29-Oct-07 Halloween is coming!

J was back at school today, and in fact was back at Sunday School yesterday for the costume parade. Chickenpox was so much better for her than it was for me way back when! Just a few spots, just a few days, and that's it! Hooray for vaccines. We'll see in about two weeks if K or N come down with it. Also the neighbor girl, who managed to slip into our house on Friday afternoon. I suddenly realized, "V is upstairs playing with J. Do her parents know this? .... Do her parents know J has the chickenpox?" Well, the neighbor parents did know she was at our house but did not know about the chickenpox. Oops! Parental faux pas -- I felt like an idiot. "Should I send her back home?" "Probably too late now, don't you think?" said neighbor mom. Time will tell!
J had gone out front to swing on the swing while I was just inside in the living room on the phone. Neighbor girl saw J outside, ran out to play with her, and next thing you know they're in the house and playing upstairs. Neighbor girl has a talent for this sort of thing!
K has some Halloween goings-on at school tomorrow: Pumpkin Carving Contest and 2nd Grade Spooky Scenes (aka dioramas). So I was up to my elbows in pumpkin goop this evening. Good thing the diorama was already done. Then on Wednesday K has the Halloween parade at 11 am and J has the Orange-and-Black-Day singalong at ... 11 am. I have called in backup (Eric will come over from work to be in one place while I am in the other).

A couple weekends ago, we chose our pumpkins:

Tonight we scooped out the goop. Each child reacted differently to this job. Let's analyze (this could be fun):

J got right in there, and worked hard, enjoyed the squishy goopiness, and was the first to get it cleaned out.

N was very serious about his job. He used his little scooper to take the seeds out but needed mommy's help with the scraping. He worked quietly.

K got a little dot of goop on her cheek. See it in the photo?

She went in the house to get a paper towel for herself.

Shocking.

She did not work quietly, but made sure we all knew her opinions of this job. "Eeew! Gross!" "Mom, can you scoop mine out?" (Mom: "put your hands in there and pull out the goop.") "I don't want to! It makes my hands messy!"

Here is her spooky scene for school: