mark, I thought naively, totally disregarding the pattern of inexplicable high blood sugars he'd been having over the last week. I thought that for all of ten seconds, until I checked his room and stepped on this:

It was shoved halfway under the bed, directly under his shoe rack. Which made me think, "Ewwwww!" for a whole lotta reasons.

My first instinct was to immediately wake Mark up and start yelling at him. But what fun is it to fight with someone half-asleep and clearly not on top of their game? Mark's a sneaky guy; I had to respond in a similar fashion. This was going to be a long, painful lesson.

I emptied the jar, and scrubbed it clean. Then, I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a quick note to my darling son:

I folded the note and dropped it back in to the jar. 

I returned the jar to the pantry. I also did a quick scan for a giant jar of marshmallow fluff my friend Amber had sent us but couldn't find it. I wondered how Mark was still alive, and not passed out in some diabetic coma.

But I wasn't done. I had to set the stage, make Mark sweat a little. So the next morning, I gleefully announced that we were going to make whoopie pies! I dropped the whoopie pie recipe book into his lap and told him to pick out a recipe.

Mark, bless his clueless little heart, was thrilled. He was so excited I realized he must not have eaten the marshmallow fluff--even he couldn't pull off an act that well.

Mark couldn't decide whether to make lots of little whoopie pies, or one giant one. I saw my opening, and I took it.

"Let's make one huge pie!" I said. Then I paused for a moment, and said, "But I don't think we'll have enough marshmallow fluff for the filling. Maybe we can combine the fluff and the marshmallow creme together."

"No, I don't wanna do that," Mark answered, quickly. "Let's just make the little pies instead."

"What?" I asked, innocently. "Why? I think one big one would be cool! We could take funny pictures of it."

"I don't know why, I just don't want to make a big one," Mark answered. "I just want one little pie to take to school."

"It's a good thing Amber sent us that jar of fluff," I said. "You can't even buy that stuff out here. They only sell it back East."

"I wonder why?" Mark asked. He was starting to sweat a little.

I let it drop. I got the info I was looking for. After I quick search back home, I also found the jar of marshmallow fluff.

That afternoon, Mark got home about 20 minutes before I did. I knew he'd be drawn to that jar like a moth to a flame.

I reminded him he had drum lessons, and to eat a snack beforehand.

He opened the pantry to get one. Just as I peeked over the cabinet door, he very casually kicked something to the back. That little kick told me he'd found and read my note.

"Why is your foot resting on the pantry?" I asked.

Once again, he feigned ignorance.

"What?" he said. "Oh, I didn't even notice."

I could tell right away he'd gone for the good stuff again, but found my note instead. He was really sweating it now, so I let it go.

But this morning, he was in quite a mood. He ignored everything I said or asked him to do, explaining, "I can't, I'm playing with my kitten." I waited until he had his backpack on and was ready to walk out the door, and then I called him into the kitchen.

"Can you hand me that marshmallow creme?" I asked. He knew the gig was up.

He sighed. He held the jar out toward me, rolling his eyes the whole time.

"Open it," I said. He did, refusing to look into it.

"Is that a note in there?" I asked. "Read it."

He did, pretending like it was all new to him. Then, silently, he twisted the lid back on and tossed the jar into the recycling bin.

"You want to talk about this now?" I asked.

"No," he said, flatly.

"We can talk about it now, and you can come up with the consequence," I said. "Or we can talk about it later, and I'll come up with the consequence. You know which one will be worse."

He simply turned and walked out the front door.

So the bad news is, we didn't resolve it this morning. The good news is, he's at school, sweating it out one more day, and worried abut the nice, long talk we're gonna have tonight. Unfortunately for Mark, he has rotten timing, and a punishment the day before Halloween will absolutely be reflected in his candy intake tomorrow. 

Looks like the dynamite factory exploded a little early this year...

The (Not-So-)Great Pumpkin

Alternate title: Sometimes I'm not even sure why I bother...

