Barnmaven

This dance

I was going to post about our awesome new dog Little Sister, the one I sweet-talked my husband into letting me adopt while he was on the road.  She's a Mastiff/Dogue de Bordeaux mix, so fairly big.  Instead, though, I am writing about a meeting I had this morning with  my son's teacher and principal. 

While we've had a lot of very good days since the medication change, the teacher has also seen an amplification of sensory behavior.  The day they used clay in art, he spent the rest of the afternoon obsessively washing his hands because he could still feel the clay.  His shirts bother him, his socks bother him.  Even though his focus improved, his anxiety worsened.  And then yesterday, oh yesterday.  Yesterday prompted today's meet and greet.

My son has three loves:  Video games, computer time and Kindle time.  Everything else in life is something that interferes with that time.  He hasn't yet been able to understand that notgoing to school isn't going to magically increase the amount of time he gets to engage in his digital universe.  He resists doing schoolwork of any kind either at school or at home.  Once he is finally convinced to do the work, he finishes it in mere seconds.  If he brings home a book to read that he has already read once at school he simply recites it to you without even opening it.  (They really need to challenge him more)  He loses more play time by resisting than he gains, but he's not yet gained the ability to recognize the cost of this tradeoff. 

Yesterday afternoon he had earned all but the last two letters he needed in order to get his evening dose of post-homework electronic joy.  However, he was asked to complete some tasks that he refused at school.  Sensing he would not earn enough letters to be able to play Skylanders Cloud Patrol on my Kindle Fire, he attempted to rip pages out of his binder, which is his daily communication between home and school.  Then he tried hiding it so his teacher wouldn't be able to find it.  When it was time to go home, he cooperated to go in line, but once on his bus he refused to sit down.  His teacher ended up having to ride the bus with him in order to keep him in his seat. (I'm not sure why the aide on the bus wasn't willing or able to do this, but I'm grateful that his teacher cared enough to keep him safe.)

Needless to say, we all sat down this morning to review what the school is doing and how we can best support Race Car Man. 

We're adding a couple of options to his daily sheet of letters earned.  This way if he ends the day without having gotten all of them, he will have a chance when he gets home to earn one or two more at most.  Doing his homework without fighting is one option, eating his dinner and putting his dirty dishes away is another.  This way he still has the opportunity to turn his behavior around, and doesn't send him home without any hope of playing his beloved games.  Even though he can eventually calm down enough to just play with his toys, it takes a while to get him past the attitude that life no longer has meaning.

We'll also talk to his doc about med changes next week, and we're going to work together to come up with a reasonable reward system for cooperation in completing tasks at school and homework at home. 

I write all this with optimism, assuming that we will see a change for the positive in his behavior. 

It is such an intricate dance, trying to anticipate the way I ought to move to meet his needs.  One miscalculation and I've mashed his poor feet without meaning to.   There is no formula for the perfect mix of what keeps Race Car Man's engine humming.  We just have to measure things and try them and change them again if they don't work.  The pattern of this dance just keeps evolving and changing, and I must do so as well so that we don't lose step with one another.

Domesticity

One thing I don't do very often is cook, especially when I'm flying solo.  Right now my mom is picking the kids up off the bus after school.  She has them do their homework and feeds them dinner, making my evenings a considerable bit easier than they would otherwise be.  Even on weekends, time seems sort of jacked anymore and I just don't feel the urge to putter around in the kitchen.  After catching up on chores and housework and with any luck at all getting to ride, I just don't feel like making anything.  Stuff we can heat up is awesome, and if it weren't for Costco bags of frozen raviolis and jars of pasta sauce, the local pizza delivery and our favorite Asian fast food, the kids would be living on cereal and frozen waffles. When I don't have the kids I tend to keep it simple -- cereal, soup, eggs, or even better, going to my parents and eating Mom's cooking.  If you are what you eat, I'm usually a can of Black Bean soup.

