If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you might already know that we had a heckuva travel day Tuesday. In fact, our travels didn’t end till the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday.

Things started out fine. Troy made it home from work in plenty of time to get us to the airport on schedule. As we were checking out snazzy new luggage in, we learned that the flight was going to be leaving about 30 minutes late. That was okay, it gave us more time to eat.

After grabbing dinner, we went through security and made our way over to the gate. Annalie sat in her usual spot by the windows, watching for our plane to arrive. Another delay was announced. There was terrible weather between DC and Omaha, so we wouldn’t be able to take off for another hour at least. I called my mom and Troy to let them know what was going on. I said a little prayer of thanks that my kids were handling the delays with such aplomb.

Annalie kept herself busy watching movies on my iPod and playing with her teddy bear. Elliora got a little fussy and I set her on a chair for a minute so I could put the sling on, but she stopped fussing as soon as I put her down and I remembered, Oh, right, this is the kid who actually likes to be put down once in a while. She’s five months old and I am still having to remind myself daily that she is not exactly like Annalie.

As if to drive that point home, when she did eventually get tired enough that she was ready to sleep, Elliora didn’t want to nurse but she did want to suck on a pacifier. Annalie totally refused all pacifiers till she was a toddler and stopped nursing—at which point she’d sometimes request a pacifier when she was sad or hurt, suck on it for a few minutes, then give it back to me—but Elliora occasionally does want one.

We finally boarded the plane at 11 o’clock, three hours late. If we’d taken off on schedule, we would have been landing in Omaha right about then. Once everyone was on board, the pilot came on and made a rambling announcement about how the weather was affecting planes all over the eastern seaboard and the FAA tends to get cranky when there are so many planes wanting to take off at once so we had to wait a while longer while a bunch of planes took off ahead of us. So we sat there, all buckled up, for another half-hour waiting for our turn at the runway.

Elliora SCREAMED HER LUNGS OUT the entire time we sat there. She didn’t want to nurse or suck a pacifier or my finger, she didn’t want to burp or stand up or play with a toy, she didn’t want to snuggle on my shoulder or look out the window or bounce. I was certain that she was mad that the lights were on in the cabin and that she would settle down as soon as they turned the lights off. I felt like standing up and making an announcement to that effect to all the other passengers, whom I’m sure were listening to her screams and thinking, “Oh, GREAT,” but I didn’t. I just kept going through the cycle of ways to calm her down—nurse pacifier finger burp stand toy snuggle window bounce—and she’d get calm for a second and then realize the lights were still on and scream again.

When they finally let us start taxiing and turned the cabin lights out, she settled down immediately and nursed for about 30 seconds before passing out cold. She stayed asleep for the entire 2.5-hour flight, while we deplaned and walked all the way to meet my parents, while we were picking up our bags, and as we walked outside to the car. She didn’t wake up till I was buckling her into the carseat.

It wasn’t exactly fun, all those delays late at night with two kids, but it could have been so much worse. Annalie did a good job keeping herself busy, and Elliora slept for about an hour in the sling. The hardest parts were Elliora screaming for that half-hour, and Annalie feeling a bit airsick during the flight. She never threw up or anything. I think it was just a combination of her being extremely tired and the flight being slightly bumpy. She fell asleep for an hour or so in the middle of the flight and after that she felt better and watched an episode of Chuck on my laptop till we landed. (I asked her which one she wanted to watch, and she said, “A new one.” I asked if she wanted to watch the one (*Spoilers!*) where Ellie and Awesome have their baby and she said, surprised, “They have a baby!?” I laughed and said I guessed it had been a while since she watched Chuck.)

We’ve been taking it easy since we got here, since our whole first day here we were all recovering from being up so late. Today we spent running errands and hanging out with Aurora. It’s nice knowing we’ll be here for almost three weeks and not feeling like we have to rush to fit everyone into our schedule. If you’re in Omaha, we hope to see you soon!

*Post title is a movie quote. Anyone?

It’s ironic (or is it?! I’m always fuzzy on the definition of irony, thanks to Alanis Morissette) that the day after writing a post about how much easier our lives could be if I just remember to be more playful, I am writing a post about how my parenting report card today would be stamped with a great big FAIL.

Today I lost my temper at Annalie over something kind of stupid. She threw a fit over having to leave the house for dinner, then got mad because she had to put on long pants (a fight I have with her EVERY SINGLE DAY, every time we need to leave the house, oh my goodness does this kid ever need to live in Southern California). Then it went even further downhill, probably largely because she was hungry, which was why we were leaving the house to get some dinner.