Yesterday was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, and Mark could barely contain his enthusiasm.

"You ready to go get pumpkins?" I asked.

"Nah," he sighed. "I don't want one this year."

"You...what?" I gasped. "How could you not want a pumpkin?"

"I just want to hang out at home," he said. I must note that the activity I was interrupting was...nothing. No video games or TV shows, he was just too lazy to leave the house for a pumpkin.

But I wasn't having it. I strongly encouraged him to get his shoes on and get in the car, and he was smart enough to do so.

I planned our trip around 5:30, because I figured the light is best for photos then, and all the families would be eating dinner. Boy, was I wrong...the pumpkin patch was mobbed, with more people than I've ever seen there, and the sun was already setting behind the buildings. Strikes 1 and 2.

I thought Mark would be interested once we got there, but he really wasn't. He refused to sit on the big pumpkins, or to sit with any other pumpkins in the field. He demanded we buy a huge pumpkin immediately so we could leave, but I reminded him he doesn't get a pumpkin until I get a nice photo. He just groaned.

He darted toward the giant pumpkins, trying to pick up the biggest one. I saw $50 of pumpkin dropping to the ground in my head, and hissed at him to put the damn thing down.

He did, but only because it was too heavy to lift for long. He tried lifting every other giant pumpkin nearby, and finally settled on an already-broken pumpkin.

"I want this one," he demanded. (He was in quite a mood!)

But Mark's not the first (or last) strong-willed, stubborn Dinsdale.

"Let's go," I answered. "I'm not leaving until I get a nice picture." 

I finally did get a decent picture, though:

After all the demands for a large pumpkin, here's the bad boy he settled on:

"Really?" I asked him, flabbergasted. "THAT'S the pumpkin you want to carve?"

"Yup!" he answered. "Let's go."

He paid for his baby pumpkin. It was $1.20, the cheapest it ever cost me to get out of there. But Mark was furious when the lady stamped a "paid" stamp on it--he immediately wiped it off.

"You have to show them the stamp when you leave," I reminded him. "How will they know you paid for it?"

"I paid!" he snorted. "No one's gonna check."

And they didn't.

My obnoxious young son had done everything he could to ruin our trip to the pumpkin patch. He was making me grouchy, and I thought it best to leave before I lost my temper in front of the approximately one million people surrounding me.

But just as we left, a guy in front of us hoisted a giant pumpkin onto his shoulder. It looked heavy, but he never slowed down. I looked at Mark and his tiny little pumpkin, and at the guy in front with his giant pumpkin. The contrast was hilarious.

Turns out, not even Mark's bad attitude can trump a funny picture.

The haunting begins...

I spent the past weekend in a ghost town, with a bunch of creepy ghouls skulking about. Oh yeah, the Boy Scouts were there, too.

It was the annual Boy Scout camping trip in Calico. Calico's an old desert mining town that's been transformed into a touristy ghost town. Usually, "ghost town" refers to the fact the mines were abandoned long ago, but during the two weekends before Halloween, it becomes a more literal description--it's a real ghost town, filled with monsters and other scary things!

We got to town late Friday night. We had a few glitches--due to traffic, it took us four hours to get there (instead of two). Once there, we began setting up Martha's tent in the dark, only to realize she didn't have any tent poles. Luckily, I also had a tent, so I just offered to share. And then, approximately five minutes after handing Mark a walkie talkie in case of late-night low blood sugars (he was in a different camp), I lost my walkie talkie. I was super bummed, because it turns out they don't work so well as singular devices. But the worst part was explaining to Mark that I'd lost it (usually, he's the one who loses everything). His initial reaction of concern was quickly replaced by a smirk (and relief) he wasn't the loser.

The good news is, we got all the bad news out of the way that first night. Once the sun came up, we started a whole new day, and everything turned out much better.
The boys were chattering excitedly about a visitor. Apparently, somebody left a loaf of bread out, and a fox ate it. The story quickly changed as it passed through the group, from "There was a fox" to "I saw the fox!" It was alternately described as small and reddish, about the size of a dog, and big and brown, like a wolf.

