Well, Halloween is just around the corner, and I have yet to pick out a costume.  Err, costumes… um, for the kids, of course…  Ok, I’m caught – I dress up for Halloween.  However, I don’t go all out.  I take pride in wearing cool costumes that I can obtain on a shoestring budget.  For example, I’ve wanted to  reprise my Kindergarten Halloween costume for years (“Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz”), but I have yet to find the dress for free in my size (I’m not about to spend money on my own Halloween costume when I have 4 kids I’d rather see dressed however crazily they wish).  I’m not too worried about my costume though; I always have a back-up Halloween costume plan.  I have a witch’s hat, complete with orange hair.  And I can wear almost anything clothes-wise, which will ensure that I’m warm and comfortable, no matter what the Halloween weather up here in Bufu Ohio.  Being a witch also means that my kids can do my makeup, however madly they would like to do it – all the more fun to add to one of my favorite holidays.  So, my Halloween bases are covered…  now I just have 4 little kids to deck out…

My oldest (going on 10) wants to be a ‘bloody prom girl’ (her words).  I say, go for it.  It may not be the most innocent of costumes, but it could certainly be worse (have you seen  Mean Girls?  Remember the quote that begins, “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress…”  This is not the type of blog where I would want to continue the quote, but let’s just say that I both celebrate and am thankful for my daughter’s kid-inspired creativity.

Our second-born, who is 5, wants to be a princess.  Being a family with 3 little girls who love to play dress-up, that should be a cinch.  We have a couple of tiaras to choose from, as well as princess dresses.  The key will be to find one that she will agree to wear over her other clothes so she doesn’t freeze!

And our youngest daughter, who will be newly 3 by the time Trick-or-Treat rolls around, wants to be “Dora, and Boots, and Diego, and the Marshmallow Monkey.”  I don’t think she remembers what it’s like to dress-up for Halloween – I don’t have the heart to tell her that she can only be one character.  For now, we have a  Dora costume ready and waiting, and we also have a back-up princess dress in case she decides she wants to be like her sisters.

The little dude will wear whichever costume I can find in the basement that is in his size – I’m thinking it’s a lion.  I  know I also have a size 18-months Minnie Mouse costume, but I am not going to dress my little man as a female character – poor guy has 3 older sisters and is already concernedly obsessed with headbands and necklaces.  But that’s another blog altogether…

Happy Halloween!

I think I could use a Tivo.  That way, I could Tivo Dr. Phil and watch it when I fold laundry – that would certainly be better on my ears and more entertaining than the screaming parrot.  Well, actually, I don’t know how Tivo works – I could probably only watch what I tape record (I grew up in the 80’s – we “taped” our movies and our music) on the tv that has the Tivo, right?  But anyway, I could pause it when someone needed a diaper change or help with something or a snack or a drink to be able to watch more tv instead of just never getting to commit to watching shows (except really good ones like The Office) because of my lack of time and my lack of Tivo.  I wonder how much they cost; I have no idea.  It occurred to me that I don’t watch much tv anymore; a hobby I really liked as a kid.  It’s not a bad thing, really, I’m busy doing other more worthwhile things.  But I do miss getting to watch Dr. Phil – my tv has been hijacked by the likes of Dora, Diego, and Max and Ruby in the morning when it’s on, and I don’t like not being able to watch the Office until it’s available online.  We try to watch The Office when it airs on Thursday night and without fail, all hell always breaks loose with the kids even though it’s on at 9 and they should be in bed.

I got the movie Mr. Mom from the library for the kids to  watch.  I figured since my husband and I liked the movie as kids, we should show it to our kids – after all, they loved Annie (the 1982 version, the update is awful).  But apparently Mr. Mom came out before the MPAA came up with the PG-13 rating – there were a few scenes (funny how neither one of us remembered they were in the movie) I would rather not be in the type of movies my children enjoy.  At least we were able to skip over the strip club scene without them even noticing, yikes.  I surely don’t remember that from watching that movie as a kid.  Maybe there was an edited-for-television version…  Anyway, all this got me to thinking that they should have a function for dvd players where you can edit the movie to play while skipping certain parts of your choosing.  Maybe this already exists, but I don’t know a lot about the latest gadgets and such.

Well, anyway…  sorry for the randomness, just had a little time to blog for a change, so I just wrote what was on my mind at the moment!  Maybe I’ll check into that Tivo…

With 4 kids, many of them small in years, we are at the doctor’s office lots.  We are so lucky to be really happy with our pediatrician, especially since we see him often.  Today was another such visit – time for our 2 year and 4 month check-ups for the little ones.

Disney (2 yrs. old) liked the fishies in the waiting room and the Dora sticker she got at the end but that’s about it.  She didn’t want the doctor near her, she didn’t want to be weighed, measured, nor have her heart listened to, and she didn’t want to walk in front of the doctor like he asked.  Best we could tell during all the kicking and screaming, she is 2 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 25.5 lbs.

On the other hand, Disney’s baby brother Christopher seemed to love the doctor’s office.  Then again, he smiles all the time, so it’s hard to tell.  He smiled when they measured his head – both times, since the nurse forgot the measurement from the first time (43 cm).  He smiled when he was weighed (15 lbs. 6 oz.), and he smiled some more when his length was measured to be 25.5 inches.  He’s a really good baby – the doctor says he acts more like a 5 month old than a 4 month old because of the strength in his limbs and how he uses them.

Disney’s a great kid also, but she is two years old.  And “terrible two’s” is not just one of those sayings; it’s based on truth.  Disney was the sweetest baby and toddler you could imagine…  then she turned two.  And she’s still sweet, she just has a miniscule amount of patience and tolerance for things that don’t go her way.  She could be chatting happily about doggies one minute, and the next thing I know, she’s melted onto the floor into a puddle of two.

But there must be something going on with the body chemistry of two-year-olds.  Everyone knows they’re like that, and it’s not just an unearned bad reputation.  If it weren’t for the “terrible two’s”, I think I would want an even larger family – but it’s the dreadfulness of the terrible two’s that give me pause – only one more bout of terrible twos to battle, if we can survive Disney’s, of course!