It might come as a surprise to most people, but I really do love to cook.  I pretend to be rebellious and the not-domestic type, but actually crave a clean house, I love cooking and while I suck quite a lot at it, I like to fiddle around with home improvement projects and home decor.    But like most things in my life, it boils down to priorities.  I love all these things, but I love riding my horse more.  I love spending time with my husband and my kids.  My chosen lifestyle with its heavy load of upkeep on top of my full time job doesn't help one bit.

The last week or so, however, I got bitten by the cooking bug.

Its Deb Perelman's fault.

Listening to Deb describe her love for good, simple food and her mission to make recipes that contained ingredients that most people had in their cupboards to begin with and didn't cost a fortune to make, I was overcome with the compulsion to mend my lazy, rotten ways. 

I pored through the recipes on her website for the  Buttermilk Roast Chicken which she had talked about on the radio and do you know, it is just as easy and good as she says it is?  All I needed to buy was a jug of buttermilk and some garlic bulbs.  Everything else was stuff I already had.  I wouldn't have need to buy garlic except its been so long since I actually cooked that the bulb I had was...let's just say it wasn't resurrectable.  Or identifiable as garlic. 

The final result, after brining my chicken thighs for a good 24 hours, was a double thumbs up. 

I definitely felt encouraged and motivated to cook some more.  Sunday I hit the Costco and my head was turned by a large bag of sweet potatoes.  I bought it on a whim, brought it home and then hit up Google for some recipes.  I found a really simple recipe on Food.com that simply called for baking them and then smooshing up butter, chili powder, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and salt.  So easy, and because you can microwave them, I was actually able to make them for lunch at work with fairly little fuss.

The funny thing about cooking a meal (as opposed to heating it up) is how healthy and good about myself I feel when I do it.  Its ridiculous...I could probably bake a great big cheesy lasagna from scratch and I'd somehow feel super-healthy, even more so than if I'd just had a nice, low-impact can of soup.  But there you go.  I think we're built to have a sense of accomplishment when we create something with our own hands as opposed to just enjoying the fruits of someone else's creativity and effort.

While I know this period of domesticity can't possibly last, I'm sort of enjoying it.  I'm sure I'll get over it just in time for my husband to come home.  No one has ever accused me of having my compulsions when they would be convenient.

What we pass along

Parent-teacher conferences were last week, and all things considered, I am happy with where the kids are at.

Race Car Man continues to have areas of concern around his ability to control his reactions, but the biggest issue I see with him is a real streak of craftiness when it comes to getting out of work.  I think he sees his hierarchy of needs in very simple terms:

Good:  Gaming time

Bad:  Anything that interferes with gaming time

You know, like meals and homework and baths and those really awful times when mom bans all electronics and locks the kids OUTSIDE.  (I'm only joking.  I don't lock them out.  At least not after the first 10 minutes.)

What's super frustrating about his report card is how he's testing AT grade level on everything.  Except that I know for a fact he's capable of doing math well beyond his grade level and in terms of ability to read he is also beyond his grade level.  Reading comprehension may be an entirely different animal, as he just doesn't see the world and human interaction the same way the educational system would like.  Still, there weren't any surprises and I am satisfied with that.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Amazon Girl's conference.  At our last psych appointment she complained about being distracted a lot in class.  She was afraid she wasn't understanding as much math as she is supposed to because she doesn't think she's listening well.  I hadn't seen any homework come home that indicated she wasn't understanding, but at the same time, I half expected to walk out of her conference with a referral slip for a math tutor.  Much to my happy surprise, Amazon Girl is doing spectacularly well in school.  Her teacher thinks she's an absolutely delight, and her art teacher wrote that she is "exceptionally creative" in the comments section of her report card.

This morning when I opened her backpack to put her lunch in it, I noticed at her binder was so full of papers that it could barely be zipped.  As I periodically do, I went to work sorting and removing the completed assignments and reviewing her current projects.   In doing so, I found a group of study sheets about our presidential elections.  One of the sheets asked the students to pretend they were running for president.  They were asked questions about what qualities they thought were important for the president to have, who they would choose as their running mate, what their campaign slogan might be, and what planks they would run on.