I noticed in the daylight that the rock structure behind us resembled the top half of a skull. It was soooooo cool!

I met up with my friends Karen and Greg, who'd arrived while we were sleeping. They made a fantastic French toast breakfast, and I marveled at how much better food always tastes when you're camping. They joined the Scouts after breakfast for a hike in the hills, and I returned to my camp to enjoy the momentary peace and quiet.

Calico's in the high desert, so I'd mentally prepared myself to sweat in the projected 90 degree weather. But a nice little breeze rolled through the campground, and kept everything cool. While the Scouts were gone, I crept into the leaders' camp to sit under their tree and read in the shade. It was quiet, breezy, and I was completely happy.

As I was reading, a group of Scout parents passed by.

"Come on, Heather, we're going to town!" they shouted. How could I resist?

It's a short hike to town, maybe half a mile. It's easy during the day, but there's one section that's pitch black and pretty scary at night. I was glad it was daytime.

We passed through the campground, admiring all the sites decorated with Halloween gear. There were graveyards, cauldrons, inflatable pumpkins and all sorts of spooky stuff. Later on, at dusk, costumed trick or treaters ran wildly through the camp.

The town was already filled with scary people--we followed this group in.  

But the decorations weren't just limited to people. The buildings were decked out, too, all along main Street. This one even had a giant spider on it, who was about to eat an orange stuffed cat. The whole scene freaked me out, as the cat bore a striking resemblance to our beloved little kitten Fernando.

We wandered through town, drinking sarsaparillas and inching our way through the mystery house. The house, built at all different angles, severely messes with your head and your balance. At one point, I gripped a handrail tightly, convinced that gravity had failed me, and that I was about to fall down.

By the time we got back to camp that afternoon, the gentle breeze had grown into full-force hurricane winds. We rescued our neighbor's tent, which flew in to the mountain side, and then reinforced our own tent with as many big rocks as we could find. Our tent didn't blow away, but I spent the rest of the night tripping over rocks.

The Scouts went up to town, returning in a steady trickle over the next couple hours. They all returned carrying the same two things: brown sarsaparilla bottles (which looked like real beer bottles) and toy guns. Hey, what do you expect, it is the Wild West, after all! (Mark came back with candy cigarettes. Apparently, his vice is smoking, not drinking and shooting.)

After a nice dinner, we all walked back to town for the evening haunting and a comedy hypnosis show. (I'm not sure what hypnosis has to do with Halloween, I just went with it, but the boys loved it.)

I thought our boys went home after the show, but somehow, we beat them back. At one point, Martha and I went looking for them, but we stopped when we got to the super dark valley. I had a wimpy little lantern that did not shine light anywhere past three inches of my face, and Martha held only a wimpy little glow stick. We stood in the dark, contemplating our next move. All I could think about was last year, and how a coyote had walked this trail just moments before we did.

"Maybe I'll just pick up a rock," Martha said casually. Then she bent down and picked up another, and I couldn't blame her.

In what may not have been my proudest maternal moment, we decided not to go any further. We reasoned the boys would be much safer traveling through the darkness because A) they are loud, and would surely scare away any predators, B) they had much brighter flashlights than we did, and C) they were not scaredy cats like us. A and B turned out to be true, and C probably did, too, though no boy would admit to it.

When we woke up Sunday morning, the wind was in full force. It was whipping everything around, including us. We tried packing up the tent and tarp, but the winds were blowing them around so hard we just couldn't. I crammed them into my duffel bag to repack at home.

Martha and I broke down our camp fairly quickly, then wandered over to the Scout camp to see how they were faring.

Their tents were much bigger than ours, but the boys were much smaller. The wind was tossing them all around pretty good. I watched some older Scouts wrestle their tents. Then I turned to see how our boys were doing. Mark and his friend Sean were gripping the ends of the tent's rain cover. But instead of packing it away, they were running. The wind was blowing straight into the rain cover, puffing it up like a parachute, and the boys were cracking up.