I was hungry too, and I have the same tendency to be 300% more irritated by life when I’m hungry, so it took a lot of effort for me to stay calm. But by golly, I did. I spent 20 minutes patiently, calmly talking to Annalie. I reminded her she was hungry. I pointed out that 45F isn’t warm enough to go outside in a skirt and tank top. She was not entirely happy but had simmered down and even put on tights and was ready to leave.

And then she changed her mind. I don’t even know exactly what it was, but something set her back to square one and she told me, in that hmmph-so-there voice that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, that she wasn’t leaving the house ever again and I couldn’t make her. Then she laid down on her bed and grabbed the headboard like I was going to have to pry her off.

I saw red. I yelled at her. I pushed her down the hall towards Troy and stomped into my room to count to 100. I rested my forehead on the wall and took deep, shaky breaths. I listened to Annalie wailing, to Troy talking to her, to poor Elliora strapped into the infant seat, crying her head off. I hated myself just a little bit.

I pulled myself together and joined my family. I took Elliora out of the seat and comforted her. I hugged Annalie and asked her how much better she thought I felt now that I’d yelled at her. She said she didn’t know. I told her, “Not better at all. I feel worse. How do you feel?” She admitted she felt worse too. We all calmed down and talked and apologized and forgave. We went to dinner and came home and Annalie went to bed happy and serene while I laid on the couch and nursed Elliora and had a good cry.

I think what’s going on right now, mainly, is that Annalie is dealing with not having me to herself anymore. She is understandably frustrated at having to share my time, and that it often seems like the lion’s share of that is going to Elliora these days. Lately Annalie has been unusually snippy with me and angry at me. I know it’s all part of the process of learning to deal, and I’m glad she is taking it out on me and not the baby (with whom she is unfailingly gentle and loving), but it’s still trying. And today we were both hungry and I was tired and breastfeeding hormones probably played a part and just arrrrrgggghhhh.

On top of that, school has been challenging. I’ve been trying hard for the last month to get back into a routine with school, and Annalie is fighting me every step of the way. For every hour of school we do, I spend easily another hour convincing her. It’s exhausting.

Part of me thinks it’s no big deal. She is in first grade; putting the curriculum on hold and unschooling for another month or so won’t hurt her. We still read books every day, and she reads and writes plenty on her own. We talk about time and dates and prices and measurements every day, in real-life situations at the store, while cooking, while planning a trip. Now that the weather is warming up, and Elliora is a bit older and doesn’t hate the car quite as much, we can start going to the library regularly and hitting the museums again. We can keep plugging away at our year’s curriculum right through summer if we want to. We’re going to start using Time4Learning as a supplement (thanks, Yara!) and I’m hopeful that it will be a good fit for Annalie’s learning style and our needs right now.

[I am a bit apprehensive leaving the negative stuff about homeschooling in this post because I've gotten some pretty negative responses from people about this kind of thing in the past. Please know that I am not saying homeschooling is too hard for us, because I'm not; I'm saying that right now homeschooling is challenging but we are persevering because I want to teach my kids about perseverance and flexibility just as much as I want to teach them how to read and write. If I honestly thought homeschooling wasn't working for us anymore we wouldn't be doing it. It's as simple as that. And I want to be honest about our struggles because if someone else is struggling in their homeschool at least they won't read my blog under the erroneous impression that homeschooling comes easily to everyone else in the world but them.]

On top of everything else Troy’s job is crazy busy right now and he’s basically leaving for work before we get up and getting home just in time to tuck Annalie in at night. As you can imagine this is stressing all of us out for various reasons.

I’m truly okay now. I talked to Troy and my mom and Brenda and Madge. Brenda and Madge both told me that when I lose my temper at my kid, it’s an opportunity for me to help her learn how to deal with anger and angry people, and also a chance to teach her about how even her parents aren’t perfect. (Gasp! Shocking but true.) My mom and Troy both had good ideas for ways to help Annalie learn to deal with her frustration. They all reminded me that things will get easier and I know they are right. I am stretched pretty thin right now, with nursing a baby and homeschooling a first-grader and attempting to keep the house in some kind of order on days that are too cold for Annalie to play outside, and I need to be as kind to myself as I would to anyone else in this situation. So I’m trying.

Sarah commented on the last post that Annalie’s vocabulary is so good for her age that it’s easy to forget she’s just a little kid. I confess I have the same problem sometimes. Annalie is so mature and smart and empathetic in some ways, but in other ways she is still very much six-going-on-seven. I am guilty of expecting too much of her at times. Especially since Elliora was born, I think, since in comparison with a four-month-old Annalie seems impossibly grown-up. But she’s not. She’s still a kid in need of snuggles and silliness and reassurance and guidance and tons of patience and understanding and love. Though really, what adult doesn’t need those things too?

