Batman and Kit Kats

This Halloween was a strange one. This was the first year in several that we didn't have our adult halloween party. It was a tough decision to make - but given my weird health issues, we didn't want to host a party and then I crack ribs from coughing! The other weird thing is that we would usually take Ricky to my mom's and my aunt's to trick or treat - but they are all in New York City seeing a cancer specialist for my aunt's cancer. Things with that actually went very well - so that is a relief for now.

I was room mom at Ricky's preschool for their halloween party. I dressed up as a fat, pregnant cat. I could have borrowed my sister's nun costume, but showing up as a pregnant nun to a Catholic school would probably have been frowned upon - even though I would have enjoyed it.

Even though I just had to bring the drink for their snack, I decided to bake my usual sugar cookies. For the past few years, I've baked sugar cookies for Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. It's pretty labor intensive but I really enjoy it. But this time, being pregnant, tired, and having a 3 year old who wants to "help" made my once relaxing and enjoying activity a really stressful one. It's my own fault - I didn't have to do it but I know that if I weren't pregnant I'd be doing it so by golly, it had to be done. I didn't have the energy to frost eyes on the bats and ghosts but I really didn't care in the end. It was a miracle I even baked in the first place.

Ricky was Batman as you can see. And miraculously, he kept the mask on at school the whole time and kept it on while trick-or-treating the whole time. Given that he wouldn't keep the teddy bear hat with ears on his head when he was 2, this is a huge improvement! The weather was perfect.

Mark came home early for work and the three of us were able to trick-or-treat up and down our street for a few hours. Ricky got better and better at approaching strangers, saying thankyous and looked like a regular kid running from house to house by the end of it. Since he has a nut allergy, I had to separate about 45% of his loot because the candies contained peanuts or "may contain" nuts. I feel bad for the kid - those Reese's peanut butter cups are the best!! He's missing out on those!! The poor kid also woke up with swollen itchy eyes - I guess walking around for a few hours woke up more of his allergies. A lot of people own dogs and I'm sure he was exposed to the dander in little bits when they opened their doors.

The one thing that I can't understand is where the heck are all the kids???? I stopped buying oodles of candy and this year I only bought 2 HUGE bags - worried I would run out. Well we left a bowl outside with a note saying "take 5" and it wasn't empty when we came home. Then our doorbell rang just 3 times after that. It was a friday night too - not a school night. We live 2 blocks away from a school in Chicago for god's sake.

Overheard tidbits from Ricky:

(A woman dropped 4 kit kats in Ricky's bag -his favorite)

"Thank you!! Dr. Verges said that I can eat LOTS and LOTS of kit kats!!!!"

um no she didn't

(A woman answered the door with a VERY large dog. She says Ricky must be afraid of him)

"No, I am not afraid of your dog. I am ALLERGIC to your dog!!"

(A woman drops candy in Ricky's bag and mentions that it has nuts or peanuts in it.)

"Well I can't have any candy with nuts!! I'm allergic to nuts!!"

crap. forgot to tell him to just say thank you and leave and not mention the nut thing to people.