On Tuesday we began gearing up for our Halloween festivities. Andrew, Dan, my mom and I went to the ward Halloween party. (My dad--perhaps wisely--opted to stay home). The ward was having a chili cookoff, which sounded promising, but there were several factors that suggested that it might not be such a great idea for a toddler who needs an early bedtime (the ward party began at six). First of all, there were no tables set up in the gym where we were going to eat. While this is fine for grownups, it's pretty difficult for people with children under five. (I realize that they were trying to leave space free for all the Halloween games they had planned, but couldn't they have done the games--or the food--somewhere else? Maybe not.) Then, when they actually started the meal, they had the grownups go through the line first, while the primary children were getting armbands of some sort (presumably for the games later). While this seemed a little backward to me, matters were further compounded when, after most of the adults had already been through the line, an announcement was made stating that the hotdogs were for the children, and the chili was for the adults--so could the adults please not take the hotdogs. (Of course, by this point, almost every adult who had been through the line had taken a hotdog--after all, that was the first real food item encountered in the buffet line). Anyway, it was pretty chaotic, hard--if not impossible--to keep Andrew close enough to us to feed him (not to mention the difficulty of feeding him a hotdog with ketchup and not getting any food on any of our costumes . . . ). After about forty minutes of this, Dan--ever the party animal--suggested rather imperatively that we should probably go home and put the boy to bed. So we did.
Wednesday, of course, the celebrations of All Hallows Eve continued. I took Andrew to the library in the morning for story hour (wearing his tiger costume, because he insisted on putting it on that morning). Of course, since nearly every other child there was dressed up, this wasn't an issue. I'm not quite sure I bother with story hour, except perhaps out of some mistaken idea that Andrew would like it. Sometimes he does like the singing--for about two minutes. After that, he would rather wander around the bookshelves and play with the drinking fountain. And because it was Halloween, there were a lot more people there than would normally have been there during story time. However, one good thing did come of it--I ran into an old friend of ours from State College, Alicia (sp?) Gee, and her two youngest. (For those of you who know the Gee family, you might be interested to know that they are expecting their fourth baby in the next couple of weeks).
That evening, Jeni and Samuel brought their kids over to go trick-or-treating with Andrew and Grandma, while they took advantage of the child-free time to go to the temple. I'd forgotten how much fun Halloween can be with small children around--it didn't take Andrew very long to figure out that if he rang the doorbell someone would appear with candy, although he never did quite master the "trick-or-treat" at the appropriate moment. (Funny story: I'd spent some time earlier in the week trying to explain the concept of trick or treat and trying to get Andrew to say it. At one point, I asked him: "What does a tiger say?" Andrew responded promptly: "roar." When I asked, "What does Andrew say?" Andrew responded, "trick-or-treat."). Things went pretty smoothly until we got to the neighboring street, where a couple of the neighbors had gotten way into the halloween spirit. One yard had giant spiders festooning the trees, witches at a cauldron, skeletal pirates beneath a pirate flag climbing down the roof, and pirate gold half buried near the front door (along with assorted graves and skeletons). At any rate, Emi and Jacob, who were both old enough to know that this stuff was "scary" refused to go up to the door (until we explained that everything there was fake--it wasn't real--and even then they weren't really keen on the idea). Andrew did just fine until we got across the street, where the neighbors had set up some kind of softball match between skeleton figures. This wasn't too bad--what broke Andrew was the cheerleader in a coffin who sat up right when we were standing next to her. Andrew immediately turned around, clutched me, started crying, and refused to move. After that, he started repeating the new phrase he'd learned from his cousins: "I scared!" It took a great deal of persuasion to actually get him to the door (where the three-year-old who was currently manning the door wouldn't actually open the door, having been wisely instructed by her dad not to open the door to strangers. Her dad, who was out in the street talking to some other neighbors, had to come open the door for us and talk her into giving us the candy.) Despite the trauma, I think the pleasures of the candy hunt overcame any lingering effects of the scary houses.
Thursday afternoon, after Andrew woke up from his nap, we loaded up the car, picked Dan up early from work, and drove down to Cedar City where we were planning on spending the weekend). Andrew, of course, was thrilled to be going to see his Bubby and Poppy. And Jake and Katie and Wee-wee. (The picture below has nothing to do with the narrative--Andrew just became fascinated with a pair of particularly shiny--and correspondingly frivolous--shoes of mine and wore them around for a good twenty minutes).
