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This is Halloween

October 31, 2017

Dear Todd,
How can one holiday go from magical, and fun, and a personal favorite to exhausted, stress-filled bullshit? It's not a riddle. It's parenting.

It's several things...

(1) the double costume hell of the "dress like your favorite literary character" at school coupled with, "But for REAL Halloween I wanna be a psycho clown killer riding on a T-Rex."

(2) The the "My friends are Trick or Treating over there and I'm not invited, and I don't want to Trick or Treat with the little (only by 23 months) kids."

(3) The problem-solving of how to make a teenager feel "big" only to finally come up with a solution  and get squashed by the, "Oh I am invited!" And then there were 2.

(4) A nice invite from the youngest's group "Does he want to go with the kids in this group?"

(5)And then an invite for the middle, "We'd love to have her in our neighborhood."  

ALL GREAT PROBLEMS TO HAVE---DON'T GET ME WRONG. But our younger children want to go together. So now, after rejecting friends, we rejoin our program with our daily "Fox, Chicken, Farmer, Grain" puzzle.

A 13yr old wants to be on the North side of town at 5:30.
The North side of town is anywhere from 15-35 mins away depending on traffic and time of day.
A 10 and 12yr old want to start Trick or Treating by 6pm
They want an adult to walk with them cuz they like that.
An adult has to drive the car
An adult has to hand out candy cuz I don't feel like testing the "honor" method this year
An adult has to take pictures of the kids in costumes.
A dog must be sedated. Or something.

So....pictures will take place at 4:45...
I will drive to the North Side and drop off one...
You will be in charge of candy/we have to sit on the driveway and kennel the lovable beast. I will be back and we can drink in the driveway.
The younger two can frolic parent-free throughout the hood. They'll be fine. Our 12yr old has a mean leg-sweep. And the 10 yr old won't let anyone or anything come between him and his candy. At somepoint I will go pick up the teenager.

So this tiny "blip" on the radar of our day has been solved.

Remember when it was grab a costume and meet at the bar?

Next Year...we gotta have a party...

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