More Halloween photos - I thought this was acute one of the kids in their festive Halloween shirts. Of course you can't really see the shirts in this picture, but you get the idea. 

This is just too cute not to add. 

Meeooow. 

Riley as Avatar, the Last Airbender. 

Bella as Snow White 

Well it scared her, anyway. Happy Halloween!

My mom tells me that it looks like I'm wearing one of those big fake noses in that last picture.

Thaaanks Mom.

Introducing the winners of the township Halloween parade!

We won a pizza bowling party for five!

All dressed up with nowhere to go

This morning we rushed around like idiots getting into our Scooby Doo get-ups, myself as Daphne, complete with orange-sprayed hair aand large green scarf. Vincent, of course, was Shaggy, Bella was Velma, and Riley Fred because he has "yellow hair." Adelyn made a rowdy Scooby-Doo, and I tranformed the wagon into the Mystery Machine. Perfect.

Vincent headed off for the town parade with the kids in the wagon, and I prepared to follow in the minivan with cameras fully loaded and jackets tucked inside for the cold walk home.

Adelyn would miss her morning nap, but I'd drive her home before the parade ended so she could get some sleep before the neighborhod Mischief Party, a kid's event filled with silly string and shaving cream, that began at 2:00 and ended after I was scheduled to head to work. No worries! I'd arranged to be an hour late.

We were totally on time for our 11:00 am parade debut. With the kids gone, I headed over in the van, only to encounter Vincent already trudging back with the kids.

The parade is at one.

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I'm changing my comment preferenes because of an enormous amount of spam that I'm getting. Now you can't be anonymous and you'll need to identify one of those squiggly word things like on the Ticketmaster site, if you've ever used it. I apologize but I hate deleting spam every day...

Blah.

It's cold, it's rainy, I'm suffering from flu symptoms from my flu shot, I think, and poor Adelyn has my crappy veins and it took the nurse about ten minutes last night for the pediatric nurse to draw blood for her iron level. But she's a doll, and we sang songs while the nurse first tightened the arm band, then made me pull it up, then took it off in an effort to get two vials of blood from my sweet little girl.

Things have been hectic - Vincent returned from Munich and then I worked every other night at the hospital, filling in for someone who recently left and has not yet been replaced. I enjoy it depsite the parade of suicidal teenagers, even the one who tried to hang himself in the shower and was found unconscious with a rope around his neck. He was particualrly disarming in his attempt to convince me that he had not attempted to kill himself, that everything was fine, and that he didn't know why he was there, despite the fact that his parents screamed at each other throughout my assessment and signing him in.

I also worked two mornings at the kids' preschool, filling in for my friend, the two year old teacher, while she vacationed with her husband. Believe it or not, working at the hospital is much more relaxing.

But I have recently discovered Jennifer Weiner, and am happily plodding through my SIL's autographed copy of Good in Bed, so things remain pretty good, considering.

I'm becoming a bit morose over my neighbors. I have friends, but many of them work or live far away. I don't really need more, and yet, they're right here, with kids my own children's ages, and well, I'm not sure if I like or trust any of them. Most of them are teamed up in tight circles with one another, and while I know it would be nice to sip tea with my confidant as the children play, as I did yesterday afternoon, I don't have much to say to them. None of my kids are in elementary school yet, so I can't comment on the teachers, or on township government (I'm uninvolved), or gossip about nieghborhood politics. I guess I sort of want to, but not enough to put myself out there as someone to be gossiped about as well, which seems inevitable, doesn't it? Of course, the Catch 22 is that I could be an object of gossip for not being involved in the discussion. Sigh.

We still have grandiose plans for an addition, but no contractor. My mother recenlt found out that my kids were over to visit my father (thanks Riley) and that he took all of his pension money out of the account that was supposed to go to her. She is now popping tranquilizers again.

I cannot for the life of me find a blad head mask thingy fit for a four year old, so how the hell am I going to make Riley look like Avatar? And do I dress Adelyn up as Snow White like her big sister Bella (we have two) or do I do something else for her just so that they're different?

Which all leaves me feeling just sort of...blah. Not depresssed, just unmotivated and generally icky.

Blah.

I just wanted to shout - I AM NOW A SIZE FOUR!!

As highlighted by the fact that I can hide almost completely behind my four year old son.

DID it!

The title is in ode to Adelyn, who screetches "Did it!" in a precise impersonation of Danny Lloyd's "Redrum," but without the finger wiggling. Trust me, it's cute, not creepy. OK, it's a little creepy, but very very cute.

Today is Friday, and exactly one week ago, Vincent went on his first business trip in years. To Munich. As in Munich, Germany. For a whole week.

I have always championed my husband's ability to care for the children, much to the chagrin of other moms whose husbands don't do bedtime, or dishes, or vacuuming. Truth is, it is I who hasn't touched a vacuum in something like two years.

Every day at about 5:00, I start walking v e r y s l o w l y by the back door, peering longingly outside for Vincent's car to pull up the street.

"Oh, you want an apple, kids? Let me just s t r o l l into the kitchen and get one."

Anyway, in the week since he's been gone, yes yes of course I went to my mother's, and even left the kids there for a night so I could go grocery shopping and out drinking with my girlfriends. But it has rained every single day, poured actually, and we have been trapped in the house, but amazingly, things have been good. I vacuumed - upstairs and down! I sorted through the kids' art projects (from both daycare and last year at preschool, yes I'm that bad) that have been clogging up their closets. They are labeled, organized and in the attic. And yes, we've been to both McDonald's and the local mom-and-pop Chuck E. Cheese knockoff, but the kids have been asleep no less than an hour earlier than usual, the house is nearly spotless, and we have been watching less TV. Riley has even developed a love for the local public radio show that both my husband and I have been looking forward to the kids being old enough to listen to.

I had a conversation once with an old friend who has said that her husband isn't always terribly helpful, and we concluded that he never really had to be - he travels for work frequently and she has always taken a primary role in caring for the house and children. Vincent has been just the opposite - he has always been around, and I'm completely dependent on him.

Until this week. We survived. Things were great actually, even more restful than usual.

So what does that mean for the future? My self-esteem got a boost, that's for sure. Maybe I won't be pining for the back door to open so much every night - it would be refreshing to stop waiting for my perceived "replacement" and just enjoy the time that is now.

And will my house be cleaner? I hope so. At least I know where to find the vacuum.