Tomorrow is another day. It might bring more temper tantrums, it might not. Either way, we’ll handle it and I will attempt to remain calm and remember that we’re all doing the best we can under the circumstances, knowing it will get easier eventually. Or I’ll get stronger in the process. Probably both.

How are you today?

2:18 – Leave for base hospital. Drive should take 25 minutes in normal traffic.

3:08 – After finding a parking space, putting up sunshade in futile attempt to keep interior temperature of the minivan from reaching 100F, jogging across parking lot and into hospital, and taking elevator up three floors, arrive eight minutes late for 3:00 appointment.

3:20 – Go with nurse to get weight, blood pressure, etc. Back to waiting room to read books to Annalie.

3:42 – Finally called back to see doctor. Same friendly nurse shows us to exam room and promises doctor will be there shortly. Ask if I have time to pee first, am assured that I do.

3:45 – After returning to exam room, nurse peeks her head in door, apologetically explains that the doctor wants to do a urine dip*, and asks if I have any pee left in me at all. Magical pregnancy superpower #8: always being able to pee, even if you just went three minutes ago.

*Up to this point, the doctor had never wanted to do that particular test. I’d asked at every previous visit before using the restroom. Of course this is the one visit I didn’t ask first.

3:50 – Doctor comes in, introduces himself* to me and Annalie. Measures my belly, listens to baby’s heartbeat, asks a few questions. Assures me everything looks good, says they’ll see me in four weeks.

*I had to reschedule an appointment, and my regular OB was unavailable.

4:00 – Check waiting area in pharmacy. Doesn’t look too bad. Decide to take number in order to ask question about refilling prescription. Only seven more people before number is called. Man, it’s hot in here. Air-conditioning seems to be on the fritz. Yes, Annalie, I’m hot too. Yes, I know you’re hungry. Here, have a granola bar, and hang in there. It will be our turn soon.

4:05 – Half the pharmacy windows close. Line moves much more slowly. Annalie amuses self and people sitting nearby with old cell phone that can still take photos. She takes photos of Red Cross sign, her feet, pattern on my shirt, slip of paper with number on it.

4:55 – Number finally comes up. Prescription filled quickly and with minimum fuss. Yay! Head out to minivan.

5:00 – Leave parking lot. Wonder how long it will take to drive mile to base gate at this time of day. Share second granola bar with Annalie. Drive s-l-o-w-l-y towards gate with rest of people leaving base.

5:15 – Drive out gate and onto highway.

5:30 – Find non-fast-food restaurant to eat dinner and wait out worst of rush-hour traffic. Annalie is tired and hungry and falling totally apart because she wanted fast food with a playland. And her shoes hurt. And she wants to go home so she can swim. I explain getting home right now would take at least an hour at this time of day. Might as well eat dinner first. She allows herself to be dragged into restaurant, where she loads her plate at salad bar with broccoli, peas, garbanzo beans, black olives, chopped ham, and grapes. She cheerfully devours it all, plus seconds of ham and grapes.

6:05 – Driving out of restaurant parking lot, I spot Payless Shoesource in adjacent strip mall and suggest we kill more time there. Annalie immediately agrees; she loves trying on shoes.

6:20 – Nothing we wanted to buy at shoe store, so we stroll down mall to TJ Maxx, where we find no children’s shoes but lots of cute outfits for Baby, Annalie, and Aurora. Annalie looks at toys while I narrow down pile to one clearance item each for Baby and Aurora; one clearance skirt and one clearance swimsuit* for Annalie. Before we pay, Annalie shows me a toy and asks if she can get it. I say no, not unless you get rid of five toys you already have at home. She sighs and returns toy to shelf without further argument. I make mental note to remember that comeback.

*Annalie has suddenly outgrown all her tank swimsuits from last year, even though they fit her at the beginning of summer. I think she’s grown another inch in the past month.

6:40 – One last stop at Walgreens to look for cheap flip-flops for Annalie. Instead find cheap fake Crocs. Also find candy bars on sale and pick up half-dozen, planning to eat one on drive home, save rest for later. Go stand in line at register.

6:55 – Still standing in line, which now has seven people in it. Long line for a drugstore. Someone announces cosmetics counter open, whole line shuffles over there to pay. Leave store, walking past same woman at original register, still arguing with manager.

7:00 – At last, driving home. Traffic is still heavy but moving briskly. Take slightly different route home to avoid construction delays. Spot no fewer than five vehicles driving along with left turn signals blinking steadily away despite no apparent desire to turn or merge. Wonder if it was Leave Your Left Turn Signal On Day or something.

7:25 – Arrive home. Whew.

The Tuesday before we left for Omaha, we headed back down to Southern Maryland to spend the day hanging out with friends. Angela and her girls were still in town from Indiana, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could with them before we left.

