How can it be the end of the month?
October always throws me for a loop. One day it’s Teegan’s birthday (Oct 
- barely October. The next it’s the end of the month and I still feel like I’m recovering from the birthday. I NEVER get all the Halloween decorating, activities and crafts done that I hope to. I used to sew all the kids’ costumes and it was always a mad dash to get that done, much less anything else. This year, though, I feel particularly swamped. I don’t know if it was the house guests last week or the newly enjoyable weather but I feel like I am so behind in absolutely everything and there is never any time to catch up. I totally crave the day when I can sit back with a book and spend a few hours doing nothing, with no guilt becuase there are no projects waiting for me.
So tomorrow is Halloween. The next day is Dalton’s 13th birthday which means I will officially be the Mother of a Teen. It is also our first anniversary of our G&R which is a big big deal to me. I have no idea how to separate the G&R from the birthday. We celebrate birthdays HUGE here so I really do not want to take the lime light off Dalton. But at the same time, the G&R is a big deal. I have considered playing the “time change” card and declaring her G&R a day early because back here in the US it *was* October 31, not November 1. But that would not really help - then it would just be overshadowed by Halloween. So what’s a big holiday recognizing mama to do? I have thought we should maybe recognize the day we all came home or the day we got to Vietnam or something. Advice? Please?
Back to the hectic schedule…..I have yet to pick up pumpkins, much less carve them. We didn’t do haunted houses, which I really wanted to do. We didn’t do pumpkin patches becuase of my sudden phobia of black widow spiders, only slightly (haha) exacerbated by the fact that my stepMom was bit two weeks ago and was seriously ill from it! But pumpkins are on the agenda for tomorrow along with watching the Charlie Brown special that I DVR’d and trick or treating, of course. Plus I had better wrap gifts, bake a cake and get ready for the big birthday. I’m tired just thinking of it all. Add the G&R anniversary to the mix and EEK!
Get ready for days worth of mushy sentimental blog posts including the never-before-told G&R story! BUT! After Thursday you will get a big long break until March! haha.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I wrote a post about the whole b-day G&R and other kid thing too, we are way into birthdays over here and I don’t want to take away from that, but how to incorporate it all?
Good luck!
You have wayyyyyy more energy/motivation than me!
October 30th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
This doesn’t really help, but Seth and I had the time difference discussion. He thinks we should celebrate on Nov 29th since it was Nov 29th here. I told him that it says Nov 30th on our papers and now that I am writing this, since VN is 12 hours ahead of us and we didn’t get her ’til 1 pm and then it was after 4:30 for the unceremonial G&R that we had, it WAS Nov 30th here, too! Ha, won that argument, didn’t I?
October 30th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Sarah - yeah that was our bottom line too - it was really still Nov 1 here too becuase G&R was in the afternoon. Ah well!!!
October 30th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
You are such an awesome mom. I think it’s great how you really celebrate in a big way. You could always celebrate your homecoming…the day she became a citizen. Happy Halloween, Happy Birthday to Dalton and Happy Anniversary to all.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:26 am
Wow, a teenager! Happy birthday to both of you!
Don’t beat yourself up about not doing everything Halloween you wanted to do, there will be other years. Maybe you can make it a tradition to do all the fun Halloween stuff on the actual day?
I love the gift you have for honoring important days and celebrating them. I wish we were as good at it!
Have a great Halloween!!
October 31st, 2007 at 12:59 pm
wow! You have so much going on!
I like the idea of celebrating the day that you guys came back to the US as a family. It gives you a few weeks of leeway and it is a VERY special day.
Enjoy the Charlie Brown Special–we watch it every year and we don’t even have kiddos yet!
October 31st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
In Anne Tyler’s latest book, Coming to America (maybe you can read it on that magical day when you have your free three hours), they celebrate the day the kids landed in the US. That should buy you a few weeks distance between Halloween and Birthday.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:10 pm
I think you should try it on the birthday what we did with ethan’s b-day: the birthday ends at five o clock and the G&R anniversary starts at five o clock.