Finger Lickin' Clean

After eating lunch today, Lana gets down from the table to come find me outside hanging up some Christmas decorations.


"What are you doing mama?"


"Hanging these decorations up out here," I reply.  "Are you done with your lunch?"


"Yup."


"Did Medz Mama (my mother-in-law) wipe you off?" I ask.


"No," she says.


"Well, go in there and ask her to clean you up," I tell her.


Then she looks at me, licks all around her lips and says, "That's okay, I can lick myself clean instead."


Nice to know that my children are learning  hygiene from the cat.  

Locked In!

Every Friday morning I take Georgia and Lana to gymnastics.  They have both been going to gymnastics since before they can remember.  No joke. Lana, since infancy and Georgia, since before she was born.  Sonya started going when she was two, so her sisters have just followed suit.  They all love it, so that's why we keep going, despite the Hawaiian vacation we could have taken with all the money we've spent there.


When we go on Friday, Georgia has her class first with me, then Lana has a class immediately after, without mommy. Sometimes during her class she decides she needs to use the bathroom.  Usually she'll come get me and tell me when this happens, so I can come help her.  I guess Friday she decided she was big enough to do it alone.  Only she wasn't.


I was chatting with my friend Melissa.  Quick aside: This is a different Melissa than the one I've mentioned before, who I've been friends with since college.  This is mom Melissa.  She has three kids all around the same ages as my girls.  Our husbands used to work together too, so we've been acquainted for a while.  Now her youngest and Lana are in the same gymnastics class together, so every Friday morning we chat and catch up on the latest with our kids or what's going on in Burbank.  Our small town in the middle of a big city.  And Melissa reads this blog.  (Hi Melissa!)  Anyway, back to the story.  We were chatting away not paying much attention to our little gymnasts, when teacher Danielle ran over to tell me Lana had locked herself in the bathroom.


Uh-oh.


I ran back to the where the one room bathroom was and talked to Lana through the door.  She was crying and scared.


"Lana," I said calmly.  "Lana, it's okay, calm down."  More crying.  "It's okay girly.  Just unlock the door.  It's just like the lock on Georgia's door at home."


I didn't think she should have a problem with the lock because she's unlocked that particular door before by herself, and it was the same type of lock as the one door at home.  That one she had locked and unlocked quite a few times on her own, so I couldn't see the problem.


"I CAN'T unlock it," she sobbed.


"Why not, Lana?  You know how." I encouraged her.


"I can't cuz my hans aw soooaaappyy!!" She started to cry more.


Then I realized what had happened.  She went in there thinking she could do this all by herself.  Went to the potty, no problem.  Wiped herself, no problem.  Got soap on her hands, no problem.  Then she went to turn the water on... big problem.  The faucet in the bathroom  has one of those handles that you pull up to turn on and push down to turn off.  She can never pull it up, I always help her, especially after already having soap on her hands. And because she had soap on her hands, she couldn't get a grip on the lock to turn it and let herself out of the bathroom, making her stuck.


"Oh girly!" I said.  "Can you go get a paper towel and wipe the soap off your hands?"


At this point Melissa had come back to help talk to Lana, but we were both  laughing at the same time.  Quietly, so Lana couldn't hear us.  I mean it WAS funny and she wasn't in any danger, just a bit scared.  Plus it reminded me of the time my sister Beth locked herself in our bathroom at home, when she was about the same age.  We had a babysitter over and she couldn't figure out how to get Beth out, so she called her boyfriend to come over and take off the entire door handle.  I remember pushing books under the crack in the door so Beth had something to do while she was in there waiting to be rescued.  The crack under this door didn't look big enough for a book.


Teacher Alex came back with some keys to try in the lock.  When none of those worked, he tried a paper clip. I started eyeing the doorknob, trying to figure out how long it would take to disassemble it.  At the same time, Melissa and I kept talking to Lana through the door, encouraging her to wipe off her hands and try the lock again.


Then, all of a sudden the door popped open and there stood Lana with a look of shock on her tear stained face. I'm still not positive if it was her or the paper clip that opened the door, but I think it was her.


"YAY, LANA!" We all yelled.  She walked over to me and hugged my leg and got a little weepy again.  I assured her that everything was alright and she was fine.  I hugged her for a couple minutes.  Then she pulled herself together and went off to finish her class.