We went to the sprayground, we played at our friends’ house, we met everyone for a chaotic but fun dinner at Applebee’s where the waitress was awesome and earned her generous tip. And then, of course, we all went to get tiny cones on the boardwalk!

Well, some of us got regular-sized cones, but that’s okay. The kids are all bigger now than they were in the old days when we used to go get tiny cones together. The point is, we all enjoyed our ice cream.

The kids had a great time watching this mama duck and her duckling, who obligingly stayed close to the boardwalk the whole time we were eating. The little one would scamper up onto the rocks occasionally and send all the bugs scattering, but not before she caught one or two for a snack. It was quite entertaining.

The kids played on the playground, ran around on the grass, made silly faces, and just enjoyed being together.

I made silly faces myself at Miss Kate, and got her to smile for me. I love gummy, scrunchy-faced baby smiles!

I even remembered to grab a quick photo of me and Ang, for once. I rarely remember to get myself in any of the photos. I’m really glad I took this one, though, because I love it of both of us.

As we all started to leave, Gabby asked if she could take a picture of Annalie holding her baby sister. Then a few other kids jumped in, too.

We had parked by a small beach near the boardwalk, and as we all walked to our cars, Annalie noticed the sun setting over the river. She climbed onto one of the posts to sit and admire the view and exclaimed, “Isn’t it just beautiful!? I could sit and look at the river all day!” I don’t know where she gets this stuff, but I love it.

Even though that week was crazy and we had a lot to accomplish before we left for Omaha, I’m so glad we made time to spend a day with friends. It was well worth it.

The last weekend of June, we packed a lot of fun into a few short days. In addition to teaching the dottery class, we attended two birthday parties in one day and then drove four hours to the beach to hang out with Anna and her family, before driving three hours back home the next night. Whew! It was crazy but totally worth it.

First, we went to Karalyn’s 6th birthday party. It was a puppies-and-kittens party! The kids did puppy- and kitten-themed crafts and played games. The parents who hung out either helped as they were needed, pretended they were paparazzi, or hung out chatting, eating snacks, and passing around baby Kate.

Jill decorated Karalyn’s cake with an assortment of Littlest Pet Shop toys and candy bones, and there were also cupcakes with puppy and kitten toppers.

The weather was HOT that day, so the classic fill-the-buckets water relay game was especially welcome.

The party officially ended after a couple of hours, but we stuck around, eating Jill and Andy’s food and visiting with friends. It was particularly nice to see Angela and her girls, who had come from Indiana for a long visit just in time for the party. It was so nice to see them, in fact, that Angela and I lost track of time as we blathered away and we were late leaving for the next birthday party…

…for Jack! It’s hard to believe our adorable godson is already four years old, but it’s true.

We celebrated by climbing all over the PlayPlace and eating Happy Meals and Ronald McDonald cake and sundaes, because that’s the kind of birthday party smart parents plan when they have a tiny newborn daughter to take care of!

Did I mention the sundaes? They came with mini M&M’s and Oreo bits for topping. Those sundaes were a big hit.

Can you tell these two goofballs are related? They both posed like that, without prompting, when I pointed my camera at them.

Basically, a great time was had by all—what kid doesn’t love a McD’s PlayPlace?—and no one had to clean up their house or clean up after the party. Win! And with that, we said our good-byes and headed out to our minivan to make the long drive to the beach.

I was gonna write about the beach too, but this post is long enough and our trip to the beach deserves its own post. Standby…

We got to the airport a little early, and had to wait for 20 minutes or so for Brenda and Bug to arrive. When they finally walked around the corner and we saw each other, Bug smiled hugely and ran towards us as Annalie danced a little with the effort of keeping herself from running past the security sign. They hugged each other happily, then held hands and chattered nonstop as we walked to the baggage claim. The past month is probably the longest they’ve gone without seeing each other in the past two years!

That night after the kids were in bed, Brenda and I worked on unpacking the kitchen. When we came across the box that had our ridiculously-large-for-people-who-don’t-really-drink-much wine collection in it, I found a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and decided it was just what we needed. Apparently I was right because around midnight we finished the kitchen.

Yesterday we celebrated my birthday by having lunch with friends and painting pottery, which was a lovely way to spend my birthday. I was also treated to many emails, texts, Facebook and Twitter greetings, and phone calls wishing me the best. My birthday was rather anticlimactic this year what with being in the middle of moving and everything, but all the kind, funny notes made me smile and feel loved. Thanks for all of those!

