Pathetic Even for Me

I have admitted more than once that holidays aren't really my thing. I seem to do better with the day-to-day than with the special occasion stuff. But this Halloween might have been a new low even for me.

Wednesday was the day that Cubby went trick-or-treating with his preschool at the village businesses. Also the day that the library story hour was dedicated to Halloween. So that was costume day for us.

Cubby decided about three days before Halloween that he wanted to be an astronaut. Very luckily, the astronaut suit from last year that my mom randomly sent still fit him. Cool. Cubby's done.

Charlie . . . well. My plan was to put overalls on him, plus our explorer's helmet, plaid shirt, rubber boots, and gold panning pan to sort of look like a forty-niner. Charlie wouldn't wear the overalls (he's had an aversion to them pretty much from birth that I guess has not abated). The helmet has gotten cracked and wouldn't stay on. He didn't want to hold the pan. So he was dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt, and rubber boots.

So Charlie was . . . Charlie for Halloween. Whatever.

I also forgot the camera that day, so there are no pictures.

Also also that day, Cubby brought me one of the volunteer pumpkins from the garden and asked me to make a jack-o'-lantern. Turns out, those volunteers had such a rock-hard skin, there was no way a knife could cut it. And that's a no on the jack-o'-lantern.

You can see that pretty much everything I touched turned to fail for this Halloween.

However. Thursday when Charlie and I went to the Mennonite farm to buy eggs, I also found they were selling pumpkins. So for two bucks I got a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin that we carved yesterday.

I even got a picture of the children cleaning out the interior. Thrilling.

And then this morning Cubby decided to put his suit back on to play astronaut, so I got a day-after-Halloween costume photo.

Cubby as astronaut and Charlie as . . . Charlie. Doing this thing he does when I ask him to smile for a picture.

Maybe I'll do better next year. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I Never Would Have Made It To Oregon

I recently finished a very interesting book called Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, by Lillian Schlissel. It's a somewhat scholarly book based on--you may have guessed this--the many diaries kept by women who were on their way west in wagons.

It's a really good book, especially if, like me, you've always been fascinated by pioneers, but what really struck me was how many of the women on these awful journeys were pregnant and/or had very young children. And what's even more amazing in the case of the pregnant women is that they didn't even mention it in their diaries--their personal diaries!--until they delivered the babies. In one case, the woman had something like seven children and delivered her eighth three days after arriving at their stopping place. After a particularly grueling end of the journey that required her to walk up a slippery, wet mountain trail while carrying her toddler.

Also amazing is that the diaries aren't continuous bitch-fests. You know mine would have been. Not whiners, those women.

So I shall restrain myself from whining too much about all the frantic Halloween activity yesterday morning with Cubby and Charlie and story hours and trick-or-treating and preschool parties and OH MY GOD so much sugar. I just won't. Because I'm pretty sure the covered-wagon women wouldn't have much sympathy.

Good Thing I Got All That Churchin'

I am, like so many others, a lapsed Catholic. But before I lapsed, I was really Catholic. Youth groups, retreat leader, religious education instructor, all that good stuff. None of that now, however, which means that Cubby's religious education has come solely from the MiL and the times he deigns to go to church with her.

But it sure is handy I have that background, otherwise I would have had a hard time figuring this one out:

Cubby: Mom! Charlie can say, "Glory to goddis."

Me: What?

Cubby: Glory to goddis!

Charlie: Gory to godith!

Me: Wait, what? (Totally sounded like " blahblah goddess," but I was pretty sure that's one of the few words Cubby doesn't know.)

Cubby: GLORY TO GODDIS.

Me: Ohhhhh, glory to God in the highest?

Cubby: Yes!

Me: Yeah, that's actually glory. to. God. in. the. highest. "Highest" like high up there.

Cubby: Oh.

Me: And peace to His people on Earth.

Cubby: Yeah.

Amen.