Eventually, the Scout leaders gave up on the slacker boys and the gusty winds. They ordered the boys to do as we did, cramming the tents into the cars, to repack when we got home.

The trip always ends at a dry lake bed, shooting off rockets. Because of the weather, the troop decided to shoot off just a few token rockets, most of which broke or were carried off by the wind. We drove by the swirling dust storm over the lake bed, and decided to keep on driving--our teeth and skin were already gritty with sand, and we just wanted to go home to a hot shower.

The trip ended as it always does, with the exhausted Scouts unloading the trucks back at the church, and the parents yelling at them to hurry up. I'm glad we showed up, because it turns out one of the leaders found my walkie talkie and returned it. 

It was the perfect way to end the trip--definitely on a high note.

A very a-peeling Halloween

Yesterday was the day Mark lives for all year long--Halloween, or as he likes to think of it, the Night of Endless Candy.

Some kids use this night to live out the scariest forms of themselves, donning gory masks or creepy costumes. Mark opted instead for a brighter, more cheerful costume; he dressed as a banana.

And of course, I can't refuse a funny photo op, so I begged him to take this picture of him eating one of his tiny brethren. He agreed, but not before sighing loudly, turning to his friend Sean, and saying, "Sean, see what I have to put up with?" That only made me giggle more.

He's a banana cannibal--a banana-bal!

But if you think one banana is funny, a whole bunch is even funnier! That's right, not one but TWO of Mark's friends also went as bananas!

A trio of bananas under the banana tree

The Barnetts were kind enough to host a pre-candy dinner. Kimmi did a fantastic job decorating the table and room, which we parents loved, but went woefully under appreciated by the kids. They tore through the room and out to the backyard, where they lit upon the giant trampolines, and morphed into a bunch of flying bananas and one laughing werewolf (sans mask). 

It's like a flying fruit salad.

We finally convinced the kids to eat by reminding them that the sooner they ate, the sooner they could hit the streets. They gobbled down their food, and raced back out to the trampolines.

Eventually, we herded them out front for photos. Which was a little bit insane, considering we had a dozen kids, none of them willing to smile, or even look at the camera, at the same time (Mark refused to look up for any of the group shots). It was pretty funny to see them all--besides the three bananas, there were a couple werewolves, a couple rock stars, a couple creepy-masked creatures, a prince and princess of Denmark, and Thing 1 from the Cat in the Hat (we picked up Thing 2 later on).

We finally started our trek through the streets in search of sugar. The first two houses were jackpots, handing out full-size candy bars.

The kids ran house to house, the gaggle of parents trailing behind, shouting, "Remember to say thank you!" The streets were pretty empty--occasionally, we ran into smaller groups of kids, but not many. Our kids hit up all the houses with lights on, at one point fracturing into two smaller groups--the younger boys running ahead of the 8th graders.

The kids ran into some pretty funny sights along the way. The bananas tried to avoid this guy--Justin actually ran away screaming, which was hilarious. We had to stop and take a picture with him.

A banana's worst nightmare!

We also came across a couple very cool graveyards. I've gotta hand it to the grave keepers, they did some excellent work here.




There was another house a few blocks down with a haunted maze. The kids totally dug it, proclaiming it waaaay scarier than the haunted maze at Calico a couple weeks back (high praise, indeed). As we were leaving, some kind of weird skeleton dog guy crawled out. Very cool!

The kids cracked us up--there was no method to their candy-collecting madness. As kids, we used to run up one side of the street, cross over, and then run up the other side. If a house was dark, you didn't even slow down. There was free candy to be had out there, and only a few precious hours to collect it all. We didn't waste a single second of it.

