The crazy lady with the costume bin

Wow, this has been the craziest Halloween season yet! This year, ever since mid-September, I've felt like I've been pulled in all directions. It all started with my Adam Lambert concerts and then it was Christian's birthday (he had a little party at school) and then I went on a cruise to Europe for the first two weeks in October (which I STILL have not documented, yes, I know, bad blogger) and then I quickly put together the Thrill The World Miami event for this year at the last moment (I've lost several years of my life stressing over THAT one) and then I went to Halloween Horror Nights and then I went to 3 parties the night before Halloween and then I went trick or treating the actual night of. I AM EXHAUSTED! Hello November! I welcome you with open arms! The only craziness you offer me is Thanksgiving (which I don't cook, so it's not really crazy for me) and Black Friday (which I go to purely for sport).

Anyway, that having been said, back to the Halloween blog. This year, someone commented that they had seen me in 3 different costumes in one season! Oh how true that is. I'm a Halloween nut and I have a costume bin at home. Every year I just pick from there and mix and match to make my costume. I hate the pre-packaged ones, they're just so void of creativity and ingenuity. Christian is starting his own costume drawer as well because this year, he too had on 3 different costumes (Wolverine, Spiderman, Darth Vader). Jordan on the other hand, hates costumes. He clearly got that from his father. I had to struggle with him to get him to wear a superman pajama (not even a real costume, but whatever) to go trick or treating!

On to my costumes, for Thrill The World, I dressed up as a zombie of course.. For Halloween Horror Nights, you can't dress up, otherwise, you know I would've had a 4th costume. No crazy costumes there, just good ole crazy me (in the asylum house no less).

On Saturday night, our Thrill The World group performed again at Hellrotika. This was a fundraiser for Save Dade (which truly deserves its very own blog post for the vast number of outrageous and creative costumes that were in attendance...I LOVED IT!). For that gig, I was dressed up as Alice Cooper in Wonderland. I picked this because later that same night I went down the rabbit hole (not a dirty euphimism I swear) to my friend Melanie's Alice in Wonderland party. She totally went all out with the decorations and her backyard looked awesome. She goes all out with decorations just like I do (even more so I would say).

And last, but certainly not least. On Halloween night I dressed up as Junice Merill. For those of you unfamiliar with Juney, she's a character from SNL. Here's the video of the skit. I was recently introduced to her via a friend's post on Facebook and once I saw it, there was no turning back. I had to be her!

Unfortunately, I didn't really go anywhere with the costume on, I just took the kids trick or treating (and went to Jenny's Halloween campout later on). I don't think that many people would have recognized who I was anyway, so the costume was purely for the self satisfaction of being able to put it together and be a freak for a night...oh wait, I'm a little strange all the time.

The little camera that could

All last week I hemmed and hawed and paced and fretted over the stupid weather forecast for Saturday. Thirty percent chance of rain, then 40, then 50, then 60. I was seeing Christian's pool party birthday celebration start to unravel as the day got closer. On Thursday we even considered moving it two weeks back, but we stuck with it and decided to play it by ear. Wow, and what a great decision that ended up being. The day looked gloomy at first, but by 11 am the sun was out and there was no rain in sight until later that evening.

For Cman's second birthday celebration I decided on a luau theme since we were doing the whole pool party again. This time though we made it a double birthday party. Sophia's birthday is 12 days after Cman's, so we combined their parties into one. Because of this, we tried to keep it small and limited it to just family and a handful of friends with children, but it was still quite a production (at least it felt that way to me). I don't know how parents do it when they have these huge parties with jillions of people. I guess I'll learn along the way huh?

Anyway, the party was great. Some people went in the pool, some didn't, some wish they had since the party room was so hot (the doors were often left open so the a/c escaped). I didn't go in the pool this time, but my digital camera did (which explains the lack of extensive picture links). Yes, I pulled the floating camera out of the pool. They say you're not supposed to turn it on and what was the first thing I did? That's right, I turned it on. Needless to say it didn't work. I put it on a table and left it to dry there for the rest of the party. The good news is that I just put the batteries back in it and turned it on. The beautiful gadget sprung back to life and the pictures are there. Yay! A link infested picture post will be coming up soon, but I'm waiting to get everyone else's pictures first.

Stay tuned...

Bully

I started taking CMan to little-kid-gym shortly after he started the swimming lessons. I wanted him to get a little more socialization (since he wasn't in daycare yet) with other kids and I wanted him to gain a little more agility and balance since he was a bit klutzy.

Well, at least two of the objectives were met. The sessions that we paid for will be over in two weeks and he's definitely gained some agility and balance. At first he could barely bounce on the trampoline or climb on things, but within 3 weeks he was bouncing around everywhere and trying to climb on things he wouldn't have before.

At first, the whole circle time concept was completely foreign to him, so it was a bit hard to get him to sit down in the beginning, but it got a little easier each week. I can't really blame him though, how can they expect kids to sit down when they have all these cool toys and playthings all around them? For example, Chris loves playing with the toy box full of balls. I wish they would hide it though because that's all he ever wants to do, and he can play with balls at home (and that's free).

As far as the socialization goes, I'm not sure if he's picked this up at the daycare, but he's become quite a bully. He pushes kids for no reason, as he walks past them (outta here, you're in my way) or if he's playing on something and another child comes to play with him, he whacks them or pinches them or pushes them away (except for Sophie, he seems to like her). He's generally really quick about it too, so oftentimes he's already done something before I can stop him. I usually tell him "Christian NO!" in a stern voice, but I don't think that's helping. He's become the little-kid-gym bully! Something needs to be done; I'm scared the other moms are going to jump me in the parking lot after class and kick my ass.

