Halloween 2007

Life...or what was formerly known as life and is now known as CCC with the AAA...for Constant, Chronic Chaos with Alex, Austin and Andrew...forged ahead. It was late September of 2007, and I had three sons. Also, our daughter-in-law was pregnant with their second son. Life goes on. And on and on, in our family.

So it's my favorite time of year again...football season, (and I am a Gator fan, but just don't have the patience to sit still to watch a game, so while hubby watches...and watches...and watches...I....shop)! I love the fall festivals, the fall weather, the fall decorations, the entire mood and ambiance of fall. I began to prepare for our annual family Halloween party.

Another task we undertook was house hunting. We quickly began to feel the pinch of 5 of us in the house, especially since we knew we'd want to adopt again later...so we began the quest for our next (and hopefully final) family home.

Now, one thing I've neglected to blog about so far is that starting in December of 2006, I began to get sick. Not sick like in cancer...just sick. Head cold, sinus infection, resperitory infection, flu, you name it. I got sick in December of 2006, and from then until now, I would get sick for two weeks, go to the doctor (sometimes), get a prescription for an antibiotic, a nasal spray and a cough medicine, take it all, feel somewhat better for a week or 10 days, and then would get sick again. This went on...and on....and on....for all of 2007, and even into 2008. Luckily, for both Austin's birth back in February of 2007, and for Andrew's birth in August just 6 months later, I was well. For those particular weeks and for several weeks following their births, the Lord blessed me with good health, and thankfully none of my kids ever caught anything from me. But my major memories of 2007 are of feeling very, very sick for weeks and weeks and weeks.

However, in the first week of October 2007, I was eagerly preparing for our Halloween party, along with working, caring for my three sons, and house hunting. Then, the bottom fell out. I got sick, again (after all, I had felt well for three whole weeks in row..can't let Momma get spoiled now, can we)? And this time, when I got sick...it was bad. But, I figured it would run itself out like it had been doing for almost a year now...I'd feel like hell for two weeks, and then feel OK by the end of the month.

WRONG! I just got sicker and sicker and sicker. And it killed me to do it, but I had to cancel our annual family Halloween party. What made me even sicker about it was that our son and daughter-in-law and grandson from Mississippi, Matthew and Emily and Colton, we going to be in town that same weekend as our party. Plus, one of Pete's nieces was going to be there with her family. It was going to be the biggest, best party yet! Oh....the plans I made...new recipes to try out...new decorations....new games...I so wanted this party to happen! I tried so hard to get well again. But it just did not happen. And I really feared getting Emily sick, especially with her being 7 months pregnant. So the party got called off, practically at the last minute. We did manage to make it to our church's Fall Festival, known as Trunk n Treat, as well as to a pumpkin carving party at the home of some friends, so Halloween of 2007 was not without it's festivities. But to cancel our annual Halloween party just goes to show you how truly sick I was. It was scary.

But there is a hilarious Halloween story to share for 2007. It was before I got sick and had to cancel the party. We were dragging all of the Halloween decorations down from the attic. One of my motion-sensor decorations (a tombstone that opens with a ghost popping out) fell and hit the floor. Alex was right in the middle of it all, of course. I picked it up and saw that it was cracked and hoped I had not broken it completely. I took it to Pete (with Alex tagging along right behind me, of course) and Pete looked it over. He said: "Oh, it's only cracked. It's just a crack right here. I'll get some SuperGlue and I can fix it." Alex took all this in, word for word, naturally.

OK, so fast forward to later that night. Pete's on the porch watching the Gator game. Both babies are in bed. Alex is on my bed watching Shrek, and I'm in the shower. It's late. Phone rings. Knowing Pete was on the porch could not hear it ringing, and wondering who would call so late (well, not super late: around 10:15 PM) I jumped out of the shower, grabbed a towel to wrap around me and dashed to answer the extension on my bedside table. It was Adrian. I explain I'm dripping wet and can I call her tomorrow. Hang up. Go back around the bed and I'm moving around Alex who came to the phone to also say hello to Adrian. My towel doesn't completely cover me: my rear end, to be exact. Alex points at my rear and says: "Mommy, what's that?" I tell him it's my behind, my fanny, my tushie. Something like that. He says, "Mommy, what's that?" and kind of pats his hand at the top of my, well, forgive me here, but I have to tell you so you'll understand the story, at the top of my butt crack. (Now let me explain here that while butts and butt cracks are not our usual family topic of conversation, I don't want to lie to my kids ever, or give them made up words that they will embarrass themselves with later, or any other kind of misguided information about ANYTHING. So when they ask me what a certain body part is, or what anything is, for that matter, I try to always be accurate and precise and to the best of my ability, clinical and G-rated.) So a rear end can be called many things: butt, hiney, fanny, tushie, behind, etc., etc., etc. I was trying to think of a clinical, G-rated way of saying butt crack and I just could not come up with anything. So before he patted me again, and this got even weirder, I said, "well, Alex, that's my butt crack. Everyone has one: you have one, Austin has one, Andrew has one." Well, leave it to Alex. His reply? (Flash back now to the paragraph above). "Mommy, you butt is cracked? Daddy get SuperGlue. He can fix it!"

Kid just listens too damn well if you ask me.

So the Halloween party itself got canceled...but apparently a party of another sort took it's place. The weekend of the planned party, Matthew, Emily and Colton were in town and stayed at our house. Then, because they were at our house, everyone else in the family showed up to visit them: Samantha and her kids, Jessica, Adrian, Ashley and Jared, and even Gloria, Darrell and Sandy. But because I was so sick and didn't want to get anyone else sick, I didn't get to be a part of the fun and festivities, so I was relegated to my bedroom. Bless Adrian's heart. She felt so sorry for me and came back to spend time with me, saying, "I don't care if I do get sick...I'm not going to let Jamaica stay back there all by herself while everyone else is out here in her house having fun!" So at least I had some company, in between bouts of hacking up a lung.

I managed to rally just enough to take the boys trick or treating around the neighborhood the night of Halloween. Or at least that's what Pete tells me. I really don't have much recollection of it...either I was sicker than I let on, or else my sinus, nausea and cough medicine did a number of me reminiscent of my Vodka Collins' days. Alex was a Junior Bob the Builder, and Austin and Andrew were baby pumpkins. That much is true, because there are picture to prove it.

Being sick was really beginning to suck.