Photo taken by Brenda Ponnay

Annalie and I had tons of fun visiting Brenda and Bug this weekend. I have many photos on my hard drive of us all having fun, but I can’t edit and upload them yet because I forgot my laptop’s power cord at Brenda’s house, 90 miles away. I’m trying to make the battery last so I can at least check email till I can get the cord back. I might not be online much in the next few days, but I should get lots of crocheting done and sleep more!

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.

Our first day in Indiana was a good one (as I already wrote). We met up with our friends, we ate lunch, we went swimming, we played, we went to dinner.

At dinner, all three of the kids proved once again that the Leapster was a worthwhile investment. Before dinner they took turns playing on it. After dinner, when Annalie fell asleep in Gramaw’s lap, Gabby and Annie kept themselves occupied with the Leapster for nearly an hour while the grown-ups chatted.

The day after that, Annalie had a fever and we stayed in the hotel all day.

But the next day, Annalie’s fever was gone and she was feeling chipper and raring to go. We arranged to meet Angela and Gabby & Annie at their favorite Italian restaurant.

We killed time while we waited by taking a few photos. Once everyone was there, we sat down, ordered food, and ate. That was when Angela’s favorite Italian restaurant became my favorite Italian restaurant because WOW was that food delicious.

I love these shots. Gabby and Annalie are all, “Whatever, take my picture if you gotta, I guess.” Meanwhile Annie’s a bundle of beaming, hugging joy. Those jaded 5-year-olds, they’re so bershon.

On the way home from the restaurant, we took a strange route for some reason—I don’t remember why—and we went under this musical bridge. Of course I pulled over and parked so we could take photos. Because in our family, that’s what we do.