Afterween

It's hard to believe it was ten years ago that I had an almost-four-year-old "spider witch princess" and a five-year-old skeleton in my house who were SUPER excited to go trick-or-treating.

Sigh.

Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year, which it always seems to do even though it's the SAME FREAKING DAY EVERY YEAR. I have no idea how this happens, but I always find myself scrambling the weekend before the holiday, hastily throwing mangled years-old decorations up on the doors and windows and buying ridiculous amounts of candy and paying way too much money for last-minute pumpkins at the church up the road. Ah, well. What are the holidays without a desperate need for Xanax little stress?

Almost-fourTEEN-year-old daughter H came home from school yesterday, shoved her costume and makeup into a bag, then dashed right back out the door; she and several friends were meeting at another friend's house to suit up there and go trick-or-treating in "the rich neighborhood" (her words, not mine). By the time she got home she'd removed the fangs and scrubbed off the fake blood so I didn't even get any photos of her in full vampire regalia. Argh!

Fifteen-year-old son C decided to stay home last night sans-costume and hand out candy. Apparently you're too old to trick-or-treat if you're able to grow a full beard in less than a week. I know, right?

I'd insert a "where did my babies go?!" whine here, but H out with friends and C handing out candy and P on dog-wrangling duty meant that I was able to spend last night sitting on my butt in the recliner, watching this week's episode of Dexter and drinking a very dirty vodka martini.

Sometimes, change ain't all bad.

Photo taken THIS MORNING. For the love of God, get over here and eat this candy.

Hope your Halloween was happy! And now it's November. Holy crap.