Happy Halloween from our little Hawkeye fan!

This was sort of my slacker mom approach to Halloween, but given how little he enjoyed last year's costume, I figured he'd be better off in something approaching regular clothing this year. Plus he still really has no idea what it's all about. Maybe by next year he'll be able to request his own costume and understand more about trick-or-treat. This year, he was confused about why people kept putting things in his bucket. As we left each house, he took out the candy and handed it to John. Maybe he was worried about his Herky doll eating the loot.

He did seem to enjoy the pumpkin carving yesterday--for about three minutes. Then he moved on to more excitement and outdoor adventure on what will likely be our last 70-degree day of 2007. Grandpa was here and had just finished helping John with an afternoon project. Ed did not see any reason for him to rest after his labors and Grandpa seemed happy to comply, chasing him as he sped down the block on his bike. He's really fast on that thing these days. Luckily he does not head toward the street and usually stops when you call out, particularly as he approaches the alley. Anyway, Ed helped with the scooping, but then left me to carve the face. He did like that the pumpkin had a "hat" when I cut off the top. We had to carve a substantial round nose because some critter had snacked on our pumpkin while it sat on our stoop for the last week.

I had another pre-natal appointment today and everything is fine--my blood pressure, the baby's heart rate and all measurements normal as we approach the 27 week mark. The only "bad" news was that I failed the glucola test and have to go back Friday for the more intense version. This is a screening for gestational diabetes that involves drinking a super sweet beverage (kind of like orange pop syrup) and then having blood drawn after an hour. The next test is done after fasting from midnight and then you have blood drawn every hour for three hours after drinking the brew. The same thing happened in my last pregnancy, so no need for anyone to get worried. I think there is actually a fairly high false positive rate on this initial screen.