candy man

Is it the hormones that just made me want to cry today when I came home and saw my completely grown-up boy, in full doctor regalia? "How was your day, Luke?" I asked. "Pretty good, Mommy. Thanks for asking," came the reply from the man with the stethoscope.

Dave and Luke went out to trick or treat in the all-out Halloween part of town (think adults pulling wagons down the street, lit up with a fully stocked bar) and Luke was an undeniable hit with all of the grownups. When they came home, Luke told me all about the mummy who asked him for help with her bandages and the house decked out like a pirate ship where they gave out candy money. "I can eat bubble gum because I'm big enough and I'm strong enough," he informed me. "You're not strong enough, Mommy." Hmmmm.

Shortly afterwards I became a patient at the "hopsidal" while he operated on my leg. Then he finally peeled off the doctor's outfit for a jaunt in the pool with Dave. "I'm surfing, Mommy!" he's calling in to me while I'm sitting at the computer.

Who's this grownup guy?

black humor

Shortly after the last time I wrote, Luke spent a morning vomiting repeatedly, and ultimately turning into little more than a wet noodle of a guy before he fell asleep for an early nap. Ninety minutes later, he bounced out of bed, bright and cheery, announcing, "I have to brush my hair!" (which he did) before continuing on to a perfectly normal day. Is it possible that things that seem completely bad on the surface are actually just plain funny? Like me finding a wavy grey hair on my head the other day? Or me using the bathroom at the doctor's office, then checking out at the front desk, walking through the reception area, walking through the parking lot, doing an entire grocery shopping trip, only to come home and have Dave tell me that there was a long strand of toilet paper hanging out the back of my pants? Or me writing the perfect little journal entry, the blog equivalent to the Great American Novel, only to have it disappear into thin air as Blogger crashed? Funny, indeed.

It's been a long week, with Dave gone two nights, followed by two nights of special activities, which have left me feeling completely spent. Luke was sorely missing Dave by the end of his trip (Dave to Luke on the phone: "I'm staying in a hotel" Luke to Dave: "Does it have a pool?") and I was sorely missing some relief from endless readings of "Little Pig" (the Three Little Pigs).

But "It's almost Halloween," as Luke keeps reminding us, and the excitement continues to build. We had a special Trick-or-Treat night at our Wednesday night class and Luke was a little skeptical at first. ("I just want to watch," he told us.) Soon he caught on to the idea that if he planned it just right he could get a lollipop from every trick-or-treat station.

Thursday afternoon, without a trace of irony, Luke went with me to the dentist, which was another big hit. "Are you going to use the drill yet?" he kept asking her. Then by Thursday evening, when we went trick-or-treating at Bill's mom's senior home, Luke was a Halloween pro. He had the whole door-knocking and "thank you" routine down pretty well, until he was somewhat unduly frightened by some big kids with face-covering masks. But he did get to eat two chocolate bars plus an oatmeal cookie, so there was at least something redeeming in the whole day.

Strangely, this whole time, Luke has been telling everyone from his teachers to the lady behind the pizza counter that he is going to be a "push-car" for Halloween. I think what he means by this is the railroad trestle car that the skeletons are pushing on our neighbor's Halloween display, but I have no idea how this translates into a toddler costume. I've managed to con him into wearing his doctor's scrubs two different times now, once for Bill's mom's, and once yesterday for a toddler Halloween parade that was little more than a few moms pushing strollers in a circle (Luke: "Where's the parade?").

Today I had the joy of watching Dave and Luke carve pumpkins together; tomorrow is downtown trick-or-treating. By actual Halloween I think this novelty will be pretty much spent. Although Halloween is supposedly a big deal in our new neighborhood our plan, for now, is to take it easy and just answer the doorbell. Here's to a weeklong sugar high.

jellyfish

Warning ahead: This may be the most boring blog entry ever because it has no theme or predetermined direction. You know, I would blog more if I didn't feel like I might be sick any moment. But hey, don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for Luke. I picked him up from school yesterday like a rag doll, coughing and whimpering with his trademark red over-wiped upper lip. Teacher Melissa said he wasn't able to sleep at naptime, so he was extra-tired and rolled around on the floor throughout dinner, refusing to eat and generally being inconsolable. I put him to bed almost an hour early but he woke up within 1/2 hour due to a mega coughing fit, and we had to go through the whole bedtime routing again to settle him down. How do people do it with more than one?

