Halloween 911

I wanted to start this post with a good photo of Henry in his terrifying Herald costume. He ended up having a nice run of it, and loved the whole aspect of going to stranger's houses and begging for candy. He and his friends, trailed by Dad, only stayed out about an hour, but managed to get a lot of loot.

There is no picture of George and there is a reason for that. I thought that we would get some good photos of him after his first real mega-Halloween trick-or-treating - - giant candy bag and all. Turns out that when the cops end up bringing your son home, you don't remember to take photos.

Yup, that's cops with a c-o-p-s. It was a hell of night.

The evening started out on a high note. We went over to some neighbors for dinner around 5:30. They own the best local Indian restaurant. It was a wonderful. The kids ate mac/cheese and we had delicious food and good wine. We were joined by three or four other families from the school that the boys are now attending.

The kids started whining to go out at around 6:30, so the fourth graders all got ready and headed out with George the Elder as their chaperon. The 6th graders - -at the ripe age of 12 - -decided to go alone. There were three of them. One of them, Peter, took his cell phone and off they went. We were very comfortable with this, as they were together. It is a nice quiet neighborhood and we felt confident that this was something they could do. Once they were off, I rushed back up the hill to open our door to little beggars.

Around 7:00 I saw Georgie and his friends, as they stopped by our house for treats. Around 7:45 both groups returned to our house, thirsty and tired, with bags of candy. They all trooped in past me as I continued to dole out candy to the horde of trick-or-treaters in front of me. I didn't bother to count them. I just assumed that they were all there.

Around 8:00, Peter and Christian (the other 6th grader) said that they wanted to go back out and get some more candy. I asked why George didn't want to go. They then said they didn't know where George was. What???? Turns out that they had lost him around 7:30! In their words, "We turned around to say something to him and he wasn't there." Whaddya mean he just wasn't there? Did you look for him? Yes, we looked up and down the street twice. He didn't say anything to you like he was going somewhere? Nope. He just disappeared. Yep. Just like that - we entered the twilight zone of crazed parents with a missing kid.

So, off went George the Elder to scan the hood. 20 minutes later, still no George. He is joined in the search by 4 other parents. 20 minutes later still no George. Panic had firmly settled in. This is NOT like George. He doesn't wander. He doesn't leave his friends. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't. Please, please, please don't let anything happen to him.

Finally at 8:50, two cars take off to scan the neighborhood. We come up empty. I confer with George - - we called 911. It was surreal. Yes, my child is missing. What is he wearing? How tall is he? Is is apt to be a run-away? Some one is coming right over.

The police car arrived within about 5 minutes and I am doing the unthinkable of rummaging through my wallet for his photo. It felt oddly like an installment of CSI or something I wish I wasn't watching. 15 minutes later we get the call - - they've found him and he's on his way home. Two plains clothes guys spotted him and picked him up. The good news is that since they were plains clothes it took a lot of badge showing to the other parents on the street before they let Georgie in the car with them. That was nice to know.

In the end, we forgot to factor in one very important thing. The whole "I can go to all the houses I want and get more and more candy!" part of Halloween. We forgot that because of that he didn't care about being with his friends. He didn't even know we were looking for him. He was just out enjoying his first uber-Halloween with unlimited candy from unlimited houses.

We were sure he had been nabbed off the street. His two friends were sure that they were going to have to live with the knowledge that they had "lost" their friend while trick-or-treating. Our friends were as worried as we were (which was helpful later on when I was second guessing whether or not we panicked too soon). Georgie, on the other hand, was blissfully going from house to house getting more candy than he had seen in a lifetime.

And in the end, to all those parents who have ever lost their children, even for an minute or an hour - - what was the time lag between wanting to just hold them so close and so tight for as long as you can, breathing them in as if you haven't loved anything so much in any single moment - - and - - wanting to shake them silly for scaring you so horribly when they should have known better??