My daughter, my Amazon Girl,  wrote that her primary issue would be to teach people that "Its OK to be gay."  She went on to say that people needed to learn that we need to accept each other and our differences and make sure that everyone gets the same chances no matter what. 

This is not an issue I've heard her talk about, but its an issue that's been on our televisions and our radios and a subject of adult conversation in our homes this past election season.  Washington voters were asked to approve or reject SB 6239 which extended marriage in Washington to include gay and lesbian couples. 

My ex and I certainly have our issues, but we both feel very strongly about the rights of all people to be treated with kindness, dignity and compassion.  As adoptees under the closed records system, we both have an inkling of what its like to be treated differently because of the way we were born.  We are both advocates of equality for all regardless of things like race, gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. 

When I consider the things I want for my children I would have to say that their happiness tops the list.  Beyond that, I don't care if they are doctors or gas station attendants.  I don't care if they are gay or straight so long as their relationships are mutually loving, supportive and respectful.  While it would be nice if they share my faith, I happily accept that they will form their own beliefs in their own way and their own time.  What I DO care is that they grow up with a core value system that includes acceptance, kindness and compassion for other people.

Despite my failings as a person and a parent, my daughter will carry on the mission of grace and love that I consider to be one of the highest callings we as human beings will ever know.  I could not be more proud of her than I am at this moment. 

 

 

On Guilt

My post from last night got me thinking.

I don't know about other moms, but I suspect its the same thing.  Whenever I hear a new theory about the causes of autism, I feel defensive. 

I mean, if vaccines DID cause autism, then I, the parent who made the choice to vaccinate my child, am part of the reason my son has autism.  Or if its the things in my house that made him sick, I bought those things.  I exposed him.

Even if its simple genetics -- those are my bad genes he got.  Well, mine and his dad's, anyway.  Which all leads me to consider inherent Mommy Guilt and to ask myself what good does it actually do?

If one stops to consider that even the best lives have times of pain, sickness, heartbreak and struggle, then it stands to reason that the simple act of bringing a baby into this world is automatically going to cause your child to suffer.  And as your child grows and you have to make decisions about where you live and where they learn and who you interact with and what they wear and what faith you follow (or don't) -- all of these things lead to other things which at some point in time will cause your child pain.   Just choosing to take a certain route to the grocery store might be the one thing that caused you to be in a car accident in which your child was injured.

In this life, it is a certainty that we will all suffer, we will all struggle and we will all ultimately die.  Why then, do we have children?  If we only consign them to certain pain, what's the point?  (Rhetorical question, by the bye.)

Does parental guilt serve a purpose?  Why does it exist otherwise?  (Not a rhetorical question.) 

It stands to reason that the concept of parental guilt is not a new one.  Surely when Cain slew Abel, Adam and Eve must have had more than a few terrible nights wondering where they went wrong.  The instinct to protect our children is incredibly powerful and nearly universal.  We've all heard the stories of adrenaline-fueled parents lifting cars off of their toddlers, of parents hurling themselves in front of buses to push their child out of the way, of parents braving flames in order to free a trapped baby.  The need to protect is instinct, there is no decision process involved.   It would naturally follow, then, that when our child suffers, we feel somehow responsible for not having prevented it.

A little guilt goes a long way.  The parent who feels guilty about working long hours may be prompted to make more of an effort when they are home to spend quality time with their family.  Guilt causes us to try to make the best parenting decisions we can, to learn from our mistakes and to continually improve.  When we want our children to be happy and healthy our parental conscience drives us to be and do better. 

But I think guilt can also go too far.  The parent whose child is sick or has a pervasive disorder - what good does guilt do for that parent?   The parents whose children got sick and died in Holbrook, MA from playing in toxic fields behind the chemical plant, what good does guilt serve them?  They couldn't have known.  The truth is that there are things in life we are never going to be able to prevent.  There are pains and truths everyone must learn as they grow.  They are part of the maturation process, they are the stressors that build our character, our resolve and our resilience.  If we never had our hearts broken, how would we learn to make better relationship choices? 