She was fine after that.  No harm done.  If this was Sonya, I'd say she'd never go to the bathroom alone again until college, but Lana, she tends to bounce back and try things again.  We'll see what happens if she tries to go by herself next time.  I think I'll put a couple magazines in my backpack, just in case.  I'm pretty sure those will fit under the door.

Waiting For Excedrin's Baby Headache Medicine

Yesterday was one of those days I had all these things planned to do and got pretty much none of it accomplished.  The reason was because in the morning Georgia came down with a migraine.  I know some of you just looked at your computer cross eyed and thought WHHHAAAA??  Yes, Georgia suffers from migraines at the ripe old age of 2.  I thought I had mentioned that on here before, but after researching my back blogs, I didn't see anything.  We discovered it over the summer.  Here's the quick back story.


Georgia would have these episodes when she would, out of nowhere, start to cry and whine that she was going to "frow up".  Then she would.  Every 15-20 minutes until there was nothing left in her stomach.  Afterward she would pass out cold for a nap or  for the night if it was close to bed time.  I kept thinking she had a stomach bug, but when she would wake up she'd be completely fine, ready to eat anything and never developed a fever.  When I took her for her two year check up in June I mentioned these symptoms to the Pediatrician.  He wasn't extremely worried, but thought it best to refer me to a neurologist, just to check things out.


 A few weeks later we went to see a very sweet and extremely informative neurologist, who deals with kids and adults.  After relaying all of Georgia's symptoms, she did a quick check up on her. I also informed her of our family history (migraine candidates on BOTH sides of the family).  She came to the very certain conclusion that what GG was displaying was the kid version of a migraine.  Apparently, they can get them as young as SIX MONTHS OLD!  Instead of the normal headache migraine that adults get, they do this throw up and then pass out thing.  I guess some adults get that too.  The sleeping is what resets their brains and gets rid of the migraine.  Other than sleep there is not really any medication or anything to be given to kids this young.  Trying to prevent the migraines, by learning Georgia's triggers is probably the best way to help her.  It's figuring out the triggers that's the tricky part.  It can be anything from certain foods (chocolate, sugar) to lack of rest.  Plus, everyone has different triggers.  Up until yesterday she hadn't had and episode since June, before we even saw the doctor.  I was even beginning to think maybe she didn't suffer from migraines, until yesterday happened.


First of all, I partially blame Andy for the one yesterday.  Just five days ago, when he was on the computer with his parents, he mentioned to them how Georgia hadn't had an episode in a while.  Does he not know that the universe targets people who say such things like that?  Does he not know you're supposed to knock on wood or something if you're going to say such a thing OUT LOUD??  Have I taught him NOTHING?!  I guess not.  On the plus side, I did discover one of her triggers yesterday.


Thursday mornings is my alone time with Georgia.  I usually run errands with her that day, because it's so nice just having one kid to worry about  and she loves all the attention.  She's usually really good, because she's alone with me. I had plans to go to the bank, post office, get the car washed.  That kind of thing.  Originally the car wash was last on my list, but for some reason I decided to make it first.  Regretted THAT decision later.  It was the only thing I got to do yesterday.  For those of you who live in Los Angeles, you know there are car washes everywhere.  Nobody really ever washes their own car here.  Maybe during the summer on a hot day for fun, but it's so much easier to just go get it done, and it's not that expensive.  Since my in-laws are coming this Sunday, I thought it best to have someone get rid of the goldfish, cheerio, pretzel infestation on the floor of my car.  So we went to the car wash down the street and I decided which wash package I wanted.  Some of the packages  include an air freshener spritz.  Sometimes I get it sometimes not, depends on how much money I feel like spending.   Yesterday I did.  THIS was my downfall.  I chose vanilla scent.  Also probably a bad idea.


Most of the time the scent is not overpowering, but someone went a little crazy with the spritz yesterday, and the smell hit me in the face as soon as I climbed in the car.  Georgia commented on it immediately too,


"It smell like I eat in he-a."


I kinda got what she was saying.  The vanilla smell is reminiscent of a vanilla cake baking, but more perfumy.  So at first she kinda liked it, until 30 seconds later when she didn't.


"I gonna frow up!  I gonna frow up!" She started to whine.


What?  She was fine two minutes ago.  We were having fun at the car wash with the cute doggie, someone let us pet, and the gumball I bought her. Now, all of a sudden, she was going to throw up??  I was confused.  We stopped at the post office on our way home and I got her out of the car.  She was pale and listless, but seemed better outside of the car.  Then we got back in to go home and she was right back to,


"I gonna frow up!"


