The Halloween Party

Alternative title for today's post:
In Which Becky Feels Like a Complete Failure

Seriously, Friday night majorly frustrated me.  It's a miracle I was still in a good mood by the end of the evening.
Synopsis:
Saturday night, Alex started suffering from a head cold.  He didn't fall asleep until 12:30am, and woke up bright and early at 8am.  Much too early.  But he couldn't sleep through the stuffy nose anymore. 

9am on Friday, I was running around trying to get everyone out the door for playgroup.  Usually they start at 10am, which is a reasonable time for me to get out the door.  But this week and next, they're early to accomodate our host's schedule.  Apparently, 9am is too early for me to be on time, I'm discovering.  So we arrive at playgroup at 9:30... and it was only about an 8 minute drive from our house.  And poor Alex screamed the whole drive there.  He was incredibly cranky the whole time I was trying to get us all ready, too.  It just wasn't a good morning.  I'm afraid I made for poor company once we were at playgroup. Alex fell asleep in my carrier at playgroup, but woke up again, and got cranky again.

11:30am, we get back home.  Feed the kids, nurse Alex some more, finally get him to sleep.  He went down at noon.  Feed myself.  Check on emails quickly, etc.  Get the kids into older clothes in order to ready for Art Play, and head out the door again at 12:30pm.  Wonderful blessing: Alex stayed asleep through the transition into the car!

1pm-2:30pm, Melinda and Jacob were in Art Play. They did Pablo Picasso funny faces this week! only Jacob's looked more like a big blob.  He named his Blue Volcano, lol!  Alex remained happily asleep (and it was happily - he had been SO CRANKY the entire time he was awake so far that day, I needed the quiet).  I read in the car until it was time to pick them up.

3pm, we get back home, again.  I immediately start working on finishing costumes:  I made some underwear to match Melinda's Tinkerbell costume (because it became apparent, after she tried it on for me, that her antics made the dress ride up a little too much to be modest without the matching underwear).  Then I went to make some shoes to match.  The making of the shoes went surprisingly smooth... although it came time to locate some pom poms to attach... and they were nowhere to be found.  I'm sure I could have found them within 30 seconds at the old apartment, but I haven't used them since moving, and now I have no idea if we even kept them.  I can't see that I would have thrown them out, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  No, I didn't dig through every single box that I've stashed away in various closets, but I looked through the appropriate ones, to no avail.  Argh. 

Then I had to work on my costume.  I had decided to just be a mummy, since it would be straightforward and have minimal preparation.  So I cut my strips of fabric as quickly as possible, no problems there.  During this, Jesse arrived home with some food and we ate quickly.  Then we started getting ready for the party.

First off, I did Melinda's hair.  Another nice miracle for the night, it actually pulled into a bun.  And it actually looked good.  And it actually stayed put - ALL night long.  I was amazed.  But then, I did use a whole handful of styling mousse, and then a truck load of hairspray on top of it.  She looked awfully cute with her hari up, I think!  Then I got her dressed, all but the wings, so she could get into her car seat.

Then I started wrapping myself for a mummy.  It was slow going, and part way through, I realized I should put on some more form-fitting clothes in a lighter color to make it easier.  So I unwrapped, changed, and started wrapping again.  Then Jesse started helping, and it went better.  But as we were doing it, parts that were wrapped up started coming unwrapped.  And I was hardly moving much at that point.  But we kept at it, deciding that even if it looked sloppy, well, people would still get it.  But then there wasn't enough to wrap my head, like I had wanted to do.  I was disappointed.  And then as I walked back and forth in the apartment to gather other things, things really started to fall apart.  I was in kind of a hurry - it was time for the party to start and we hadn't even left the house yet!  But as we were about to walk out the door, my mummy strips started slipping down (not unravelling, just getting so loose they slipped downwards) to the point where I was practically tripping myself.  So, it became apparent that this would just not be a safe idea.  But since we were running so late at this point, I couldn't take the time to unravel myself.  I had to cut it all off.  Poor wasted fabric.  :(  At least I bought it cheap.  But I was SO frustrated!!  The whole reason we were late was because of taking the time to get me into this mummy costume, and then there we were, going without me in a costume at all.  I felt a little heartbroken.  Okay, a lot heartbroken.  I was pretty upset and flustered.  I love Halloween, it's so much fun, and this was kind of ruining it for me.  But what could I do?  Nothing.  So off we went.  After I had changed back into my regular clothes, of course.

