Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween! My sister Jill has had a Halloween party most years - one where the kids and ladies are invited, and everyone needs to wear a costume. My mom dressed up as her mom, wearing all clothes that she got from my grandma, and she was super cute. We had Batman and a waitress and a fencer. My sister-in-law Alisha was a fish, and Harrison (who is one) was a scuba diver, with the cutest little costume. And that's just the adults. (And one kid, i guess.) My kids all had fun. Houston is very nearly too old to go, but he honestly looks so forward to it.

Jill's party ended at 12:30, and then Houston and Katrina had another Halloween party to go to at 1:00. I dropped them off at that party and went to Beth's house, where Juanito was hanging out with Beth and Keren. He took Zane home, and i went out for lunch with Beth and Keren (fun!) and then picked the kids up again at 4:00.

We came home for an hour and a half. Katrina immediately headed upstairs and took a nap for the entire time. Houston went to his room to "be quiet." Zane excitedly talked and talked and talked and told me all kids of random stories until Juanito took him to the store with him. And then we were off to go trick-or-treating.

Today was a terrible day, weather-wise. It was raining and cold and just miserable. I would have walked around for a couple of hours if i were going to get a giant bag of candy at the end of it, but without that motivation, it just didn't look like fun. We told the kids that we'd wait at Grandma's (warm, dry) house while they walked up and down that street, and then we'd drive them to the next street and follow them in the (warm, dry) car until they decided that they were finished. Except then the kids' cousins ended up walking around with them, and my sister and my brother-in-law both were walking around with them, and so Juanito and i stayed at my parents' house for the entire time while the rest of them got soaked.

We did make ourselves useful, though. I copied a million pictures from my mom's ipad to her computer, while Juanito fiddled with my dad's laptop to try to make it behave again. And then i made both of my parents take the (not-really) Meyer-Briggs test to see what personality type they are, because i think it's fascinating. So it was fascinating (to me, anyhow) that i am one letter away from each of my parents, who are two letters away from each other. My dad's an ISTJ and my mom's an ISFP, and i am an ISFJ. Meanwhile, my mom is right in-between me and Juanito, who is an ESFP. 

'Twas the Night before Halloween....

The kids didn't have school today, due to the parent-teacher conferences the past few days, which was lovely. I woke up Houston up at 10:30, and when i asked him how he was doing a little while later, he was all, "GREAT! Sleeping in was fantastic!" Zane insists that he slept until 10:00, but he's exaggerating by at least an hour. Nevertheless, sleeping in was done by all, and lo, it was wonderful.

Katrina and Zane helped me make my costume this morning. We went to the store for groceries and pumpkins. (My kids honestly do not care whether their pumpkins come from an orchard where they can pick their own pumpkin from a field or from Meijer where they can pick their pumpkin from a box, so we opt for the much cheaper Meijer option.) We snuggled and read. It was lovely.

Once Juanito was home, we carved pumpkins. Katrina would very much like it known that she decided to do a vampire pumpkin first, and then Zane copied her. Katrina and Zane both hate touching the goopy stuff on the inside of the pumpkin, and they're still kind of little to be using the sharp knives, so basically, Juanito and i did all of the work on those pumpkins. I cleaned out Katrina's and carved Zane's, and Juanito cleaned out Zane's and carved Katrina's. The kids did totally design them, though. They drew the faces on the pumpkins in marker, and then we just traced their lines with the knife.

Honestly, sharp knives + pumpkins = dangerous. I totally cut myself, and i'm used to using our knives. That said, Houston did almost everything on his pumpkin by himself this year, and he did a great job. It's Harry Potter, and it's adorable. And he didn't even hurt himself at all. Yay, Houston!

Keren's in town this weekend, so she and Beth joined us for pizza-movie night. We all made the pizzas and talked and laughed, and then we crowded into chairs and the couch. It's been a while since we've seen Keren, so the kids cuddled up with her, while Emma tried hard to sleep on top of poor Beth. We watched "Twitches," which is a completely made-for-TV cheesy movie, but it's Halloween-appropriate and also not terrifying to children. (Mostly. Though Zane says that he's scared by "The Darkness," so we'll see how that goes.)