Then I realized it must be the scent.  Could strong scents trigger migraines?  I had no idea, because I don't suffer from them myself.  I got her home without "frowing up".  I laid her down on the couch with her blankie


Then I Googled migraine triggers and strong scents was indeed on that list.  Son of a BITCH!  I found a trigger for Georgia!  Suddenly I realized, Oh crap.  I had to put her back in the car to pick Sonya up from school at 1:20.  So I rolled down all the windows, but that didn't seem to be getting the smell out fast enough.  Then I remembered how coffee beans cancel out strong smells, so I put a bowl of beans in the car.  An hour later I went to see how it smelled.  Well, the good news was the vanilla scent was dissipating.  The bad news was my car smelled like a vanilla latte now.  I felt like I was driving inside a Starbucks for the rest of the day.


Unfortunately, I had to wake Georgia  to pick up Sonya from school, which was not a good thing to do.  Her brain had not reset entirely and I could tell she was still in migraine mode as soon as I picked her up.  She was very pale, very weak and still claiming she had to "frow up".


Then she did.


In the van.


The one I just had washed.


She did, thankfully, manage to keep it contained to her blankie and car seat, so it wasn't everywhere.  But once the vomiting starts, it just keeps going until nothing is left.  Every twenty minutes or so she would whimper and cry and I'd bring her the bucket until eventually, her stomach was empty. She would still cry every so often, but nothing would really happen.  Poor thing.  I felt so bad for her.  She layed on the couch all day, looking like death's door.


I tried to get her to sleep again, but she couldn't.  Then we got to a time where it was just to late for her to go to sleep unless I wanted her up at 3am.  No thanks.  So we waited it out.  I was just aiming to get to 6pm to put her down, but somewhere around 4:30, she sat up and started acting more lifelike.  Then she said,


"I going to go pway now."


She got down and went to play with her sisters for the next hour.  She ate her entire dinner later on too.  The migraine had apparently disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared earlier in the day.  It was as if nothing had ever happened.  It was just... weird.


My youngest sister, Megan, has suffered from migraines in the past and when I told her this story none of it surprised her like it did me.  Strong scents will trigger her migraines too.  She also told me how terribly awful you feel when you have one and when it's gone, it's just gone.  Like it never happened.  Usually, it happens after you sleep though.  That's what threw me off with Georgia yesterday, because she never slept again before it went away.  It was like a light switch just flipped off in her head.  Like I said, weird.


So, while it's true I didn't get much accomplished yesterday, it wasn't a total loss.  I did learn to keep Georgia away from strong scents, particularly the car freshener spritz.  Well, at least I'll save a little money next time I get my van washed.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

Sonya has never been one of those kids who I have to worry about saying embarrassing things about people.  I don't know if she is smart enough to know better, or is just to shy to talk in front of people she doesn't know well.  What I mean by this is she's never pointed things out to strangers or even people we know that might make them feel uncomfortable.  Like the time my mom was out shopping with my niece, Gracie. A nice woman came up to talk to them and comment on how cute Gracie was.  Apparently the woman has some out of control hair, and Grace pointed it out by telling the woman that her hair was a mess.  My sister was just grateful it was my mom who took the hit and not her.  As many times as I've been put in similar situations with Sonya, she has never said something like that.  Until Friday.


My Grandpa came over on Friday afternoon to see Sonya for her birthday, give her a card and the annual birthday gift of $10.  It's so cute because he's been giving the same amount for birthdays since I was a kid.  Only when I was a kid I also got  pieces of stale bubble gum taped to the inside of the card.  That might have been my favorite part.  He does have six grand kids, and fourteen great grand kids and after a while that money adds up.  Perhaps $10 was a good amount to choose and stick with all those years ago, especially living on a fixed income.  Either way, Sonya was excited for the money and couldn't wait to put it in her piggy bank.  


We hung out and chatted for a while.  Then we went to the kitchen so Sonya and I could make her birthday cake.  Grandpa sat and watched as we made the batter.  Sonya decided that was a good time to ask a few questions rolling around in her head.  


"Is Grandma dead?" was the first thing on her mind.  


"Yes, Sonya," I told her.  "Remember she died over the summer and went to heaven?"


"Oh yeah."


Then she thought for a minute and asked, "How old is Grandpa?"


"Why don't you ask him?" I told her.  So she did and he told her that he was 83 years old.  


Then she looked over at me and asked, "Why isn't Grandpa dead yet?"


Ummmmmm...ha...ha...Oh Sonya....