Pumpkins and Heralds

Last night the boys finally carved their mega pumpkins. I picked up this snazzy little carving kit at our local target. I had never really seen this kind of thing in person, although I do have a friend who used to do these kind of artistic pumpkins in Tokyo. I thought it was so nifty -- patterns and cool little tools all in the "easy to use" kit that guaranteed a pumpkin design that would wow friends and neighbors. I stood in line and imagined a hallmark-moment carving session with the boys! I have a really great imagination.

By the end of the session, we did have carved pumpkins. They look pretty cool. They were not that fun to do.

Problem number one: The boys LARGE pumpkins meant something like 2 inch hulls. I think that carving a spider web on the front of a nuclear submarine with a blow torch may well have been easier than using the mini hack saw on Henry's pumpkin. We tried using the core cleaning tool to thin out the hull. Heck the thing even had a "thumb rest" guide on there to obviously allow the user to increase torque when thinning. Didn't work.

Problem number two: The darling little tools, so attractively packaged in the alluring carving kit were, in a word, c-r-a-p. By the end of the carving session we had broken both little hack saws and cracked the core cleaning tool in half. I would mention that we are not any stronger than any other average pumpkin carving family.

Problem number three: The "pumpkin carving difficulty guide" was not accurate. In a rare moment of "keeping this to a low roar", I made the boys choose only patterns that were awarded a two pumpkin rating -- out of a possible four. I'm no martha stewart, so I was trying to ensure that even I could carve these suckers. George's turned out to be o.k. - - but Henry selected a spider web design that required him to follow a bunch of tiny little fly-wheel imposed dots that once the pattern was removed looked like - - well it looked like a boat load of tiny little dots in a completely random pattern. It should have been rated the 4.5 pumpkins.

In the end, as I mentioned we did finish two pumpkins. George finished his pretty quickly, once he got the hang of the mini-hack-saw. Henry was a regular trooper and continued to work through his spider-web design for an entire hour miraculously making sense out of the maze of tiny dots. He finally gave up and turned to me for relief. By the time I took over, there was only one hack-saw left and its blade was bent precariously in three places. I managed to get the rest done and if you squint really hard, you can actually see what it is supposed to be.

So, I took pictures. This is the first shot of the pumpkins. I took it without my reading glasses on. This is evidence that I can no longer read a single thing - - or in fact focus a camera on a giant pumpkin. Damn. I tried to blame some of it on not keeping the camera still during a long shutter click. George the Elder was not buying it. I went off to find my glasses.




The next photos are taking with my glasses on - - not kodak award winning photos. I do think I was able to prove that the whole "out of focus thing" cannot be blamed entirely on my aging eyes. I suspect the George would say I shouldn't blame the camera. Still, I feel better.





On a final note, last Sunday our neighborhood had a little Halloween block party. A nice chance to meet some of the neighbors, let the boys play some games, and have a BBQ. The boys have been deciding what they want to be for Halloween for the last three weeks. Georgie was dead-set on dressing as the ever creative baseball player or football player. In the end, he went on Sunday in the baseball outfit, as his football jersey was not here yet. Tonight he will be a Cincinnati Bengals football player. We have no idea why he likes the Bengals.

Henry, on the other hand was going to recreate his Roman Toga outfit, complete with ivy head thingy made from ivy stolen from some one's yard. Then, in the last minute he decided that he would not be "scary enough" as a roman senator. As you can see, he settled on the most frightening, horrid, child scream inducing - - Herald. Apparently, being dressed as a medieval Herald replete with a cap with a feather and wielding a dangerous scroll as a prop meets Henry's definition of bone chilling. That frightens George and I.

Funny Man

I have recently been noticing that Henry is developing a mini-me version of my sarcastic and occasionally caustic sense of humor. I am torn over this. Why? Because this kind of freakish inclination can backfire on a person. I know this from experience. There are people who get it, and then there are people that you inadvertently insult. I, personally, know the feeling of being able to get all of my limbs in my mouth simultaneously. In other words, droll sarcasm can get you in to trouble. This is especially true for the inexperienced and the young.