But our kids walked at a much slower, decidedly unhurried pace. They trick or treated at one house, then crossed over to the other side of the street. They'd hit up a house there, then cross back over. Their zig-zagging confused us, and eventually, the adults simply walked down the middle of the street. One little kid even tired out, and wanted to go home, which baffled my friend Liz.

"I've never heard of a kid wanting to go home early!" she gasped, and I nodded, equally shocked.

But it didn't matter, the kids all got more than enough, and had a blast. Bags full, they headed back to the Barnetts, popping fun-sized candy bars into their mouths the whole time.

Back at the house, they immediately dumped their booty on to the floor, and the wheeling and dealing began. The boys furiously began calling out candy names, yelling, "I'll give you all my lollipops for your Three Musketeers!" and "Who has M&Ms?" Justin wanted Reese's Peanut Butter Cups; Jonah wanted Jolly Ranchers, Sean wanted Now & Laters, and Mark wanted anything, provided it was full-size. It was hilarious to watch the seious bartering.

Finally, all the trading done, the boys stuffed some sugary goodness into their mouths, and ran back outside to--where else?--the trampolines. (On the way home, Mark declared he's now saving for a giant trampoline.)

After some cajoling and the lure of visiting a haunted house, the boys finally jumped off. Mark was exhausted, and opted not to go to the haunted house, and after all that walking, I was fine with that decision.

And so I took my tired little banana home. I worry every year that all the candy will send his blood sugar super high, but in fact, thanks to all the walking and excitement, he always goes low instead. This year was no exception. So after some orange juice and a quick shower (trampolines make you sweaty!), he was off to bed, hopefully not dreaming of the graveyards and haunted tunnels we'd just seen.

Thanks to the Barnetts, Kochs, and McKees for another great Halloween!

Halloween 2010

Another Halloween has passed us by, and in its wake, it left behind a tired, oversugared 10-year-old.

Mark earned the fatigue honestly--he had a super busy weekend.

We started with a photo shoot at the local pumpkin patch. Pa's Pumpkin Patch, where a gritchy old Pa waving a light saber yelled at us as soon as we pulled into the lot.

We still managed to have fun, anyway.



Mark found a little pumpkin stem, and an empty space in a row of pumpkins. He quickly filled it by pretending to be a giant pumpkin.



We spent most of Saturday night carving pumpkins in a panic. I panicked that Mark would slice his hand off, and he panicked he would never cut through the top of his pumpkin. I'm happy to report that my panic, while justified, went unrealized, and that Mark did, indeed, finally open up that gourd. Which made him really happy for five minutes--until he tired of scooping out pumpkin guts and whined about that instead.

I carved a cyclops pumpkin sticking its tongue out, and Mark added lots of decorative colored toothpicks to his. I was pretty happy with the results.




On Sunday, we visited a local rancho, which was hosting a Halloween extravaganza. Mark and his friend Sean ran from game to game, while Sean's mom, Liz, and I trailed behind them. They played sports from all around the world, and both boys turned out to be expert bocce ball players. They also engaged in a knock-down, drag out tetherball game. They used a racket to smack tennis balls that a super nice volunteer tossed at them. I warned Mark not to hit it over the fence when it was his turn, and Liz laughed at me. Then I stood by and gave him the stink eye, and he still knocked it over the volunteer's head, but not as far as he wanted too. I guess that counts as a small success, huh?

After a quick dinner, it was showtime! Mark and Sean couldn't wait to get out in the neighborhood, so they suited up and grabbed their bags. Sean was Elmo, and looked hilarious. It was even more hilarious when he told us the biggest size Elmo costume they had was a 4T, and he fit in it!



Mark was, of course, a Dodger player. My nephew Johnny was mad at me because I didn't buy Mark a costume--he couldn't believe I made Mark wear "old" baseball clothes. I explained that's what Mark wanted to wear, but Johnny still frowned. Apparently, costumes only count if they come in a box from the store.

I should've known better than to put Mark in white baseball pants. He did his best to make his uniform look authentic by sliding across the front lawn, which Sean strongly encouraged. When Mark got enough grass stains on his pants to look like a pro player, the boys high-fived and took off.