Life to me often seems like a continual progression from one hot stove to the next.  As I blow on my singed fingers from the last character-building experience, I often wonder from whence the next lesson I learn will come.  And so it is, so it will be, for my children. 

I think its possible to be happy without having to experience pain, but I also think that I'm more grateful for being happy when I can contrast it to the times I have suffered.  The joy of being in love is clarified by the experience of losing a relationship.  The enjoyable and relaxed trail ride is even more satisfying in contrast to the memory of the ride where my horse and I parted company - painfully. 

Still, I find as a parent, that I have yet to learn when it is OK to ratchet back on that guilty defensive posture.  I suppose its natural to react strongly to a perceived sense of being blamed when in fact there have been many times since my childrens' various diagnoses that I have very much felt entirely responsible for every single one of those issues.  Rightly or wrongly, that self-searching is a process I think we all go through when our child experiences something greater than a scraped knee or a cold. 

At some point, though, I had to recognize that blaming myself wasn't going to get me anywhere.   in order to be the parent my children need, I have to let go of self-recrimination and be in this moment, making better choices.  Andyou know, even in the worst case scenario where a parent does indeed make the wrong choice about a babysitter or a pet or a medication or any myriad number of things, self-blame is not a constructive thing beyond the initial recognition of "I could have chosen better."  Recognize it and move on, because the next time you will make a better choice. 

So yes, I recognize that I tend to overreact and jump on my soapbox.  Those moments, though, are useful to me, because they help me recognize the areas in my life that could use a little growth. 

 

And in Other News, Being Born causes DEATH

A newly released study has determined a link between influenza and high fevers during pregnancy to children with autism.

As if we needed another theory.

A since-debunked but long-held theory supposed that autism was caused by distant mothers.  Since then, we've managed to link autism to:

• Genetics
• Vaccines
• Diseases
• PCB's
• Solvents
• Diesel exhaust
• Pthalates
• Phenols
• Pesticides
• Flame retardants
• Alcohol
• Smoking
• Prenatal Stress

And now?  The flu.

I'm left to wonder what doesn't cause autism.

Predictably, the internet is going insane with rampant conspiracy theory and in-fighting between the anti/pro vaccine crowd. 

I'll clarify that I do not have a foot in the anti-vaccine camp.  I am supportive of parents who choose not to vaccinate or to selectively vaccinate their children, but I hope that those parents understand clearly the risk of not having certain vaccines administered to their children.  Thanks to research, many diseases which used to have incredibly high fatality rates are now a distant memory.  However, bacteria and viruses like to evolve, requiring the scientific community to continue to study and to stay ahead of potential outbreaks with newer vaccines. 

I'm a parent who believes that exposure to lots of things helps to limit the number of things that will actually make us sick.  I think there's "good" dirt and there's "bad" dirt.  "Good" dirt has any normal number of bacteria and allergens in it.  For the average child or adult, contact with "good" dirt exposes them to just enough of what's out there for them to develop an immune response.  For healthy adults, this acquired immunity is enough to keep them mostly healthy.  Children, who are more susceptible to viral and bacterial outbreaks, will develop enough of an immunity to either keep them healthy or at least keep their active stage minimal. 

What's "bad" dirt?  Dirt that's got measurably high amounts of toxins, environmental or man-made.  Fertilizer.  The manure pile. Anything on the property of a manufacturing plant.  DON'T EAT THAT SHIT, KIDS.

Vaccinations recommended for children today cover a wide range of potential diseases.  While they are all truly optional, there is plenty of evidence to support administering them to as much of the population as possible, particularly to children.  The current standards recommend childhood vaccines for:

• Hepatits A
• Hepatitis B
• Diptheria
• Tetanus
• Pertussis
• Meningitis
• Polio
• Pneumococcal disease
• Measles
• Mumps
• Rubella
• Influenza

Newer guidelines recommend inoculating girls against Human Papilloma Virus at age 11.