I wanted Southwest so I could "get away".  


It's not like the death questions are entirely new.  We did deal with this a bit back in June, but it caught me off guard once again.  Especially since this time it was IN FRONT of my Grandpa.  


It didn't seem to bother him at all though.  He's well aware of his age and the fact that he is close to the end of his life.  He started talking about telemarketers  calling him, and how he explains to them that he's too old and doesn't have time to buy what they're selling.  After that the comment was forgotten.  I think.  Eh-Grandpa's probably too old to remember anyway.  Actually, that's not true.  He has a pretty good memory, but I'll just pretend he doesn't to save me the embarrassment.  

A Reminder

One day last week I was feeling particularly guilty about my bad mom behavior.  The little girls were down for a nap, I was in the kitchen cleaning up (this is what I spend 95% of my day doing), and Sonya was coloring in the living room.  I started thinking about how I yell at the girls sometimes, get frustrated with them, and don't always the find time to play with them.  I began to feel terrible about the way I was doing my job as a mom.  So I said to Sonya from the kitchen,


"Sonya, I'm sorry that I'm not such a great mom sometimes."


Without missing a beat she said,


"You're an AWESOME mom!!"


That response caught me completely off guard, because I honestly expected her to say something like, "that's okay".  I started to tear up.  I really wasn't fishing for a compliment or validation but she gave it to me anyway.   That is why even though there are times, MANY times, the girls make me want to tear my hair out, hop a flight to Hawaii or down a bottle glass of wine during the day, there are moments like that one with Sonya that make it all worth it.  No matter how much I complain, become frustrated or annoyed, there are times where I'm joyful, proud and awestruck.  I have never for a moment regretted my decision to take this job six years ago today.  Hearing how awesome I am from my daughter makes it all worth it a million times over.


Happy 6th Birthday Sonya!  Thank you for making me what I am today.  An awesome (if sometimes temperamental) mommy.

She Works Hard For the Money, Oh Wait...

Tomorrow is Sonya's 6th birthday.  SIX!  I can't believe it!  When did I get here?  It's just hard to believe that I've been doing this job for the past six years.  The funny thing is I thought it was going to get EASIER at some point.  Stop laughing, mom.  Okay sure, it is easier in some ways.   I don't have to wake up to feed a baby in the middle of the night anymore and there is only one child left in diapers, but in other ways it's much, MUCH harder.


After the past three days I just had, I think I would much rather be holed up in my house with an infant who wants to eat every 2-3 hours, and poops twice as much.  Since Monday, I haven't spent more than an hour at home  from the time I've gotten up until around 7pm at night.  What could a stay at home mom possibly be doing all day?   Well... I've spent my days picking up and dropping off the girls at school, library time, gymnastics, violin, Girl Scouts, the dentist and the doctor.  We had a reception at Sonya's school on Tuesday night for a contest she entered, for which I volunteered to make cookies in all my spare time.  Then I had a meeting in the middle of the day yesterday for the parent adult education classes I take Georgia to, for which I had to bring a casserole, since it was a pot luck lunch.  Also done in my endless amounts of spare time.  Oh yeah, and  I took the girls to a  Fundraiser dinner last night (by myself) to Bob's Big Boy, where I lost my credit card.  THAT was a treat. (It was later recovered though. Whew!)  All this culminating to Georgia throwing up at bedtime last night and then again at 12:30 in the morning, 12:45 and around 1am.  I was up with her and the pukey laundry until 2:15 this morning.  Not to mention all my day to day house duties, which continued to mock me.  As much as Andy helps when he's around, or I make him help, he was not here for any of this.  Well, except the after midnight throw ups when he kept GG occupied as I changed the sheets in her crib three times.


So yeah, not easier.  In fact after six years, I'm pretty sure I deserve a raise.

Falling Out of Favor

Remember that post I did just a couple weeks ago about Georgia?  The one where I said she was so sweet and my favorite right now?  If not, go here so you can recap.  


Anyway, soooo yeah...almost the DAY after I wrote that, things sorta um... changed.  In the past couple of weeks, she has gone from being the sweet do everything I ask girl, to a whiny, crying, screaming, temper tantrum throwing terrible two year old.  Even going places with her when she's without her sisters are starting to present a challenge.  So it appears the role of the favorite is back up for grabs!  I guess Sonya and Lana can duke it out, although amazingly enough, these days Lana is in the lead.  I will keep you updated on how it all turns out.  

No Fly Zone

A few weeks ago, Georgia decided that she is now afraid of airplanes flying overhead.  This would be all find and good if we didn't live ONE MILE from the airport!!


For those of you who haven't been to my house, the planes from the Burbank airport take off right over us.  Sometimes they land in our direction, if it's windy, which makes them way louder and much closer.  Let's just say I wouldn't go sunbathing topless in my backyard.  Well, that and my boobs have never seen the light of day, so they might get a little sunburned.  The good thing is, because the Burbank Airport is so small, there aren't that many planes that fly over.  Still, when they do and you're outside, you have to stop talking for a minute before continuing any conversations. 


 My girls have all grown up with this, so why NOW does Georgia decide she is afraid of the planes?  I have no idea.  For a while I couldn't get her to go outside and play with her sisters at all.  This sucked, because sending them outside allows for me to nap clean without being bothered.  It would be okay if she was inside playing by herself I suppose.  It never happens that way.   The other two get wind of the fact that Georgia is inside playing and decide they want to come inside too thus ending my peaceful nap cleaning.  


She does seem to be getting over it a bit.  Now she will go outside to play and when a plane flies over she just runs inside yelling,


"I fraid of da panes! I fraid of da panes!"


Then when it's gone she goes back outside.  Until the next one comes by.  Usually they fly around the hour or half our mark in twos or threes.  So at least I have twenty minute intervals of her being outside, which is enough for a small nap, um... amount of cleaning. 


Unfortunately for Georgia this is just one of those fears she's going to just have to get over, because we aren't moving anytime soon and, last I checked, the airport wasn't either.  

Easy Street

A couple weeks ago Andy posted this article on his Facebook page.  After reading it I posted it on mine, because I honestly couldn't believe how clueless this girl was.  If you haven't read it yet, go and read it now.  It'll only take a minute.  I'll wait.  


Done? 


I KNOW, right!?! What the HELL!?  I love the part where she says, "I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy".  Are you effing kidding me, woman??  Yeah, sure I relax and enjoy.  Every night I get to relax and enjoy around 9:30-10pm, when I finish cleaning up after dinner.  Then I get to sit and watch something I've DVR'd while folding three loads of laundry.  I guess she is right.  That is relaxation. 


I can't help to think of this article now everytime I'm in the middle of craziness with the girls.  Like today at the grocery store. The trip today was a total nightmare.  So, for that woman in the article and anyone else out there who doesn't have kids and thinks the same way, here ya go. 


I had a few thing to get at the store today.  Not a big trip, but at least a 30-40 minute trip if I was alone.  Since I had my youngest two with me, instead it took an hour and a half.  Why?  Well there were the countless fight to break up, separating them a few times, running after  them when I thought it would be better to let one out of the cart for a while, getting out snacks, throwing away wrappers from snacks, getting out more snacks,  stopping them from fighting over snacks, keeping them from eating apples, pears or ONIONS that are just aching to be grabbed by little hands, wrapping back up the roll of plastic bags in the produce department that Georgia unravaled like toilet paper, inspecting Lana's eye after she nearly poked it out with a pen she was fighting over with her sister, taking Lana to the bathroom (even though she had gone ten minutes before), stopping at the lobster tank to see the lobsters which weren't there, explaining why the lobsters weren't there for the next five minutes,  taking away the package of M&M's Georgia wanted to hold but was trying to open with her teeth, trying to calm her down from me taking away the M&M's, putting back items on the shelf that we didn't need, but one of the girls thought we did, and breaking up more fights.  All this while I'm trying to pay attention to a list of groceries I need to find and put in my cart.  Soooo... yeah.  


I will say that the response to the woman's question that Carolyn Hax wrote back was awesome.  SHE obviously has her own kids.  Believe me, I know this is a choice that I made and I don't regret it.  It is just frustrating when someone like that thinks what you do is nothing because they don't get it, since they don't have their own kids.  And mind you, I'm not bashing on all people who don't have kids.  I have a lot of friends who don't have kids, and they get it.  They understand how hard it is and would NEVER pose a question like this.  However, for those out there who don't understand what we stay at home moms do all day, and side with that woman, here is a challenge.  Find a relative or friend, who does have a couple kids, and tell them you want to take them off their hands for a day.  And by a day I mean a full 24 hours.  Don't worry, even if they drop their kids on your doorstep and run, they will come back.  Then go and do all those errands that you do by yourself.  The grocery store, Target, Wall Mart, Post Office, wherever, with the kids.   All the while keeping them fed, rested, entertained, clean, and in one piece.   Then you get back to me and let me know when you "relaxed and enjoyed."

