Saturday, November 1, 2008

Halloween... Fun to have. Better to have over :)

    Our kids are usually raising the roosters out of bed each morning, and have so eagerly been counting down the days until Halloween, I thought for sure they would be out of bed at 12:01, ready to get their trick-or-treat strategy worked out.
    Instead, we had a sick little Ben all day.  We had a well child visit already set up, so just revamped it to a not-so-well child visit.  The Dr. didn't find much wrong other than a fever, but we decided to swab him for strep, mainly because there was little else we could do... 

... At the same visit Josh got 3 shots (note to self, DO NOT do shots on Halloween afternoon if you want a happy toddler on Halloween night...)  

    I was all prepared to stay home with the not-so-happy children while the rest braved the spooky streets for the traditional loot, but when Ben saw everyone else gearing up, he feebly got his costume and, with all the energy his germ-infested body could muster, mumbled a plea for me to help him into his costume.  



We got everyone costumed up (I am absolutely convinced there is a HUGE  reward somewhere in the Heavens awaiting mothers everywhere who have valiantly braved the yearly costume hunting,  designing,  and dressing for the majority of their motherly lives :)  ).

Our cast went like this (can I just say I am a wee bit sad that the kids are old enough now that I can't form them into a cute little theme - we have has some fun ones in their younger years!)...

Seth:  Power Ranger  (even though he 'really' wanted to be a clone, which he decided AFTER I got the power ranger costume.  It is a good thing Halloween will come again next year!)

Sarah:  Rapunzel (which she had wanted to be last year, until I talked her into being a witch after I learned how to make the cutest witch skirt.  She acquiesced last year, saying she would be Rapunzel next year.  I honestly thought she would forget and move on to whatever craze hit this year, but she held true and didn't waver one bit when costume design time came around.  I've got to give it to her, she had determination to stick with her plan!)

Benjamin:  Mr. Incredible... pretty much because that was the cheapest costume in his size, and he didn't really have any strong opinions on the whole costume thing, as long as it semi looked like Seth's (his hero!)

Joshua:  Mr. Alligator - only because he has absolutely no opinion in the matter, and we already had that costume ready to go (from a previous 'themed Halloween a few years back...)

We did the annual trek with the Jacksons, and met up with the Childs around out little block area, so we had quite the kid crew descending on each house!   (Reeds, you were missed!  Come back quickly!)

Ben sat in the stroller, and Jerry or I would carry him up to the door of each house.  We tried to keep him quarantined as much as possible, but I will give an advanced sorry it we ended up inoculating the entire neighborhood!

I new he was feeling pretty bad when it wasn't even worth the candy to him anymore and he just wanted to stay in the stroller, poor guy!   We opted to come home a little early for him, and while the other kids dug into their loot, Ben and mom promptly fell asleep on the couch, missing all of the post trick-or-treating treasure hunting through the bags. 


A couple more random pictures from the night:

Pictures at the neighbors.  Kathleen - I still love Tommy's 'airline pilot' attire - that was classic!

Sarah and Jocelyn by one of the GINORMOUS pumpkins in a neighbors lawn.  Jocee - your Tinkerbell costume was to die for!!!  So cute!


------------------
Post note:  so I called the automated 'strep test' center this morning, and sure enough, the test we did yesterday 'just because' turned out to be positive.  Yep, mother of the year award right here for taking her strep child out trick-or-treating on Halloween... can you say:  guilt??!

5 comments:

4kidsandcrazy said...

Sick kids on holidays is so hard. I think it is harder on moms than on the child because we want so badly for them to have fun. At least I know I do. I hope he is feeling better. :(

Shan said...

Poor Ben! Hope he feels better soon. The kids all looked so cute in their costumes and with their friends. Nice that it was a nice enough night to go walking for trick-or-treating.

Jogusboy said...

Poor Ben! I've been sick on my birthday, around Christmas season, you name it.

Tell Ben I want him to get better soon

Robin Conner said...

Poor Ben, but what a trooper! He didn't want to miss the action. I hope he gets better soon, and I hope you don't have a house full of strep soon! yuck! The pics were great! And like you, I'm glad it's over! ;)

mnjacksons said...

I feel bad for Ben! It was still so much fun! Thanks again for letting us tag along