Now I'm not going to tell you which of these disesases you oughtto vaccinate against.  Presumably you're all adults and presumably you either already know what these diseases do and what they affect and what the case-mortality rates are, and even if you don't you surely know how to use Google and Wikipedia.  I simply wish to illustrate that though there is theory that vaccines cause harm, what gets lost in that argument is what amazing things vaccines have done, such as pretty much eradicating smallpox, which killed about 30% of the Native American population on the West Coast in the 1700's, and killed somewhere between 300 and 500 million peopleduring the 20th century.  Today the only known smallpox viruses in the world are in petri dishes in labs somewhere.  We hope, anyway.  The important thing to know, though, is that inoculations do an incredible amount of good. 

Do drug companies have a responsibility to do everything possible to insure their procucts are safe?  Absolutely. 

There are those that believe that vaccines cause autism and there are those that don't.  I fall into the category of "it hasn't been proven but it could be possible but at the same time there are big risks and small risks and I don't want my kid to get polio" camp.  There was a time when vaccines were stabilized using a mercury based substance known as Thimerosal, and this is the most often cited reason why "vaccines are bad."  Now, my son has autism, and none of his vaccines were stabilized with Thimerosal.  In fact, Thimerosal is being phased out of most vaccine programs in the US and Europe simply because people do not really want to have microsopic amounts of mercury being shot into them along with their vaccines.  The vaccines my children received were stabilized with egg protein.    The thing is, vaccines DO need to be protected against infection growth.  In 1928, 21 children recieved vaccines that had been placed in a preservative and of those 21 children, 12 died of a staph infection. 

Do we really need vaccines?  I think so, but only you can decide that for yourself and your children.    But vaccines aren't the only thing being blamed for autism.  If you really want to prevent autism, so far as I can tell, you pretty much need to stop breathing, eating, drinking, driving, walking outside and living in your home, because all of these things/environments have been linked to autism at some point.

So here's my point and its one I've made before but God knows I love repeating myself (just ask my husband and children):

To all the people who are now going to send me articles about how my prenatal influenza (which I didn't have, by the way) or the chemicals in the chewing gum or the vaccines or the WHATEVERTHEFUCKANYTHING caused my son's autism?  Please JUST DON'T.

Let the science community work on finding the causes of autism and begin to form programs to help prevent it. 

MY interest is not in the why of autism, but in the how,  as in, how to support my child with autism.  How to make sure he gets all the classroom- and home-based assistance possible in order to be the best self that he can possibly be.  To do all of the possible interventions to help drive down the likelihood that he will become dependent on alcohol or drugs to cope with his condition.  To normalize autism for the rest of the world so that they see my son as a person, not as a thing.  To advocate for children and adults with autism and spread awareness that there are many, many people among us whose behaviors we might not understand but who have amazing minds and amazing abilities.  To help others recognize the breathtaking beauty in the simplest of developmental gains for people who are affected with autism.   To be a support system for other parents who are coping with autism in their lives. 

That's the important stuff, right there, folks.

I Need Some Wind for my Sails

Its the end of another week and I am so pathetically grateful to not have to get up tomorrow and put one foot in front of the other while pretending I have it all together I could cry. 

The stress of fending off the world seems to be cumulative, and yesterday I got the good/not so good news that SG might be staying longer on this Nebraska job.  Yay, because its more money into the pathetically empty coffers, but really, BOO because he won't be here for Thanksgiving and I'm so lonely and so tired of dealing with everything and not having my husband at home to sit down after a long day and talk to over a nice glass of wine.  I still have the glass of wine, but the dogs are less interested in hearing about my day than they are in having their dinner RIGHT NOW PLEASE.  If it wasn't for the evenings I get to stop at my parents and visit before I take the kids home I think I would give up the attempt to stay sane.

My struggles pale in comparison to what's happening over in New Jersey and the outside buroughs of New York City, so I should quit complaining.  No matter what's happening in my life, there's someone somewhere dealing with something a hell of a lot worse.  See?  Mindset changed.  Gratitude abounds.