Friday morning, bright and early, we left Andrew with his Bubby and drove down to Las Vegas, where I planned to spend the morning at the UNLV library (whoever goes to Vegas to go to the library?), looking at some microfilm of an old Nevada newspaper for one of my dissertation chapters. I wish I could say that my search was incredibly fruitful, that I uncovered something transformational, but actually I didn't find a whole lot that I didn't already know, although at least I can have the virtuous satisfaction of having tried (and I got some good material for a few more footnotes--the hundred or so I already have in the chapter clearly not being enough!!). We stopped at In-N-Out Burgers on our way out of Vegas. After consuming our own repast, Dan went through the line again to get some for Dan's sister Sarah and her husband Aaron.
Upon our return to Cedar City, we discovered that the party had started without us--Sarah and Aaron and their brood, as well as Dan's brother Matt and his wife Laurie, were hanging out at the house and entertaining our son. (So successfully, apparently, that he had time only for a nodding glance at his mother, as unfazed by her reappearance as he was by her disappearance earlier in the day. He was more interested in trying to play "light-sabers" with his older cousins.) We had a yummy dinner of pizza from Bruno's and hung out for a while before Sarah had to head back to St. George to put the kids to bed. (Oh, and before I had to spend a Herculean hour and a half trying to get my over-tired, over-excited little boy to sleep. Of course, it wasn't until our last night in Cedar City that I actually figured out the trick of getting him to sleep in a new place).
Saturday was also a busy day--it was Aaron's graduation from the radiology program he's been attending the last couple of years. (And the whole reason we were in Southern Utah in the first place). Although Dan and I weren't able to attend the graduation itself (there weren't enough tickets for us, and besides, Andrew was napping), we were able to help Sarah prepare for the graduation party afterward. Sarah had a magnificent Hawaiian themed party all planned out--she is clearly the consummate party-planner (I wish I had a fraction of her creativity in this regard!). Of course, having brought the camera with us to St. George for the express purpose of taking pictures with it, we failed to take a single picture. So, either you'll have to use your imagination, or you can check out Dan's parents' blog. Andrew and I unfortunately had to leave the party early in order to get an acceptable bedtime, but I'm told we didn't actually miss much but the clean up. (Of course, they're probably just saying this to make me feel better . . .)
This morning, the last of our stay, we were all treated to a fritatta breakfast (courtesy of Robert) and tea in real tea cups (courtesy of Trisha). Andrew was even allowed a mini-tea cup of his own (although he wasn't allowed anything more than water, having seriously compromised his standing with his Bubby Saturday morning by threatening to spill his hot chocolate and generally act the part of a "bull in a china shop" as Trisha put it). Probably Andrew's major accomplishment of the weekend was learning all the parts and pieces of the toy tea set that Trisha keeps for the grandkids--by Sunday, he knew exactly where the "sugar" was kept, which piece was the creamer, and how to prepare "tea" by mixing sugar and cream into the cups (and then foisting the imaginary tea on whomever was in the vicinity!)
Of course, our weekly adventure wasn't yet over; after breakfast, we loaded up the car again, drove the three hours back to Provo, where we ate, changed into our church clothes, and headed to Springville, where Jeni and Samuel were blessing their baby, Enoch. Although the blessing itself was sweet, and it was wonderful to see so many family members (Jared and Mitcee came with their kids, and even my aunt Dahnelle showed up), it was a bit of a struggle to keep the kids under control for the whole of sacrament meeting, especially since they (read: Jacob, Joshua, and Andrew) were feeding off each other's energy, not to mention their sugar infusion (both Mitcee and Dahnelle provided candy). After church we tried, unsuccessfully, to get Andrew (and his parents) to nap before heading south once more (this time to Mapleton) for a family dinner. The party was hosted by Samuel's parents and was both a celebration of Enoch's blessing and a Guy Fawkes' day party ("remember, remember, the fifth of November . . ."). Although why we celebrate a day when some guy (incidentally, Guy Fawkes is supposedly the origin of the use of the word "guy" to refer to people) failed to blow up Parliament, I'm not actually sure. But the food--especially the bread pudding (Bubby would be jealous)--was quite good. Andrew didn't eat much of the dinner, but he probably ate about half of my pudding. And, thankfully, fell quickly asleep after arriving home.
2 comments:
That was tiring.
But I, Lia, was the one who found it so. Justin LOVES going to parties every day and driving many hours in the car with small children.
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