All Hallow's Eve

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  Second only to Christmas, I think.  Thanksgiving is close too, because I love to eat, but when I was a kid didn't care as much about Thanksgiving as I did Halloween and Christmas.  Those two holidays are made for kids.  Therefore, when you have your own kids they become more fun again.  (Even if they are both a bit stressful now too.  Didn't have THAT part when I was a kid.)  This was the first year that all three of the girls really understood what was going on and they were excited about everything we did.

Saturday and Sunday we carved pumpkins.  Since we had so many to carve, I figured we better pace ourselves.  Sonya did two pumpkins entirely on her own.  She drew the face and carved them out.  Lana drew on her face and Andy and I carved for her.  Georgia sorta draw and I carved an interpretation of a face I saw.

Andy took full advantage of the Halloween scare tactics again this weekend.  It was around bedtime on Saturday night and the girls weren't cleaning their room.  So Andy told them a spooky story of how Mommies and Daddies could call upon the ghosts at Halloween to come in to little girl's rooms who weren't listening to their parents.  He said if they didn't listen to us and clean then we would call the ghosts to help us scare them.  Thanks hon!  Way to make our kids NEVER want to go to bed!!

I try to soften this some, so they wouldn't get completely freaked out.  I told them, they have to keep in mind that this is also the time of the year Santa was watching them.  Christmas is right around the corner and they better be on their best behavior since he's making his final lists.  Sonya said,

"I like that one better."

"What?" Andy asked her.

"I like that one better.  About Santa I mean," she explained.  "That's better than the ghosts.  There's no such thing as ghosts."

I'm not sure if this meant she knows Santa isn't real either.  I just didn't go there with her.  It was  funny to me the way she said it.  Kind of like-"hey, if you're going to pick something to lie about to get me to behave the Santa story is way more kid friendly, so no more ghost crap okay?"  Well, at least we are well on our way toward Christmas so I can use the Santa one for a while.  Although I'm not sure how effective it will be by the time we actually get to December.

Then last night we all dressed up and went Trick or Treating.  Well the kids and I dressed up.  Daddy didn't, but I love to dress up on Halloween and wouldn't miss it.  Plus I had only worn my costume once and really wanted to wear it again.  In case you're wondering, I was Betty Draper from Mad Men. For those of you who don't watch the show, a 60's housewife.  Sonya went as Wonder Woman, Lana was Minnie Mouse (for the second year in a row) and GG went as Tinkerbell.  We had a friend come over with her two adorable girls to go with us.  (Hi Star!)  Her girls are close in age to Sonya and Lana, but a year older than both.  They had the Trick or Treating thing down and my girls seemed to take their cues from them.  They would all run up to a house, ring the doorbell, and shout out the appropriate "Trick or Treat!" greeting when the door was opened.  Georgia trailed behind a bit and was always the last to get her candy, but she didn't care.  It was actually the first year we've gone without a stroller.  Of course that fact made me happy and sad all at once.  What else is new?

Then there was Lana who more into it this year than I've ever seen.  She kept making me laugh because right after candy was dropped into her bag, she would look inside, and before even leaving the porch would yell,

"I GOT A LOT OF CANDY!!"

She did this at just about every house.

By the time we were done with the houses on our street, their bags were already full.  Lana and Georgia were done.  Sonya wanted to meet some of her school friends, who had invited her to go Trick or Treating with them.  So I got in touch with her friend's mom and Andy took her a few streets over to meet them.  It felt so weird that she was at the age where she wanted to meet up with friends now and not just hang out with us all night.  I mean Andy was still with her, but I guess this is the start.  That made me a bit sad.  The other two sat on our front steps with a big bowl of candy between them and passed it out to all the kids who came by.  They had a great time doing this.  Partially because it gave them easier access to eating the candy.  Every time I turned around Georgia was eating something new.  I finally had to take her inside and put her to bed before she ate the entire bucket.  Lana seemed to be a bit better about it.  I saw her eating a little box of Nerds, but it took her about 45 minutes.  I think she was eating them one by one.

Sonya and Andy came back a little after 8pm, and the Trick or Treaters slowly trailed off.  We finally got everyone in bed by 9pm, which is really late for them, but it doesn't happen often.  We all had a fun time, even if my house did look like a bomb went off and I had to clean for the next two hours.  Totally worth it.