Today we unpacked a bit, then went on a monster trip to IKEA where we bought Annalie a dresser and picked out a couch and living room rug to buy later and Annalie and Bug discovered that they completely love Småland (the kids’ play area). We were all wiped out by the time we got home. Also, it’s been raining all day (yay!) and the hole in our ceiling we were assured “is just cosmetic, the roof is fixed, we just need to repair the ceiling” has been leaking on and off (boo!). I used my recently-unpacked kitchen to make some really delicious homemade chili which was perfect for the rainy day. While I made the chili Brenda cleared the empty, flattened boxes out of the living room and did some more unpacking. I’m starting to think we’ll have this house DONE in no time.

There are more photos on my Flickr in Brenda & Bug’s D.C. Unpacking Adventure, if you wanna see ‘em.

This is when the whole moving-across-the-country thing gets easier, once the movers are here and have packed up most of our belongings. We’ve already organized and sorted and done laundry and figured out what we need to take with us on our road trip and set that all aside. Once the movers take everything else with them, it’s not our responsibility any more. Now we just have to drive, find pet-friendly hotels with pools to stay at, visit some family and friends along the way, and find a place to live once we get there, preferably before Troy has to start his new job. Piece of cake. (Ha.)

The house is full of boxes, stacks and stacks of them. The movers left our beds up so we could stay here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do a last load of laundry to wash the sheets and towels we’re using, and then those will all get packed and loaded onto the truck with everything else.

Our dear friends the Jays are moving to Japan next week. What with one thing and another, we hadn’t seen them in months. We barely managed to see them at all before we all left California. From the time Troy got home till now, we were pretty much busy every day they were free and vice-versa. But they managed to carve out a couple of hours between meetings and appointments and entertaining out-of-town visitors to come have lunch with us today, and we’re so very glad they did. Seeing them is always wonderful, even when months or years have gone by in between times, which makes perfect sense because they’re framily.

Framily is D’s fabulous word for friends who are such great friends that they’re like family. Except framily is better, because there’s no baggage, no drama or getting mad if you can’t make it to Thanksgiving dinner. There’s just, “Too bad, hope you can make it next time!” Everyone should have framily like the Jays.

We had a great crew of guys packing us out today. They were all efficient, professional, friendly, and courteous. We always bribe our movers to handle our stuff with care show our appreciation to our movers by supplying them with drinks and food throughout the day. Usually we have coffee, bottled water, and soda on hand as well as offering to buy them pizza or some other takeout for lunch. This morning I was going to make a Starbucks run, and went around the house asking each of the guys if I could bring them back a coffee. One guy asked for black coffee, another said decaf with cream would be great. And the biggest, burliest, tattooed-est guy asked if I could get him a grande iced caramel macchiato. That totally made my day.

Tomorrow they’ll load up the truck. Our car will get picked up so it can get shipped across the country. We’ll clean and take care of some odds and ends, maybe go see a movie if we have time, eat dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. Saturday the carpet will be cleaned, we’ll meet with our landlords, and then we’ll head east. Good thing we’re planning to visit family in Texas for a couple of days along the way; that’ll give the snow more time to melt before we get to D.C.

Yep, Lauren’s been here for a couple of days now, and we’re having fun. We’ve fed her Mexican food and Italian food and Chick-Fil-A and homemade french toast. We’ve introduced her to Fresca and she’s introduced us to Tim Tams, which are delightful.

We’ve painted pottery and made Shrinky-Dinks. We’ve taken her to Michaels twice, where she’s bought lots of yarn that she can’t buy at home; and to my local specialty yarn shop once, where she bought more yarn and I allowed myself to be (1) convinced that I could learn to knit (gulp!) socks, and (2) talked into buying some really gorgeous sock yarn (not pictured).

We made plans to go to the Air & Space Museum, but ended up postponing them because the morning got away from us. We tried to go to Old Town but when we got there we saw all the red shirts and jackets and realized that it was overrun with tourists from Nebraska who are in town for the Holiday Bowl. Normally we’d be quite pleased to see Nebraskans, but in this case they’d taken all the parking spaces and left none for us. We ended up postponing our Old Town trip too, but I did take Lauren to our local post office where she watched me mail packages to A. Erin and Sarah. I’m sure that was very exciting.

Then, after a trip to Ralphs for some groceries, the minivan broke down. When I called my insurance company’s roadside assistance number, I was informed by a recording that due to “severe weather” in my area the wait for service was averaging four hours. You know you’re in Southern California when misty rain is “severe weather.” My mom and Annalie waited for us at the store while Lauren and I walked the half-mile back to my house to get the car so we could go back and get them and the groceries.

Later on in the evening, Lauren realized her credit card had been hacked and someone had bought $700 worth of online gaming with it. She had to cancel it, and tomorrow while I’m seeing about getting the minivan towed and fixed, she’ll be waiting around my house for someone to bring her an emergency replacement Visa because it’s kind of nice to have such a thing for, y’know, emergencies when one is traveling overseas.

