Appeee Aweeeen!

Halloween 2011 proved to be the most fun for the kids and me yet.  While the oldest two perfected their aim with air rifles at 4-H, I took the youngest 3 trick-or-treating with our neighbors.

Due to our countrified neighborhood which lacks sidewalks, the folks around here buckle up their kids and drive them next door to the townhouse community.  Once there, the kids can collect the maximum amount of candy with the least amount of walking.  It's like Candyland, complete with a few scary witches and fairies.

At first my 3-year-old had no idea what we were doing.  He refused to walk up to a stranger's house.  He wouldn't look at the nice but unknown face. Until......until he realized chocolate was involved.  Two houses later he was elbowing his way through a crowd twice his height.  He pushed to the front of the crowd to sing, "Appeee Aweeeen!"

All that shoving paid off.  My kids brought home pounds and pounds of their favorite confectionary delights.  But our night didn't end there like it does for most of America.

Instead, we roasted marshmallows with our next door neighbors.  The temperate weather allowed us to comfortably stand there burning every white puff to a blackened crisp.  Truly, our camp fire was as fun as the candy crawl.

Tonight reinforced my feelings on this cultural holiday. Getting outside to meet and enjoy the neighbors is what Halloween has come to mean to Americans these days.  Kids dress up in costumes of whatever they love or always wanted to be.  With all the sweets thrown in, the whole feel is truly jubilant.

Of course, there's another custom to this festivity that won't make it into the cartoon commemorations.  Every year, moms are sneaking into their kids' stash, and I won't neglect that important tradition of this national diversion.

Fun at the Air and Scare

Caught up in the spirit of the day, we actually
waited in line to have our pictured taken with R2.
Air and Scare today, comic con...ever?

Today the kids and I dressed up in costumes to try out the Smithsonian's annual Air and Scare at the Udvar Hazy. Visiting the Air and Space museum during this carnival enabled us to enjoy a museum that is pretty boring most other days of the year. [I can't believe I just admitted that publicly.]

Meeting up with friends at the museum.

What fun we had tromping around the place among happily disguised people.  Dressing up in costumes transforms people into friendly chatty chums.  In line, conversations started up over the mechanics of the costumes.  Mostly, though, people just melted over every baby ensemble.

While the advertisements promised candy, the kids were extremely disappointed in how limited the sugary distributions were.  No matter because we've already planned out next year's attack: stay until the end when they need to just give away the stuff.

Before we strategized about how to score more candy next year,  we were entertained while being educated.  A magician first wowed the kids with card tricks and then taught them simple ones to practice at home.  Then teens from local robotic teams impressed everyone with space related science lessons.


I should really remember why a marshmallow explodes and shrinks depending on something about air.  But what I really learned is that unless the place is teeming with costumed people who either display their creativity or their weirdness, I'd rather visit another Smithsonian...like the Air and Space downtown.

Just to prove we were at the Smithsonian
Air and Space museum.  Do you see the
plane back there?

When I was elementary school, I actually dressed
 like this.  My sister and I joined my mom
 in an aerobics class  where we all donned leotards,
 leg warmers, and I'm sure we wore sweat bands too.
Good thing Facebook didn't exist back then!

Minecraft

As an early Christmas present, I gave my son a membership to Minecraft.  The first night we installed it, I hacked my way into an underground cave where a spider climbed on my back and bit me to death.  From our screaming, you'd have thought real spiders were on our backs.

While my son plays daily, I only join in occasionally.  Every day, though, he gives me the update on his world, the scary monsters, and his building design plans.  It's our thing.  I love this bond with him.  Sometimes, sharing the desk, he'll play Minecraft while I work on the computer.  That way I can look up and see him try to ride a pig or watch him fly.

One day, I'm gonna wow him.  He'll log on and find the awesome house I built for him with an inventory stocked with useful materials and weapons.  Jeepers.  Did I even say that right?

Think I can pull this off?

A Bee-Free Winter

Not only does autumn delight my family with dazzling displays of crisp blue skies to contrast the brilliantly colored leaves, but it offers a promise of hope.  Fall's cold weather soothes us because we know that bees and other stinging insects cannot survive the drop in temperature.

All summer, my girls avoided the woods.  Who wouldn't?  After stepping on a bee hive, a swarm attacked them.  Now, before you get all particular on me, realize that I call anything a bee that has a even a hint of yellow, flies, and stings.  So don't leave comments about the fact that bees don't make nests on the ground.  I don't care.

The three wee ones were in the woods with a neighbor girl when I heard the screaming start.  Truthfully, I  had heard them cry wolf so many times that I didn't sprint over to help them.  I just figured someone's feelings were hurt.