We met up with some of Mark's friends from school and their older brothers. They all looked great!



We've always gone trick or treating with Mark's cousins (with my brother pulling a wagon full of margaritas), so it was fun to actually go with Mark's friends instead. I really like all the parents (who are also Cub Scout parents), so we laughed a lot and had a good time.

The kids darted through the dark neighborhoods, zigzagging across the streets rather than utilizing the more traditional up one side/down one side of the street method.

An hour into it, the kids' bags were already full, and they were tiring out. We ended after 90 minutes, and the kids immediately tore into their bags and started trading fast and furiously. They were protective of their stashes, and one mom told me she knew a kid who inventoried all his candy using an Excel spreadsheet. Now that's an organized kid!

Liz and I collected our tired boys and lead them back home. The boys were simultaneously exhausted and jacked-up on sugar, and I thought the sugar buzz might keep Mark awake for a while. But the minute he laid down on his bed, he passed out.

He was tired, full of candy and happy--the way every kid should be at the end of Halloween.

Vampires, mummies and the Holy Ghost

We traveled to San Diego this weekend, since Halloween is one of those holidays better spent with a horde of kids. Mark was thrilled to spend it with his cousins.

First on the agenda was a trip to the pumpkin patch. Before I was even through the gate, Mark was holding a large, lopsided pumpkin with an $8 price tag on it.

"I want this one!" he shouted. I glanced around the lot, but it was kinda like buying a Christmas tree on Christmas day; not much to choose from. There were but a few rows of lonely, leftover pumpkins.

Some nice man gave us his leftover ride tickets on his way out, and the kids immediately used them on the giant inflatable slide. They raced up and down for 20 minutes, until finally they stumbled over to us, pink and sweaty. It was 85 degrees and hot outside; so much for a change of seasons!

Their next stop was a game booth. First, they threw plastic balls into giant pumpkin cutouts. Then they moved down a few steps to try their hand at fishing for magnetic turtles. Each turtle was labelled with a size that referred to a box of inflatable toys. All our kids won medium or large, which meant they got to choose an inflatable hammer or bat. They immediately raced off to beat each other silly with them.



My parents invited their neighbors over for dinner, which consisted of pizza, baked beans, mummy dogs and chili that was so hot, my brother Scott couldn't stop sweating.

"That's GOOD!" he gasped between bites. (He made it, and was very proud of himself.) He insisted I try some, and for a few minutes afterwards, I saw stars, as though I'd been pounded in the head with an inflatable bat. It was that hot!

My mom and I created the mummies by painstakingly wrapping hot dogs in crescent roll dough. I must admit my mom was much better at this than I was. "My patients don't look so good," I noted, as the "bandages" fell off once again.



My nephew Grant was intrigued and bothered by the mummies. "What are you putting on them?" he asked Scott more than once.

"Bandages," Scott told him, which did not sate him. "It's just bread dough, Grant," he explained, but Grant didn't believe him.

"What are you putting on there?" he asked me, and I answered the same thing. He frowned, and questioned my mom.

Finally, his mom gave him a bite of the "bandages" and he finally let it go.

Even though it was hot outside, the kids couldn't wait to dress up. They were in full costume by 5 o'clock, and quickly scarfing down their dinner. They wanted hit the streets as soon as possible, and didn't like hearing they had to wait until dark.



Finally, at 6 o'clock, we could hold them back no longer. The five adults filled our plastic ghost cups with wine, and headed out. The kids raced up the street, filling their plastic pumpkins with all the refined sugar they could get. Which turned out to be quite a lot; the neighborhood is an older one, with few kids. The homeowners were glad to see the kids, and loaded them up with handfuls of candy.

I've got to hand it to the kids, they did pretty well. The complaining didn't start until about 45 minutes in, when Mark grabbed at my cup and peered inside.

"I'm thirsty," he panted. "Is this water?"