The good news is, we’ve been catching Lauren up on Season 2 of Chuck, since Season 3 will be starting in just over a week. That’s why I have not blogged much: we’ve been spending our evenings crocheting & knitting, talking, eating too much junk food, and watching episodes of Chuck. Despite theft and breakdowns and interrupted plans, life is good.

This was the plan for Halloween weekend: on Friday, Brenda and Bug would arrive just before lunchtime. Jen would arrive sometime around lunch for her one-day-late birthday celebration with us. We’d do some fun crafty things with the kids, carve pumpkins, and then my mom would watch Annalie and Bug while Jen and Brenda and I went to paint some pottery. We’d have a delicious dinner, with some kind of yummy dessert in Jen’s honor. After we waved Jen on her way home, we’d put the kids to bed and then Brenda and my mom and I would hang out with our laptops and watch Mad Men and Castle.

On Saturday, Brenda’s mom Sue, sister-in-law Heather, and nieces Rapunzel and SuperChic were going to arrive around noon. We’d make a fun Halloween lunch of mummy hot dogs and roasted garlic-rosemary potatoes and cucumbers. We’d eat late, so the kids wouldn’t be too hungry when we went trick-or-treating at the mall right at dinnertime. Then we’d come back home and let the kids eat candy while we hung out in the front yard with the gate open and handed out candy to any trick-or-treaters who passed by. Maybe we’d watch a Halloween movie before bedtime, and have popcorn for dinner.

On Sunday morning, I’d make aebleskivers for breakfast before we attempted to get to church. If no one was in a hurry to leave, maybe we’d go paint pottery again, and take the kids this time. It would be a busy but fun-filled weekend.

Those were our plans. Now would you like to hear what actually happened?

Friday morning, I got an email from Jen telling me that she wasn’t going to be able to come. Her oldest daughter had been having a rough week at school, so Jen wanted to go to her daughter’s class Halloween party as a surprise. Also. Jen’s mom had been admitted to the hospital with what was probably H1N1, and Jen wanted to be there in case her mom and dad needed her. (Update: Jen’s mom is out of the hospital now, and on the mend. Yay!) Of course I understood why she wasn’t coming, and I told her they would all be in our thoughts and prayers, but I was bummed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Jen and I was really looking forward to it. At least everyone else was still coming.

Brenda and Bug arrived as scheduled, bearing pumpkins, decorations, craft supplies, and bad news: no one else was coming. Brenda had talked to her mom on the drive down, and what with Brenda’s brother being off work recently because of health problems, and all the doctor’s visits and tests and things, everyone was feeling that end-of-the-month budget crunch. They just didn’t feel right spending the money to come down for a visit. Gas alone for a round-trip visit from the Sticks to my house is probably $60 or more, not to mention all the pottery-painting, trips to Starbucks, etc. So they did the responsible thing and stayed home. They did get to go to a super-fun Halloween dinner and trick-or-treating event at Brenda’s grandpa’s retirement home, so it’s not like they were sitting around, crying into their coffee. But we missed them.

After lunch, we ran some errands and then went back home where the kids made some Halloween decorations with construction paper and scissors. Then they dragged many of Annalie’s stuffed animals outside, arranged them all over the front yard, and played Zoo for the better part of the afternoon. We dug out our Halloween lights that are colored like candy corn and put those up over the gate. Brenda got some work done and designed a Christmas card (coming soon to her Etsy shop!) while I started making gingerbread cookies.

I hadn’t planned on making gingerbread cookies, but I wanted to send a little something to Jen in a birthday care package, and Brenda said, “You know what sounds good? Gingerbread cookies. We could use a pumpkin cookie cutter and draw faces on them with icing,” which was all the encouragement I needed.

Only it turned out I don’t actually own a pumpkin cookie cutter. (Gift idea, in case any family members reading this need one: cookie cutters for holidays other than Christmas & Valentine’s Day!) I stuck the dough in the fridge to chill, which it needed to do anyway, and figured we’d stop at Target that evening when we went out to paint pottery and pick one up, but we never did find one.

While we were painting pottery that night after the kids had gone to bed, Brenda started to get a stomachache. That was a bit worrying, since the week before when she’d been visiting her family in the Sticks, everyone was sick. Brenda had been sick a few days before that with what she thought at the time was food poisoning, but when everyone else got sick she thought maybe she’d had a stomach virus and had passed it along to her family. But when she started to feel queasy Friday night she realized that what she’d had before probably was food poisoning, and now she was getting the stomach virus. That night Brenda was up half the night, er, emptying her stomach contents.