We got to the party pretty late.  It started at 6:30, and games ended at 7:15.  We got there at about 7:00.  Well, slightly earlier, but I still had to put the boys into their costumes, since they aren't car seat friendly.  So we really got into the party at about 7.  Which, with how insanely crowded it was (wow! too bad all ward activities aren't so well attended!), the kids got to do all of 3 games, and stand in lines the rest of the time. Pin the eye on the monster, donut eating contest, and bean bag toss. They really really wanted to do the fishing pole game, but the line was far too long.  What a shame.

Oh, and I realized in the car that, in our hurry to get out the door, I had forgotten to get stuffing to put into the Peacock an Phoenix tails.  Urgh.  It didn't matter too much for Alex, since he would be carried around anyway, but the Phoenix looks pretty lame without any tail stuffing to support it.  I ended up taking the stuffed snake out of the car and tying it around Jacob's waist, under the costume.  Which also looked a little bit goofy, but he thought it was pretty funny... and it kept the tail off the floor a little bit.

So anyway, the kids did their parade through the church, and then we did the trunk-or-treat out in the parking lot.  They thought that was pretty fun!  I was starting to finally feel less flustered by that point, and maybe even enjoying myself.  Alex had started looking sleepy, and so I tucked him into my pouch carrier, and he fell asleep easily.  Unfortunately, he woke back up while we were outside, only 10 minute later, and got all cranky on me again.  Ugh. 

After trunk-or-treating, we went home, pumpkins in tow, and Jesse looking and acting completely ready for a quiet night.  But once we got home, to the very messy house (because really, I had no time for cleaning on Friday, and it already needed it by then!), Jesse almost threw a fit.  Well, a fit for Jesse.  You couldn't really tell unless you were watching the way he was cleaning, huffing and puffing and letting out gigantic sighs every time he picked something up, and practically stomping in and out of the room.  I asked him to calm down (very nicely, with a big hug and a smile!), and he just rolled his eyes at me and told me that he was calm, and just wanted to clean up.  Could I please let him go and finish cleaning?  (You have to understand that I'm chuckling as I write this. He gets so silly when he's tired and frustrated, but it doesn't seem silly until the next day.)

Anyway.  The kids got in bed.  They had a great time.  They're so excited to trick-or-treat on Halloween.  We finished cleaning up.  Mostly, at least.  And the rest of the evening went fine.  Alex even went to sleep 2 hours earlier than normal! 

But really, it was a frustrating night.  And of course, all my energy this whole week had been focused on getting through that evening.  On the drive home, I realized I had no idea what we were going to do the next day.  Or the day after that, or the day after that.  No immediate plans, no projects consuming my time?  How odd.  It felt a little spooky, actually.   But you know, it's nice not to feel pressure to finish something, even if the pressure only comes from my own mind. 

So... yeah.  This summary turned out a lot longer than I intended it to be.  Thanks for getting through it, if you did.  I wish I could say I kept my sense of humor through the whole thing.  And honestly?  The reason I got through the evening as well as I did was simply because I kept thinking about blogging it.  I didn't want to lose my head and have a miserable post to share with you today.  ;)

Here's the few pictures I got before my camera's batteries died! Yep, just one more thing that went just a little wrong.  I didn't get much of Melinda.  I'll make sure and take a good picture of her on Halloween.

The family.  

And no, I don't know what Jesse is, lol.  He just decided to wear a lab coat from work.

Melinda (Tinkerbell) and Jacob (Phoenix) during the parade.

 

By the way - the Bubba Fet behind them was Jacob's favorite costume of the night.  We found a Bubba Fet action figure in Jesse's things while we were moving, and Jacob loves it.

 

Sleepy Peacock.

Jacob the Phoenix poses with his treat bag.

Happy Peacock.  Heading for Mommy's camera.

The destroyed remains of Becky's mummy costume.  Tragic.