Mr. Race Car Man had a good start to his school year, but has been struggling the last few weeks.  His good days still outnumber his bad days. Last year he had to earn the letters K-I-N-D-L-E by displaying expected behaviors.  If he earned all six letters, he got to either play on my Kindle Fire or play games on the Wii.  This year, since he's older and has gotten better with his skills, his teacher upped the ante and now he has to earn the letters P-L-A-Y G-A-M-E.   If he doesn't earn all eight letters he doesn't get Wii at my house or Playstation if he's at his dad's.  Since he's absolutely mad about gaming, this is a very big incentive for him to master his behaviors and his responses.  He earns his games more days than he does not, but the days he doesn't are really tough days, not just for him but for his teachers and classmates.  Monday morning he decided to run away rather than get on the bus, and my friend Debbie who watches them in the mornings, the aide from the bus and my daughter had to go on a merry chase around the neighborhood to catch him.  The upside of having a very tall and strong daughter is that she was able to nab the little turd and carry him on to the bus.  He then went on to have a very rotten day at school.  I hate those days, because he is so upset and fixated over over not getting to play his games.  Eventually he can be distracted, but he's got to go through his process of coping and folks, it ain't fun.  I feel bad for him, for his classmates, his teacher, and for those of us at home with him.

Fortunately we already had an appointment scheduled with our psychiatrist for Tuesday morning.  One thing I like about our psych is that he doesn't just ask me questions, he asks my child questions and carefully responds to him.  Throught a very calm and methodical interview, we were able to piece together some of the things that were going wrong for Race Car Man at school.  He is having great difficulty focusing in class.  He is very easily distracted by other students physical and verbal behavior.  This frustrates him greatly and makes him more likely to have difficulty controlling his behavior.

The psychiatrist made a med adjustment which we started immediately, and so far it seems to be helping.  Two fantastic days in a row doesn't mean as much as a couple of good weeks, so I'm not going to commit to saying "it worked!" -- but I'm encouraged. 

He can be such an engaging child.  A lot of adults we encounter who don't know he has autism, if he's having a good day, are usually charmed by the way he interacts with them.  He loves to explain things, and with his extremely detailed memory and his love of reading information books rather than fiction, he can actually converse about a lot of things.  Combined with his extensive and very precise vocabulary, he seems far beyond his years. 

I wish he'd eat, though.  We weighed and measured him at the doctor's office.  Since last school year he's grown three inches but gained no weight whatsoever.  I can't find pants to fit him that don't leave his ankles and half his shins exposed.

One of his favorite new activities is to brush his sister's hair.   Its almost to her waist now, and I found a special brush at the local beauty supply that lives up to its claims of being "ouchless."  He will sit behind her in the chair at my desk, and while she plays a game he brushes her hair.  Whenever they do this my heart just melts.

So things aren't as good as they could be and they aren't as bad as they could be.  I just feel drained right now and unable to cope with even the smallest setbacks.  Maybe Race Car Man isn't the only one who needs a medication change.

 

First

SG and I got married a year ago today.  Yay us!

I'm very distressed, though, because the gift that I made sure I picked out and mailed early enough to reach him has not yet found its way to his hotel.  Interestingly enough, the absentee ballot I also mailed to him on the same day got there two days ago, so I'm a bit perturbed. 

His gift to me arrived on time, of course, in the form a a beautiful dozen long-stemmed roses.  I'm not normally a flowers-and-jewelry form of female, but even cynical me has to admit red roses are really the most romantic bouquet a man could ever give a woman.  I love them.  I'd trade them in a heartbeat to have him home, but since that option is not available to me I'll just enjoy the roses and look forward to seeing him in a few weeks.

I've wondered a few times before and since if we rushed into things, getting married just a hair under a year after we first met.  I've always been a creature of impulse, but as I've aged I've learned to question myself.  Oh, I still do ALL THE STUPID THINGS but at least I question myself while I'm doing them. 

