Nothing, Really: Bah-Humbug Halloween

I am not feeling the spirit of Halloween, if there is such a thing. Frankly, I just want to sit in front of the TV with some almond amaretto coffee and watch the live GhostHunters episode (my guilty pleasure TV show) and get some laundry done. There is so much dirty laundry in my house right now - I was pondering it this morning (not washing it, merely pondering it) and I just had to wonder if there are maybe some people who are living in the apartment when we aren't home, leaving their dirty clothes behind for me to wash and using all the towels. Two adults, a six-year old and a baby just can't produce that much dirty laundry, they just can't. Or maybe they can and I've just fallen behind. Either way, I have a marathon laundry session coming my way.

So since I am such a Halloween grinch, I thought I would share this delicious selection of clever baby costumes. There you go. I dig the walrus, but the flamingo is pretty darned cute, too.

I hate Florida weather. Two nights ago we had a frost, and for a couple of days the weather was cooler during the day, but it seems we are right back to our normal autumn, or at least what passes for it here in FL. At night the temperature drops into the low forties. I have been wandering around the house at night doing my chores in a sweatshirt, and have actually turned the heater on a couple of mornings. So you have low forties at night, but yesterday afternoon while running errands the temperature was 77. Ridiculous. You can't dress for that kind of temperature change, unless you layer to the extreme. And it's impossible to dress Bella for school, too. If I put her in tights, a long sleeved shirt and a sweater she gets a heat stroke during recess, but if I send her in socks and a short-sleeved shirt she freezes all morning long. And on PE days it's just ridiculous, but I'm not alone in my weather frustration - all the children in Bella's class look like little blue Grimaces because they have on their PE shorts and short sleeved PE shirts underneath their winter sweatpants and sweatshirts. Bulky little things.

I had a brief Bubba-related scare this afternoon. My husband works overnights, from 8PM to 8AM. When he came home from work this morning (it's his birthday today) he said he wanted to spend some time with Bubba, and that he would watch him for a while instead of me taking him to my MIL's house like I usually do before work. I agreed, but reluctantly - Brian is almost a narcoleptic (understandably so) when he has worked all night, and can fall into a deep and heavy sleep without warning from which he is very difficult to rouse. On the drive to work I had a nagging feeling that I shouldn't have left Bubba, but I pushed it aside.

So around 1PM I called my MIL's house (since that is where my husband said he was going to go shortly after I left for work) and not only were they not there, she had not heard from them. Hmm. I felt uncomfortable - all I could picture was Brian snoozing on the couch while Bubba explored the contents of the cabinet where I keep all my toxic chemical cleaning supplies. I called the house, and there was no answer. I called Brian's cell phone, and there was no answer. I was feeling rather panicky. And it isn't because I don't trust Brian, that's not the case at all, but I didn't trust the circumstances.

So the lovely people I work with agreed to hold it down so I could drive the fifteen minutes home. And it was an anguished drive, I have to tell you. In typical maternal style, all I could think about and picture was all the things that could have gone wrong if Brian was asleep and Bubba was wandering around the house. I drove too fast, made a few rude gestures, and used some very bad words, but after what seemed an eternally long drive I made it to the house, pulled sideways into a (handicap!) parking spot and was out of the car before the engine had shut off completely.

I unlocked the door and burst into the house, and there was....nothing. No one. No sign of Bubba of Brian. So I explored a little further and heard the shower running. And there they were, in the master bathroom. Brian was showering, and Bubba was standing on his tippy-toes and sucking on, of all things, the toilet flush handle. When I walked around the corner Bubba froze, then removed the handle from his mouth and smiled. Then he flushed the toilet, and kept flushing the toilet. After about four flushes, Brian (who was not aware of my presence at this point) said, "Hey buddy, the water is getting cold, stop it" which, as you all know, makes any eight-month old baby stop doing something as fun as flushing a toilet. Riiiiight. So Bubba kept flushing, and Brian kept saying, "Hey!".

I finally spoke up, and Brian stuck his head out of the shower and asked what I was doing there. How do you answer that? Because I couldn't just wave it off and airily reply, "Oh, I didn't trust you to not fall asleep while you were watching the baby so I rushed over here at top speed because I was fairly certain Bubba was drinking Lysol or maybe the bathroom cleaner". No, that is not a good thing to say. So I just said I was on my lunch break and thought I would swing by. Whew. I felt bad, but Bubba is just at that age where he gets into everything, and he's starting to climb now, and you just can't leave him alone for a second, much less fall asleep and leave him to his own devices for an extended period of time.

Today is going to be crazy. I get off work at 4PM, and then I have to: