We managed to come out on the other side of all the Halloween hoopla without a picture of just our kids in their costumes. It was just that kind of year. Edward's school celebrated on the Friday before Halloween with K-2nd graders participating in a costume parade through the school hallways before retiring to their classrooms for treats. (Older kids had the party without the parade, but a highlight of the parade for Ed was getting "high fives" from the older kids lining the hallways as observers.) Here he is in his classroom, lining up to start the parade. You'll note the "hose," which was only determined to be an integral part of his firefighter costume the moment we were attempting to leave the house that morning. The nozzle alone just did not suffice. He had to have a jump rope taped to it for total verisimilitude. A frantic two minutes led to a happy firefighter.

Daniel's school celebrated on Halloween itself (Monday) also with an in-school parade and treats. How thoughtful of the schools not to expect me to be in two places at once! Here is Daniel with his friend Opal, whose mother spent more than two minutes on her firefighter costume--fashioning it from sweats and reflective tape.

For trick-or-treating, Ed opted for his knight costume, which was just as well, since we had another little firefighter with us--Daniel's friend Xander from school. His mother created a hilarious moment in the parking lot the week before when she breathlessly came up to me saying, "Did I talk to you about trick-or-treating, or did I just dream that whole conversation." So, we hadn't previously discussed it, but apparently the idea was deep in her subconscious. It hadn't occurred to me to gather a posse for trick-or-treating, but it turned out to be a great idea. Along with our neighbors, whose son is a year younger than Daniel, we had four kids and six parents strolling through the neighborhood. Well, parents strolling, kids dashing. They collected an impressive haul in just under an hour and three blocks (both sides of the street.)

Over the weekend in between the school celebrations, we traveled to Evanston for the occasion of my 20th high school reunion.Our class had never quite gotten it together to organize a reunion before, so for most of us this truly was the first time we'd seen each other in 20 years. It was shocking how easy it was to recognize these adult women whom I'd last seen when we were teens. It was a fun night, although not much chance to get into conversation any deeper than "Married or not? Kids or not? Employed or staying home?" with most. I was one of the few to travel from out of state. Most of those who attended still live in the area. Several out of town classmates wrote to say they couldn't make it back.

Since the reunion was only Saturday evening, we took the opportunity to use our reciprocal member benefits at the Field Museum on Saturday morning. Thank goodness for our membership at the Putnam Museum in Davenport. Without it, it would have cost our family $100 to go to the Field, in which case we would not have gone, since we knew at the outset that we had about a one-hour attention span to work with. Here are the boys, dwarfed by "Sue," the Field's famous T-Rex.

We learned right away that while most of the bones here are real, the actual head is too heavy to be supported in this display, so we had to look for it elsewhere in the museum. By the time we got there, Daniel was in over-stimulation mode, but Ed was still interested.

They actually were really into exploring the permanent collection of mammals and birds (shudder) though at first it was all a bit too real for Daniel. He went dashing ahead of us into a display that included some large bears, stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to run back to cover when he heard what he thought were real birds chirping overhead. That made him think all the animals were alive. It's nice to know that he still thinks we'd offer some sort of protection against a 9-foot brown bear.

Even though I laughed about the absurdity of taking our Iowa kids to Chicago to play with corn, this "Kid Zone" activity was a favorite. It was a mock-up of a Pueblo where the kids could "plant" and "harvest" corn and then take it in the hut to "cook" in a large pot for meal.

Our strategy of arriving when the doors opened at 9 a.m. worked well so that we never felt crowded. We left by 11 or so and headed back to Gram and PopPop's for lunch, where Aunt Nora joined us in between two social engagements that day. Then the boys and my parents went across the street to the fall festival at the local elementary school, and John and I sneaked in a quick run to the mall. (And I do mean quick--we were gone less than 2 hours and it takes 20 min. each way to get there. I do hate shopping, but sometimes it's a necessary evil.) When we got home, the boys and PopPop were vegging out to some SpongeBob Squarepants. Life can certainly be exhausting when you're three and still physically need a nap, but are stubborn enough to refuse at all costs. (Note he's not actually sleeping here, just watching TV.)

 

Surprisingly, he took not one, but TWO naps this weekend, but as I did not join in his slumber, I'm losing steam so will wait 'til the next blog post for the exhausting details.