Swimming

Since we are surrounded by water here in Florida, R and I found it increasingly necessary that Cman learn how to swim as soon as possible (in other words NOW). Seeing as how I have a child that isn't too adventurous and is scared of all things new, I thought, what better activity to schedule him in than swimming lessons every week? That way he can scream and cry and cling on to us and we can pay money for this to go on for 9 weeks in a row...Yippee!! Yes, I don't know what I was thinking either. I should've listened to Meredith is all I can say. Cristy brought Sophie to the classes too, but (unlike me) she's actually getting her money's worth.

Cman has gone to two classes so far. The first one went better than the second one (I guess he knew what he was in for the second time around). It's a mommy-and-me class, but R got in the pool with him both times. For the first class all the toddlers and their parents got in a little circle and played games and sang songs and passed toys around. Then just when they had let their guards down, the underwater diving began (from DAY 1! These people don't mess around). R put Chris underwater and I totally missed the Kodak moment because I was not expecting that to happen (I'm guessing Cman wasn't either). He didn't cry or freak out though (oddly enough); I guess he was too shocked to know what to do. After that, they put the toddlers on the ledge and played the humpty dumpty sat on the wall game where they pull them off the ledge and under the water towards the parent (it's not as bad as it sounds..see video below). Chris didn't like that one too much, but he tolerated it a couple of times. Not bad for the first class!

The second class was last Wednesday and boy was he crabby. It didn't help that he had only had one nap that day, in fact I think that's the reason why the second class didn't go that well. A tired, cranky baby is no fun in the water. For this class they had set up a little table inside the water so that the little kids could walk on it or climb on the rail. All the kids took to it quite quickly except for well...guess who. Did you ever hear that song on Sesame Street that went "one of these things is not like the others" (or something like that)? Well, yeah, these pictures remind me of that song...for some reason.

Oh well, at least Sophie's enjoying the classes (she throws herself underwater as often as possible...whether Cristy's ready for it or not). To hear me tell it, you'd think the class is a total waste of time for Chris, but it really isn't. He goes underwater alot and doesn't complain about it too much. I'm sure he's getting something out of them.

Balls, slides and automobiles

Sophia (and her parents) came over on Saturday for a quick playdate. Chris and Sophie had a blast (more Sophie than Christian) playing in the ball pit. Whereas Cman was content to just sit in the little pit, Sophie had a more energetic reaction and dove into it several times. Cristy and I thought she was hitting herself pretty hard sometimes, but Sophie didn't seem to care. Pain be damned, I'm jumping in. Geronimooooooooooooo!
Every time she jumped in the balls would go flying all over the room (notice the pool, before and after).

Once the ball pit was empty, they rode around in cars for a little while and then we headed over to the playground across the street for some outdoor fun. Sophie loved for her mom to push her high on the swing, but Mr. Cman who is a bit more of a scaredy cat delicate, didn't like it too much. He preferred going on the monkey bars and loved the slide races. Ready. Set. Go!

Party animals

This weekend was quite fun. We went to a birthday party and then went to visit Sophie and then on Sunday we did a little rescue of sorts, but I'll have to cut it into several posts as I don't have the stamina to write it all down at once. Nor should anyone have to read that much nonsense in one sitting.

But before I begin my weekend recap, I have to mention that my little man is sick with a fever. He had 102.5 on Monday morning (around 3 am) and it was a bit scary since I had never seen such a high temp on him before. R took him to the pediatrician this morning and she gave him some eye drops (his eyes are watery and a little swollen) and pediacare and stuff for the fever. He's gained a little bit of weight, so hopefully this won't cause him to go back down again.

On Saturday we went to Daniel's 7th birthday party and hotter Otter John was there to teach the kids about animals. We got to see an alligator, a crocodile, two owls, a tortoise, and a big scary cat. I was having a great time checking Otter John out the animals and Cman couldn't care less; he preferred to play with rocks, balls and bubbles. We tried the bounce-house once again, and once again he exhibited great joy at being in there. He liked the slide better, but didn't like it when he went down too quickly. When it was time for the piñata, he got a little more involved this time. I showed him how to pick the candy up from the floor and put it in his little bag. It was cute to watch him pick them up one. by. one.

After the party we went to Sophia's house for a playdate. It consisted mostly of parallel play, but they still had a good time. We put them in the crib together to see what they would do and Chris couldn't make up his mind whether he should hug her or hit her. Here's a cute video of him and Sophie dancing/bouncing in the crib.

Dad's Birthday Weekend (new and improved with pictures!)

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday so we had a BBQ at my parents house. Yes, I have the parental birthdays really stacked together here. As if that weren't enough, my mother-in-law's birthday is tomorrow!

Chris was a little shy with all the extra attention at first, but eventually got used to all the ladies pinching his cheeks.

In other news...

Boohoo the fair ended yesterday and I didn't get to go another time like I wanted to. Then again, I was kind of tired.

On Saturday, I took Chris to play with Sophia. She's so cute and she's gotten so big! I especially loved the little pink Crocs she was wearing (Chris has a pair of those too, but he can't seem to get the hang of walking in them. When I put them on him, he stands still like he doesn't know what to do and then he sits down and takes them off). They had a good time taking toys away from each other and drinking from each other's sippy cups.

That same day in the evening, I went to the late late late movie with Cristy and Ayleen and we also drank from each other's sippy cups. Ok, no we didn't, but we did share sodas and popcorn. We went to the midnight showing of "I think I love my wife" because that was the only time I could go that day (R was working late). You know you're getting old when you call your friend to see if she's ready for you to pick her up and she's taking a nap so that she won't fall asleep at the late movie. You call your other friend and she's got her alarm clock set to wake her up so that she won't fall asleep before the late movie. Yes folks, I have geriatric friends.