In the morning (Halloween morning!) she apologized for coming to our house when she was sick. I reminded her that the very first time we met and I stayed at her house, I had such a bad cold that I drank half her tea, used an entire box of tissues, and had such a bad sore throat I could barely talk. Also, I was glad she was at our house where Bug had Annalie to play with and other grown-ups to feed her and watch her, so Brenda could rest if she needed to. And she did spend much of the morning resting in bed. A night of running back and forth to the bathroom to throw up will do that to a body.

The rest of us were fine, so we went about our day. I got coffee going and made pumpkin muffins for breakfast, substituting pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, so the whole house smelled like pumpkin pie all day, which was lovely.

I prepped the teeny tiny potatoes with a delicious mustard-garlic-rosemary mixture, and cut the hot dogs in half and wrapped them with strips of refrigerated croissant dough (not even I make that from scratch). Brenda started feeling a bit better, so she got the pumpkin-carving started. Annalie and Bug chose their designs (Hello Kitty and a ninja) and helped scoop the guts and seeds out of the pumpkins, cheerfully hollering about how gross it all was. I collected all the seeds so I could roast them because YUM.

I roasted two batches, one savory and one sweet. The sweet batch I left in the oven for about 30 seconds too long and half the pan got burned to a crisp. I was quite annoyed about that, but as it turned out I preferred the savory seeds to the sweet ones anyway. And the smoke alarm didn’t even wake Bug up from her nap.

Eventually we did have to wake Bug up so we could eat. Poor Brenda could still barely look at food, even though she was done with the worst of her illness. We ate the croissant-wrapped hot dogs (tasty) and the roasted garlic-rosemary teeny-tiny potatoes (delicious) and cucumbers sliced into spears (handy). Once the kitchen was cleaned up, it was time to get into costumes, which was pretty much all Annalie and Bug had been wanting to do all day long.

None of us had ever been trick-or-treating at a mall before, so we didn’t really know what to expect. We parked in our usual place, walked through a department store, and entered the mall to see hundreds of kids and adults, most of them in costume, strolling up and down and going in and out of shops. It was crazy, and much busier than I’ve ever seen our little mall. But it wasn’t too crazy. We didn’t have trouble keeping track of each other or have to fight our way through the crowds or anything like that. The only times there were big crowds were when we had to go inside a store to get candy. Most of the shops had someone stationed right at the entrance or even just outside the door with their candy, but I guess some of them were shorthanded.

The best part about mall trick-or-treating, by far, was that we got to see so many cool costumes! There are some creative people out there, and many of them were in that mall on Halloween afternoon. It was nice to trick-or-treat while it was still light out, too, and walking around the mall was easier than walking up and down dozens of driveways. We did miss getting to hear all the, “Oh, aren’t you guys cute! Look at the rockstar and the witch!” commentary that we would have heard if we’d been trick-or-treating in a neighborhood, though. A few of the people handing out candy were definitely into the spirit of fun, with costumes on and smiling and saying a word to each child, but most of them were clearly just doing their jobs, earning their paychecks, plopping candy into bags and buckets as quickly as they could.

It took us about 45 minutes to get through the whole mall, and by then Brenda was beat and needed to sit down. We went to the quiet food court and sat by the fountain for a while. Bug and Annalie each chose a blue lollipop from their pumpkins, which made it easier to get them to pose for a few photos.

Back at home, I popped popcorn and brought it outside for Annalie and Bug to snack on. Mostly they ignored the popcorn and just ran around in the grass, pausing occasionally to eat a Tootsie Roll or mini KitKat. Neither of them really ate much candy though. I don’t think either of them had more than four or five pieces. Then Annalie asked if she could have some carrots and broccoli. You know, the traditional Halloween veggies & dip.

No, I’m not kidding. My kid is weird, but in an awesome way. For the record, I have no idea why she loves fruit and vegetables so much. I mean, I love them, but it took me 20 years to come around on that issue. When I was Annalie’s age I wouldn’t have touched broccoli with a ten-foot pole.

We had the gate open and candy and pretzels to hand out, but not many trick-or-treaters came by. I really wasn’t too surprised about that, though. We live on a rather busy street, even though it’s a residential area, and our sidewalk is right there by the street, with a busy intersection right in front of our house. Once it got dark, we blew out all the candles and everyone went inside to get ready for bed.

*WARNING, there is talk of vomiting ahead, if you have a weak stomach read with caution! I’ll try not to be too graphic.*

Bug started complaining of a tummyache around the time she went to bed, and cried and cried about it for a good half-hour. Then she threw up. While I was throwing sheets and towels into the washer Brenda called Toby and he wanted her to take Bug to the ER just to be on the safe side. So off we went to the hospital near our house. (Brenda goes into detail about the ER visit in the second half of her post about Halloween, so I won’t go into all of that here; you can just click over and read her post if you want.)