As a parent this is exceedingly challenging. Generally, my first impulse is to laugh. My heart swells with pride when he intelligently accesses a situation rapidly and comes up with some really stupendous one-liner. Ah, how quick of wit is he! My second (and more common) impulse is to get highly pissed off. This may have something to do with his timing. His drollery is most keen when he is teetering on the edge of the precipice of really, really, really getting in trouble. They say your own innate traits are the ones that parents find most difficult to accept in their offspring. I would add that this is exacerbated when they are in the process of provoking them. My brother calls it "poking the bear." Nothing could be more descriptive.

I guess the question is - - how to teach moderation - - not to mention how to teach your child to accurately access when he is funny versus when he is about to get grounded until hell freezes over? As Bill Cosby so accurately put it, "Be careful. What comes out of your mouth next could determine your remaining life span."

This is probably making my mother laugh, as she was the one who had to put up with me while the razor's edge of my wit was being sharpened. But, in those days your mother could just haul off and pop you when you got too sassy. Now, you get a visit from child services for that. I guess my options are to just continually remind him when he is being just a tad too acerbic for a child of 10 years old. And by "remind him", I mean flick him on the forehead.

Bad Mom

This week Georgie was on his 6th grade sleepover trip. They left at the crack of dawn on Monday morning and headed up/over/down/north/south to a well respected and highly regarded nature reserve to study the sequoias for several days and summarily bond with his fellow 6th graders. You might notice that I am being vague about exactly where he was and what the name of the nature center was. The reason? I honestly don't know where he was.

I went to the parents orientation. I heard all about what they were going to do - - hiking, campfires, wading in cold mountain water, making s'mores, hugging trees, etc. I felt comfortable that it was going to be a well supervised trip and educationally worthwhile four days. I packed his bags with him using the packing list supplied by said "highly regarded nature reserve." I dropped him off at school at the previously mentioned crack of dawn. I waved good-bye. And then I realized - - I had no friggin idea where he was headed. What kind of mother am I? More to the point, do you think I asked any of the other parents where they were going? Hell, no. What kind of an idiot doesn't know exactly where their child is going for the next 4 days? Obviously an idiot that looks exactly like me. I consoled myself with the facts that I knew.

I knew that he was going to be in the State of California. I knew that his altitude was going to be greater than 8,000 (thanks to a long lecture by the naturalist at the parents orientation on the possibility that the kids would suffer altitude sickness - -I packed the requisite two 2 liter stainless steel water bottles). I knew that there would be ginormous trees there. I knew that he was within a 5 hour drive of the school assuming the speed of a very large touring bus. I knew that Henry, who is reigning king of google earth, could help me find him. Ultimately, I knew that bad news travels damn fast and would likely be accompanied with necessary directions.

In the end, there was no bad news, no need to use google earth and Georgie arrived home safe and sound last night from wherever he was. While I don't know exactly where he spent the last four days, I now know that sequoias produce some of the smallest pine cones of all pine-like trees. When I asked Georgie what was the most interesting thing he learned on his trip he said, "You can't judge the size of the tree by the pine cone." Words to live by. I never did ask him where he was.

Change of Heart

A couple of days ago I posted about the walk-a-thon at the boys school. I snarkily commented on the price of the requisite t-shirts that commemorated this auspicious event.

Yesterday Henry came home from school with his "Tuesday Note Home". This is the school rag that brings all the parents up to date with important goings on and also has a section that toots horns for kids that have done something noteworthy.

Said Tuesday Note Home announced that Henry's watermelon drawing had been selected as one of the fruits in the design of the walk-a-thon t-shirts. Go figure, I wore the thing all day long and didn't realize my own little budding artist was responsible for the glorious slice of watermelon resting directly upon my right breast.

This means two things - - 1) I am never going to be able to throw out those t-shirts, and 2) What were they thinking charging ONLY $13 for something my child poured his creative soul into???