I swiped it back. "No, it's wine. Keep going!"

Luckily, Michelle the neighbor, had brought along a bottle of water, which she graciously shared with my dehydrating son.

Ten minutes later, the complaints started up again, with cries of "My pumpkin's too heavy!"

"Do you have a bag I can put this in?" Mark asked me, apparently unable to see that all I was carrying was one plastic cup.

"I've got bags!" Michelle said. She was waaaaay more prepared than we were.

"There you go," I told Mark. "Go get one from the good mommy."

The kids circled the cul-de-sacs, and when the complaining grew loud again, Scott and I chastised them.

"Seriously," I said. "It's Halloween. It's the one night of the year you can run up to any house in the country, and people will give you free candy! What are you complaining about??"

Scott asked them what other night of the year that happened, and they all agreed none. They rallied for a few more minutes, until Grant tripped and fell, and announced he was done.

So we returned home at 7:30, and the mayhem began. The kids dumped their pumpkins out onto the table and began trading candy furiously. Mini-bars flew from hand to hand so quickly I was sure the chocolate would melt.

Everyone was finally happy with their take. Mark separated out all the Skittles and Starbursts, which I allow him to keep for low blood sugars. Next, he picked out his 10 favorite candies and set them aside to eat later. Then, he picked out three candies to eat immediately. The rest he handed over to me, and I handed him $10 in return. He got candy immediately, and for the next couple weeks, and $10 to boot. He was a happy camper.


We let them run wild for a bit afterwards, since they were fully revved up and enjoying a nice sugar buzz. But eventually, the sugar crash followed, and they settled down to sleep.

Oh, and as far as the diabetes...it made itself known, especially on this holiday dedicated solely to consuming massive amounts of sugar. All the walking actually made Mark a little low by bedtime; even after the junk food dinner and three mini-candy bars, his blood sugar was 70. I gave him some milk, and apparently, diabetes roared its ugly head and protested at the healthy food. His blood sugar shot up to 418 (!) two hours later.

But that was just a sidenote to the whole story. The best part of the story didn't even involve a meter; instead, it focused on six happy kids, their smiling parents and grandparents, and loads of happy childhood memories they made that night.

Costume craziness

It's officially October, which means Mark will spend most of the month figuring out what to be for Halloween. He's actually been thinking about it for a couple months already, with Michael Jackson being the front runner.

However, we received a catalog to a party store in the mail the other day. It was devoted solely to Halloween costumes. I immediately handed it over to Mark, who keeps it in the car and reads it over whenever we're driving.

Some of the costumes befuddle him, like this one:



"What toddler wants to be a hobo for Halloween?" he asked incredulously, and I had to admit I didn't know.

Or this one, about which he asked, "What kid wants to be a whoopie cushion?"


"Not mine," I answered. I refuse to trick or treat with a four-foot whoopie cushion!

Mark's even started looking for me, too. He thought it would be funny if we went as this:





He likes that the hot dog is wearing mustard, and not ketchup (he hates ketchup).

Mark also became very excited when he saw one of my favorite things.

"Hey, Mom!" he shouted. "You wanna be a bottle of beer for Halloween?"



I giggled, but assured him I did not.

Right now, he's leaning toward the skate punker costume because he thinks he'll get a new skate board out of it, and will be sorely disappointed when I point out it's not included with the costume.



He's also thinking of being a Mac Daddy. But he's not quite sure what a mac daddy really is (looks suspiciously like a pimp to me), so that's his second choice.



I'm sure he'll change his mind as soon as we enter the store. I'm a mean mom, so I've already eliminated some of the choices right off the bat -- nothing that costs more than $30 or is violent. (He's only going to wear it once, so I refuse to spend $50 for a costume with a serial killer, or some other inappropriate choice.)

In the end, I don't think it'll matter much anyway; for him, the ultimate goal is really the trick or treat candy anyway.

For me: I'm just hoping to avoid chaperoning him dressed like a giant hot dog.