Booooogle-ween

Today was the company Halloween party for kids at Ken's work.

Kelly's had half days this week, and I've been off-and-on in charge of several of her friends (and acquaintances) who couldn't make alternate child-care arrangements.

This is on the heels of Ken getting over pneumonia. Yes, the skies opened, and light shone down from heaven, and the angels sang, and the lyrics went something like this:

"Go see a doctor! Hallelujah Amen"

So Ken's spent the last 2 weeks on antibiotics and an inhaler, after actually taking some sick days, and asking me if it's unusual for your lungs to feel like they're full of bubbles first thing in the morning.

Yikes.

Why I even mention that Ken is getting over pneumonia, is because I came down with something pretty awful on Sunday afternoon while I was sobbing into my sleeve at every other scene in Secretariat. And i would have loved to crawl into bed and stay there for a week, but Kelly's costume wasn't finished, Skip didn't even know what he wanted to be, my tutoring schedule started on Monday, and I had a costumed Guitar Lady gig on Wednesday that couldn't be rescheduled. And I thought I had until Halloween to finish the costumes, but it turns out that today was the day for the Company Work Party, and it also coincided with me having two of Kelly's friends staying with us.

So, this is my day:

• Skip leaves at dawn with Ken. Ken has a basketball game and an appointment with his knee surgeon (surgery's scheduled for next month, unless the pneumonia pushes it back a bit). He will drop Skip at school on his way.


• I get Nate and Kelly up. It's 'wear purple' day at Nate's school, and "backwards day" at Kelly's. Couldn't the schools agree on the whole 'school spirit' thing? It would make life easier for me. But Kelly gives Nate one of her (many) purple sweaters, and he's happy.


• I can't find my keys, Nate can't find his shoes, we're running late to get Kelly to her 'walk to school' rendezvous, so I drop Nate at the rendezvous point, so he can walk to school, and I take Kelly in.


• I realize that I haven't eaten since lunch on Sunday (no. SRSLY) so I stop at Starbucks on my way to my Moms in Touch meeting, and get a slice of lemon loaf and a cup of tea. Break fast, in the truest sense of the word.


• After my meeting, it's back to the house to start the dishwasher, and switch the laundry over. Oh, and I may have done one or two rounds of Bejeweled on Facebook. I confess. I'm an addict.


• Time to head up to Nate's school to tutor until lunch.


• Ding! Go home and hunt for the supplies to make Kelly's crown. She's 'Queen Lucy of Narnia' this year.


• Phone rings. Kelly's still at school and can't find Gail. Whoops. Forgot to tell Kelly that only Adria is coming home now. We'll be getting Gail from another school where she's doing some community service this afternoon.


• Go get Kelly and Adria.


• Make lunch. While girls eat, I make the crown, and finish Kelly's costume. It is rough. really rough. A hack job. But I am sick. Yes, that is my excuse. And I tried to cut down a Women's size 6 pattern to fit a Girl's size 10. Not smart.


• 2:30 Time to get Nate from school. Whoops. Go back. Get Nate's costume from his room. Start again.


• 2:40 Get Nate


• 2:50 Get Gail from her other school.


• 3:00 Get Skip from the juice bar where he's been waiting for me. Whew. Still have my Guitar Lady costume stuff in the van. He can use that.


• 3:30 Get Ken from his office, and drive over to the other part of the work campus for the Halloween party.


• 4:45 Leave Nate with Ken, and take remaining kids for supper. Skip tells me what he wants to make for his 'real' Halloween costume, and i tell him I will get components while he's out at the youth event tonight.


• 6:00 Drop Skip and the girls off at the Youth Chill night at our church.


• 6:00-8:00 Cruise around Joanns and Michaels looking for Skip's costume parts.


• 8:00 Collect kids from church.


• 8:20 Drop Gail off at the half-way point to her parents' house


• 8:40 Drop Adria off at her house.


• 8:50 Arrive home. I would like to fall over dead, as the cough medicine wore off long ago, as did the fever reducer and pain reliever.


• 9:00 Nate has a complete melt down. Apparently, his homework was in my car the whole time (he went home with Ken, so Ken could use the carpool lane, and i didn't have to detour on my way to get the kids to Youth). And when you don't hand in homework on Friday, you go to "Homework Workshop", which, to my mind sounds fine, but in his eyes, it is A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH. And he is inconsolable. You should see the tears! It took me until nearly 10 to get him into bed, with promises of getting up early to help him with the parts that he doesn't understand (apparently, the Friday homework involves 'creative writing', and we all know how much the boys in our family do with that. Ahem)

But I didn't start this entry to detail a day that really should have been summed up in one line

• The kids took care of themselves, and I slept all day.

I really wanted to show you the Halloween Party.

Boooooooo.

And the sky! Oh, it was wild. It was all glowering and dimply, and if it had even THOUGHT of turning that sick color of green that people talk about, I would've been taking shelter faster than you could say "Auntie Em".

(this was looking in the 'good' direction. Still a bit of sun, and some breaks in the cloud cover)

And then we went to play with Stan.

Here you go, Stan. Have a flamingo.

And I would write more, but my daughter just came down to say "remember when you said you might be able to make Beaver Tails for my first period Halloween party tomorrow? Is it too late to remind you?"

Argh.