Footnote: You can see said watermelon in the photo previously posted. It is the triangular red and green splotch located on the woman's right breast. My watermelon slice looked bigger (yuck yuck yuck).

Run boys run!

Yesterday we had a "walk-a-thon" for the San Francisco School. When the boys first brought the information packet home from school I excitedly opened the package looking for the worthwhile charity my children would be walking for. Alas, the selected worthwhile cause was....The San Francisco School. This confused me. I didn't realize you could do a walk-a-thon to benefit yourself. Turns out you can. Turns out that you can spend $13 each on creatively designed Walk-a-thon t-shirts for the whole family. More to the point, it turns out that the actual walking part isn't nearly as important as the parents writing the check part.


In return for said check we were rewarded with being able to force our children to walk around and around in a circle in a park for the better part of an hour while we cheered them on. George and I were interested in making sure we got the most for our money. We whipped our boys into a frenzy and forced them to run. Our money. Our entertainment.

In the end I thought this was such a super-good idea that next week I am going to start raising money for my own personal walk-a-thon. I'm raising money to support my new outdoor holiday decoration habit. It won't be tax deductible, but you'll be able to bask in the feel-good-emotions of knowing that I have the coolest decorations you ever did see. I'm going to do the walking while I am roaming the aisles of my nearest Michael's Craft emporium. There won't be any t-shirts, but I may head over to Nordstroms to purchase some cute new shoes to roam the aisles in. You can be assured your money will be well spent.

Holiday Preparation

Halloween is approaching. The boys have celebrated this classic holiday, but heretofore it has been celebrated in Japan, Germany and Great Britain. They have been trick-or-treating but never on the scale of the US. And, never on the scale that is rumored to happen in our neighborhood. Turns out that we live in "THE" place to trick-or-treat in San Fran. Our neighbors tell us to expect at least 400 kids. We are going from low-key to high-octane.

In preparation for the big day, I have ordered candy from a classic candy company. I know that the boys will come home with the expected trick-or-treat loot consisting of the easily-available Nestles and Mars mixes. Maybe some one will get creative and chuck in the Brachs (I am hopeful as I love candycorn and the kids do not!). But, I decided to go for something a tad more interesting. So we will have BB-Bats, Kits taffy, red hots and charms caramel apple lollipops. I do this as an anonymous gift to every parent who will search through their kid's bags after the house-to-house trek is completed. There nestled in the wrappers of kit-kats and snickers bars, will be a little trip down memory lane for the over 40 crowd.

Also, in preparation we took the boys to our local pumpkin patch. The rule was that they could pick any pumpkin as long as they could pick it up and hold it. They took this to the ultimate level. Don't they look pretty pleased with themselves? This is the first trip to buy a pumpkin that didn't happen in a grocery store parking lot. There were real hay bales, corn stalks and everything. The speeding traffic on the parallel street impacted the ambiance, and the "hay ride" consisted of a loop around a vacant lot, but beyond that it was practically like we were really in a pumpkin patch. We have excellent imaginations.

I have also had to focus on the aspect of external house decorating. In Japan, we headed over to my dear friends neighborhood to do the deed - - so she is known in our house as "Crys who has all cool things for halloween." In Germany we headed over to where the US Consulate personnel lived, so we enjoyed their decorations. And in London, we didn't even realize that there would be trick-or-treating until the actual night of Halloween - - ergo, we did nothing but throw on some costumes and hit the two blocks around our house. Bottom line for SF, we had to go out and get some stuff. We now have "Jack the Pirate Ghoul" and the requisite spider webbing/large arachnid in the window. George the elder is dismayed. He is wondering whether or not I am going to go out and get all things plastic and illuminated as we move in to the Christmas season. I'm thinking of it. If you're going to go there -- I say go all the way. To take Halloween to the next level, I'm seriously considering purchasing the fog machine and hiring some local teenagers to jump out of the bushes to scare people senseless.