Instead of walking into a fight, I walked over to a scene straight from a horror film.  Those poor children were paralyzed by fear, so they wouldn't walk out of the woods! From the tree line, I could see the bees fly around their heads and crawl on their clothes.

My first instinct was to run into the house for cover.  Then I remember that, as the adult in this situation, I needed to rescue them.

Bravely, I stepped one foot into the woods and coaxed the children out.  In my mind, I was a strong figure who inspired confidence.  If you ask my children, they'll say that I was screaming my head off.

Finally the sobbing children gingerly stepped out of the woods and into my stiff arms.  I ran to the house holding them at arms' length.

With the help of the oldest two children, the three littles were put into a bath to soothe them.  The then-four-year-old sustained the worst of the attack.  Sporting over a dozen swollen mounds, we found that the reason her whole body swelled and turned bright pink was because two stingers remained inside her.

While I made plans on the phone to drop off kids at the neighbor's in order to have the ER nurses remove the stingers,  my oldest daughter plucked out the two stingers herself.  I tell you, that girl has got grit.

After the two stingers came out, the four-year-old's body returned to a normal aching post-attack state.  She and the other two moaned all day about the pain.

Those bees attacked my children several months ago, yet the painful memory of that horrific attack continues to scare the youngest from the woods.  My hope is that the coldest months of the year will erase those bees and the memory of that attack.

Eau de Nostalgia

The smell of autumn reminds me of soccer practices, piano lessons, ballet classes, and my romps in the woods.  So as the foliage explodes into the fires that will leave our trees bare, I'm happy to watch my kids live out part of my childhood memories.  Dragging long sticks to create their fort walls, the kids cook over pretend fires and are strict about people using the proper hole in the wall for the door.  When the kids come in from playing outside, I like to take a long, deep smell of their hair and clothes.  The lingering aroma of cold air and moldy leaves makes me feel so happy.

Add caption

Telephone Games

My little girls used sewing needles, thumb tacks (?) and string to create their very own telephones out of plastic cups.  Since they share a bunk bed, they desired to lay in bed at night and talk through these stringed cups....instead of just talking.

They were being just too cute for me to point out how much easier it is for them to talk with normal voices at each other instead of using these telephone cups that actually muffle instead of amplify their voices.

Pleased that a full day of fun crafts and problem solving occupied the girls, I pondered what the telephone game will mean for them later in life.  I mean, when the rest of us play it, some words are meant to actually pass down the line of people.

A phrase like, "Ally alligators ate eleven avocados in the afternoon," might come out as, "Ali's alligators ate seven avocados on the boom."

But my girls might in fact miss the whole point of the game. Will they be confused and just repeat random speech from their own telephone game from their youth? Will "Ally alligators ate eleven avocados in the afternoon" turn into "Let's see if mom sees us sneak out of our room to go grab some cookies?" Their team might be just a tad upset at them.

If that is how they play the game in the future, I want to witness the scene.  I want to hear their adorable confusion and chuckle at the memory of their attempted "secret" phone line.

Adopting the Attorney General's Cats

Part of our petting zoo includes two adorable kittens who allow themselves to be held like babies.  Yes, you read that right.  These precious animated stuffed animals actually cuddle with us!

For my kids, this is pure joy as they routinely sit outside with the cats on their laps.  Whether the kids are reading, figuring arithmetic, listening to a book on tape (or CD), or continuing a crochet project, those kittens are being loved.

Friendly cats? That's just unusual, you might say. I agree.  But our unusual cats also have an unusual origin.  After my oldest daughter emailed me a staggeringly high number of Craigslist "free cat" ads all summer, one day I told her, "Enough."   Her emails were for free cats from the Eastern Shore, or West Virginia, or towns supposedly in Virginia, but I'd never heard of them.

The day I stopped the emails was a memorable day here in Virginia. On that day in August, we had an earthquake.  But before our house shook, I'd told my daughter at breakfast that since there were 2 cat offers within an hour away, we'd take whichever one was available after the baby's nap.




Upon arriving at the random Craiglist family's home, I noticed their cars had a lot of conservative bumper stickers.  When the mother came out of the house, she introduced herself to me as Mrs. Cuccinelli.  Um....yeah....that means the VA State Attorney General's family gave us their cats.

Amiable like the cats they gave us, the Cuccinelli family entertained us for well over an hour.  We home school moms had a lot to sympathize over and curriculum to compare.  Since our kids ages are so similar, my kids blended nicely with the 6 out of their 7 who were home that day.  The huge crowd of kids chased cats, ran with the dog, and drove battery powered cars. 

Occasionally we still chuckle at the randomness that produced 2 friendly kittens from a most unlikely donor.  How many of us can say we own the state Attorney General's cats?