I'm sure there are a lot of fun Luke stories I could be sharing but it's hard to bring them to mind when I'm so me-focused right now. We went to a massive birthday party at an indoor playground on Sunday and while it was slightly overstimulating for Luke, it completely wore me out beyond repair. I slept for two hours when we got home and then later in the afternoon declined the invitation to go to the pier and the aquarium with Luke and Dave and Suzi and Bill in favor of vegging out on the couch and generally doing nothing productive. When we got home, Luke approached me cautiously: "Are you feeling alright?" (I guess he can't conceive of any reason why a person would choose not to go and see jellyfish.)

We're warming up to the Halloween season and let me first give thanks to all of the cooler voices that prevailed in preventing me from hosting a Halloween party. I'm not sure what I would have done, as I haven't even been able to keep myself on track, let alone do any kind of party planning. I'm considering taking him to a few different Halloween-type events and I'm trying to weigh the scare factor vs. the overwhelmedness factor vs. the sweets obsession factor for each one. The main question remains: Will he wear his doctor costume? And then: Will he stop obsessing about candy long enough to just enjoy the holiday for what it is? And then: Will he have nightmares for weeks to come about scary stuff? He told me that he was scared by a jellyfish he saw at school the other day, so there's no telling what might haunt his little brain late at night.

Speaking of the sweets obsession factor: We all know Luke is obsessed with gumballs for whatever reason, but the larger reality is, he just seems to be a sweets junkie. I'm trying not to make it a forbidden fruit, but it's all he wants to talk about eating. On Friday Luke helped me make chocolate chip cookies with the mixer (a big treat) and the pile of remaining cookies (that is, the ones that didn't burn to a crisp on the as-yet-unexplored bottom shelf of the oven, setting off the smoke alarm for 10 minutes, but that's another story...) proved to be too much of a temptation for the entire weekend. But he's ever-optimistic about the possibility that any meal might be an excuse for a marshmallow, or ice cream, or some other super-sugar treat.

I made him a yogurt "milkshake" the other morning and he was thoroughly unimpressed. When we got home last night I tried to cheer him up by hauling out the mixer again so we could make pudding, which I thought would be a big hit, but he turned that down too. Maybe he saw how much milk went into it and realized it might actually have nutritional value. He keeps talking about a kid from school named Sammy who brings "gummies" for lunch. Could it be gummy bears? Or gummy fruit? I have no idea, but I figure it's only a matter of time before there's some serious lunch-swapping going on around here.

tooled out

What to say, really, after a great week with everyone and all of Luke's tool fantasies fulfilled? He got to use the post-hole digger, drill press, all manners of saws, and had other extravagances like apple-picking and tractor-riding. Oh, and of course seeing Papa and Gamma Joan and Uncle Joe, Aunt Sara, Sam, Lily, and the dogs made it all worthwhile.

The good news was that we made it through the flight on the way home and I have that particular stressor out of my system. My favorite image is of Luke walking down the darkened aisle toward the bathrooms, with his crazy shoes sending red-and-blue flashing lights ricocheting around the plane and causing various disoriented passengers to lift their heads up from sleep with a somewhat alarmed, "Huh?"

By the time we landed, we had reached the absolute threshold of exhaustion, with me sitting comatose in the back seat on the way home from the airport, and Luke finally giving it up once we got home, unable to even finish the marshmallow sitting in front of him. "I'm finished," he croaked. Luke slept in, spent about an hour in the pool in the morning, then took a long siesta on Sunday. As for me, I never even made it out of the house all day.

Luke is settling back in but is probably feeling a little tool withdrawal. He was bugging Dave about wanting to use the drill press again until Dave finally came back with, "Luke, you have already used at least three different drill presses and you are not even three years old. I didn't use my first drill press until I was 33!"

Dave and I have had to face some crushing realities about the direction that the market seems to be headed and the complete lack of homebuyers out there right now. We've had some tough conversations in the past few days and we just sucked it up this morning and made one more big price cut, which will hopefully put us more in line with our competition. The sad fact is, it's a far different market than even a month ago when everyone was telling us how well-priced our house was. Now we're going to hunker down and hope for some action before the home-buying dead zone that is Thanksgiving/Christmas. For now, all I'm thinking of is just making it through the week.