I'm not one of those who thinks that every venture in life can be carefully planned so as to avoid making any mistakes.  So we didn't date for ten years or have a five year engagement. At this stage of our lives, are we beyond that sort of thing?  Is it OK to just say the heart wants what it wants, you make my girl parts hum with joy and you love me and you love me kids and all of that put together adds up to more than enough?  So we hitched our wagons together and we learn as we go, we grow as we learn, and over time we come together more easily because we've built a future on a base of love, trust and very real passion.  The faults we didn't recognize in one another we are learning to accept and forgive. 

Being a little older, besides giving me a nice antique feel, helps me understand that life and relationships have a degree of ebb and flow  SG and I, we accept that there are days we won't click or feel very close, and we have acquired the patience to get through those days with the sure knowledge that the tide will change and we will soon be back in sync.  We are in sync far more often than we are not. The not-syncing times can be unpleasant - we are smart, we are emotional, we both think we're right and we're both alpha types.  That makes for some pretty spectacular clashes, but the making up part is also pretty spectacular.

Happy First Anniversary, babe.  I'm looking forward to many more.

 

If its Halloween I must be hiding in the dark

This year's Halloween was the epitome of anticlimactic.  I took the kids costume shopping a few weeks ago.  Amazon Girl wanted to dress up in a devil outfit.  We couldn't find a child's costume in her size, so we found the one adult costume that didn't look like it needed fishnet stockings  and six-inch fuck-me stilettos to go with it.  She looked absolutely adorable in it, but nobody will believe she's satan.  She's just too stinking sweet.

Race Car Man went as Atom, the robot character from a movie about fighting robots the name of which escapes me at the moment and which I am absolutely too lazy to bother Googling. 

Our parenting agreement says we each get two hours for Halloween.  My ex texted me to say he wanted to have his two hours early.  Well, from my perspective that really makes no sense. Its HIS week to have them, they're getting off the bus at my house.  Is it really going to be an enjoyable Halloween for them to get picked up, trick-or-treat for two hours, get driven back to my house to trick or treat for two more hours and then have to make yet another twenty minute drive back to dad's house?  On a school night?  And still have showers and homework?  Yeah, I didn't think so either.   

I decided to just opt out of my two hour slot and let them go to enjoy their evening with their Dad.  Our rural street is lousy for trick-or-treating anyway - there aren't any streetlamps so its pitch black out, and most of the neighbors either don't celebrate Halloween or go somewhere else to do it.

That left me free to do whatever I wanted for the evening.  Except I'm not really high on everyone's social invite list what with me never going out to anything anywhere.  At the same time, I really didn't want to deal with the low-level anxiety that always accompanies a Halloween where we entertain trick-or-treaters.  Every time the doorbell rings or someone knocks, there is a chorus of angry barking from the House Pack.  Since I always keep the cats inside on Halloween, inevitably one of them will try to make an escape while I'm shoveling candy into buckets which then necessitates me wandering around calling "Heeeere kitty kitty kitty" for a half hour.   Its absolutely nervewracking.  And because of the aforementioned Reasons My Neighborhood Sucks on Halloween, the reality is that I could sit there and be anxious and keep my poor dogs in the crate all night and get no kids at the door at ALL.  Or I could get one trick-or-treater or I could get ten.  There's never been any consistency to it. 

Since I couldn't be bothered to take my "Middle Aged Woman who can't decide what to be" costume and go out somewhere, I decided to roll over and play dead instead.  What with the events on the East Coast which have affected so many people, including close friends who still don't know if they have a house or any of their belongings left, it seemed appropriate to keep a quiet evening. 

I turned off all the lights in the house, including the front-porch light, made sure all the dogs and cats were safely inside, and then made sure for the rest of the night the house looked as if no one was home.  This entailed holing up in my kitchen with only the light over the stove and the light of the laptop; bathroom trips involved first quickly looking around the corner and out the living room window to make sure there were no little goblins and witches standing at the corner of the yard trying to decide whether to ring my doorbell and then using the light from my cell phone screen to make it down the hall so I could pee in the dark.

I felt a lot like the Halloween version of Scrooge, but it was still better than handing out candy while the dogs raised hell and the cats tried to dash out the door.

How was your Halloween?