After the kids went to bed, we adults hung out and had actual conversation. It was lovely.

Halloween preview and more conferences

Several years ago, we brought our kids to a church that was having a "Trunk or Treating" event going on. There were dozens of cars, and everyone gave out lots of candy. Ever since then, the kids have asked about doing that again, but i'd either hear about the events after they were finished, or they'd be at the same time as something else we were doing, or whatever. So this year, i remembered to look up if there was going to be anyplace doing it at time when we could go. And the best and only option was...basically at the same time as Zane's parent-teacher conference.

So we went to the conferences for the other two kids yesterday, and we ate dinner ridiculously early, and we headed over as soon as Zane's conference was finished. And...it was kind of lame. It was indoors, probably moved there because it had been raining off and on all day, so they basically had a whole bunch of tables set up in one room, and the kids just kind of walked around through the tables, getting a piece of candy at each table. I was thinking, "Meh. We could have skipped that," but as soon as we got home, the kids were all, "Let's go have a small trading party!!!!" So i guess they enjoyed it.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Zane's conference was not as bad as i expected, but also not awesome. His teacher had glowing comments about his behavior and his personality ("He's SUCH a great kid! He brought in some of his books and asked to put them all up front for other kids to look at and borrow if they wanted to. It was so sweet!"). He fiddles and wiggles, which is no surprise, as he's been doing that since always, but he's quiet about it and stops immediately if given a look. So that's all good.

But he just doesn't do well on his actual school work, and none of us are sure if it's because he's just too inattentive (and we are going to go ahead and evaluate him for ADD, which i'm sure he has, with the "Primarily Inattentive" aspect) and that's keeping him from actually focusing on his work OR if he's just straight up not doing it because he just doesn't feel like it. I feel like that's an important difference.

Conferences and other random things

During conferences, our school always has a book fair - kind of like a mini book store that comes to the school. My kids LOVE the book fair and always, always buy books from it. What always amuses me is that they buy books that i would never expect them to buy. This year, Houston bought a little book with Grumpy Cat "inspirational" sayings, a book about myths that aren't true, and "Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall." Zane bought a diary for boys and a book about sea creatures. Katrina's the only one i could possibly have predicted, with a National Geographic book about animals. (I got a $10 certificate for working at the book fair, so bought a couple of books for me too, because i am a teenage girl.)

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *  

Tonight was the movie premier night, which i've been going to with Beth and Stephanie for the past year or so. Every 4 months, the theater offers free tickets to whoever grabs them first. They offer little containers of candy (usually - this time there were just crackers and cookies), movie posters, and a chance to win a raffle, and they show about 30-40 movie previews in a row. It sounds kind of weird, but it's actually quite an enjoyable night out. This time, my mom and two of my sisters came along, and it was totally fun.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *  

The school does middle school conferences like this: All of the teachers sit at a table in the gym, and you go to whatever teacher you want to talk to (usually the homeroom teacher), and they tell you how your kid is doing. There's no set times or anything. And so today we went to talk to Katrina and Houston's teachers.

Both of them were really excited about conferences, especially Houston, because he knew - knew, for the first time ever - that he was doing really, really well. No missing assignments (except that one that he didn't know about, from when he was sick), good grades in everything, and good behavior. It's such a change from the early days of his schooling, when i used to despair that he'd ever stop being in trouble all the time. It's lovely.

Katrina's conference was the fasted thing ever. Teacher: "Here's her grades. They're great. She's such a great kid, and such a pleasure to have in class, and so dedicated to working hard. Any questions?" Us: "Nope."

Fifty6 and homework

Tonight was parent night for Students at Mars, which was complicated this year, because i'm now a leader as well. Houston never even mentioned it and just disappeared as soon as we got to church. Katrina dragged me to meet her leader before the program actually started, and then i stood by her during the teaching, and that seemed to be acceptable.