It was a bit scary how Bug wouldn’t stop crying and clutching her stomach, but in the end it turned out that she just had really bad gas. Luckily after Bug was triaged, we only had to wait in the ER waiting room for a couple of hours, and she was asleep for most of that. When she woke up she farted a couple of times and then said, “Oh! My tummy feels all better now!” It was funny of course, but mostly it was such a relief to see her calm and smiling. We went back home where Bug and Brenda went to straight to bed and fell asleep.

That’s when things got really nuts. Annalie woke up around midnight and raced to the bathroom just in time to throw up everything she’d eaten that evening. I was upstairs in the living room, so my mom—who usually sleeps with Annalie in her room when she’s here—took care of the worst of it. I didn’t even realize it was going on till I heard my mom talking. I went downstairs and helped get Annalie settled back in bed with a bowl by the side of the bed. I asked her if she wanted me to stay, but Annalie was just fine with Gramaw. I went back upstairs to my crocheting…and before long I heard Annalie throwing up again. Poor kid.

It was a long night for the three of us. We had to change the bedding once when Annalie didn’t quite make it to the bathroom, and later my mom and Annalie came upstairs to my room because Annalie threw up in bed again and my mom didn’t feel like changing sheets a second time in the middle of the night. In the morning Annalie seemed to be over the worst part, but she had a slight fever and spent the day on the couch, bowl nearby just in case, nibbling occasionally on a Saltine and taking little sips of water and fruit juice.

When Brenda got up on Sunday morning and realized that Annalie had been puking too, she felt awful and apologized again. But of course we didn’t blame her! She thought she was over all sickness when she came to visit. The good thing is that by Sunday morning Brenda felt 100% better, so we knew Annalie probably wouldn’t be sick long, and she wasn’t. By Sunday night Annalie was sitting up, telling us silly jokes. Monday she was even better.

Even though my mom and I were both sleeping with Annalie while she was sick, we were also both washing our hands till they were raw, so we wouldn’t get sick too. Just to be on the safe side, Annalie and I are on a self-imposed quarantine for a few days. No playdates or hanging out at the park for us this week, but that’s okay. We’ve been so busy this month and have been sick so many times, a few days of staying home will be good. My mom flew home Monday, a little nervous that the stomach virus would hit her while she was on a plane, but she got home without incident. And Brenda told me that if I get sick, I should call her and they’ll come down and help with Annalie since they’ve already had this particular bug, which is quite generous of her. I have great friends!

You know what’s funny, though? Even though two-thirds of our guests couldn’t make it, and Brenda got sick and couldn’t do all the fun crafts she had planned, and we made a Halloween-night visit to the ER and spent the rest of the night caring for a miserably sick kid, it was a pretty good weekend. I know, that sounds crazy! But looking back on the weekend I can’t seem to focus on all the bad stuff. It all seems hazy and unimportant.

The fun stuff is what I remember. We decorated the yard, we carved pumpkins and roasted seeds, I made a fun Halloween lunch and yummy pumpkin muffins, we made gingerbread cookies and decorated them, we trick-or-treated at the mall, we sat outside and enjoyed the almost-full moon, we painted pottery twice (we went back with Bug on Sunday afternoon to finish what we didn’t finish Friday), we put together a care package for a friend…and everyone who got sick was quickly well again. It wasn’t the weekend we thought we were going to have, but that’s okay. There were many good moments that will become good memories. And the rest of it makes a heckuva story.

That was a doozy of a weekend. I’ve been sitting here for two hours watching TV, trying unsuccessfully to convince myself to edit and upload photos and write a post about everything. By the time I get around to writing about it you’ll all have moved on to Thanksgiving and you’ll roll your eyes at me and tell me that Halloween was SO last month. I figure a photo and a quick summary will have to do till I feel like recounting all the crazy details. To sum up: two-thirds of the people who were planning to come visit for the weekend didn’t make it, Brenda got sick the night before Halloween, trick-or-treating at the mall is kind of insane, Bug got sick Halloween night and we took her to the ER (she’s completely and totally fine, full explanation coming in a future post), and Annalie woke up around midnight and every hour or so the rest of the night to puke. So my mom and I traded that extra hour of sleep for an extra hour of puke and doing multiple loads of laundry.

Aside from all those things, we carved pumpkins, we baked cookies and muffins, we painted pottery, we saw lots of cool costumes at the mall. All things considered, it was actually a good weekend…but I’m still glad it’s over. Now I’m just praying I don’t get whatever stomach bug everyone else had. At least Annalie was feeling much better by bedtime tonight.

How was YOUR Halloween?