Meanwhile, we got to meet most of the girls in our group and their parents at the same time. We seem to have a really great group of girls. There are a few that i feel like i'm immediately drawn to, but all of them seem like good kids. Katrina asked me if we got the really scream-y girls, and i'm pretty sure we didn't, so that's good.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *  

Tonight i had the kids get ready for bed and get their stuff ready for school tomorrow, and as Katrina was getting her school bag ready, she remembered that she still had to finish some math homework. And 9:00 at night is totally the best time to remember homework due the next day. Sigh.

She set to work on it and worked hard...and realized after 45 minutes that she'd just done an entire page and a half completely wrong. She was completely devastated, both because she had to re-do all of the work that she'd just done, and because she was just SO INCREDIBLY TIRED. She sobbed uncontrollably for about five minutes, and then was able to pull herself together to do it over and finish it up.

I'm torn between feeling sad for the poor girl (because having to re-do all your work when you're tired is the WORST) and feeling annoyed that she forgot about it and left it to the last possible minute. 

Zombie Dash

Last year Juanito, Stephanie, and a couple of Juanito's friends from Zumba did the Zombie Dash, and Beth, the kids, and i went to watch for a little while. The kids totally enjoyed watching it, and Zane especially was super excited to participate this year.

It was raining today. And it's chilly. And Katrina was at her cousin's birthday party, so she and i were late getting there...and apparently Zane was absolutely miserable. Poor little guy. I brought him an old, tattered coat, borrowed from my mom (a coat that was, incidentally, perfect for being a zombie), and he leapt out at people from behind a thing and...kind of enjoyed himself, in-between bouts of misery because he didn't think he was scaring people enough or people were bumping into him or....? It's hard being a nine-year-old zombie.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves, though. Juanito was kind of over-the-top bloody, and Katrina was a fresh kill who was only barely a zombie, along with Beth, who was a zombie cheerleader. Houston and Stephanie and the rest of the people kind of fell in the middle of the gory-meter.

Student of the Month

Last night i got an email from Katrina's teacher, telling me that she was getting an award in the assembly today. That should have been my first hint that middle school was different - in the past, i'd get an email days in advance telling me exactly what was coming.

I dropped the kids off casually, made sure Katrina wasn't watching, and parked in the parking lot to wait until school started. As soon as i walked into the gym, it was obvious that this just wasn't going to be like assemblies in the past. The bleachers weren't taken down, so there was nowhere to sit (i took them down), and there were no other parents there. At all. Eventually two other parents wandered in, but in elementary school award assemblies, the bleachers (all three sets) are always packed full of parents.

When Katrina walked in, she didn't immediately look at the bleachers, so i thought that maybe she'd actually be surprised this time around. Usually she's seen me as soon as she walks into the gym and knows immediately that she's getting an award. She continued to not look back at all for half of the assembly, all through the completely random and utterly un-understandable skits that were supposedly about respect. (I mean, DUDE. There was a 20-30 minute thing that felt more like hours, where one of the teachers boringly explained how we could have respect for ourselves, and then the seventh graders had a skit that made NO SENSE done by kids who were reading off papers and skipping lines, i think, and ... pretending that one of the smaller kid had become a larger kid because he had eaten too much? Which seemed kind of mean to the larger kid. And then the teacher explained how we could respect each other, followed by a skit that made no sense.... This went on through respecting teachers and the building and ... something else. It was interminable.)

As soon as she realized that it was awards day, though, she swiveled around to look, saw me...and immediately deduced that she was getting an award. Stinker.

So i'm going to brag a second: Here we are, first month of awards, and Katrina has received the "Student of the month for moral focus." I'm not surprised. She's an incredibly dedicated, hard-working, kind student. She's the kind of kid i'd want in my classroom. I'm super proud of her. She's such a great kid.

*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *    

Tonight we went to see "Minions" at the movie theater, because it was free for kids and only $5 for adults. It was a cute movie, and going to the theater is a fun thing to do, but it kind of doesn't feel like a Friday right now, because there was no pizza or anything. I'm a creature of habit, and this has totally thrown off my routine.