Of sour faces & not much sleep on Halloween night...

Annual jack o' lantern. Isn't he scary?! ;-)

Hello all, and happy commemoration of All Souls! I hope that you had a great Halloween and feast of All Saints. Mine was *pretty* good :0 but had it's ups and downs. I definitely want to know how YOURS was, so chime in down in the comments! But what amusement awaited me this particular Halloween? Read on, dear reader.

All right, so Halloween is traditionally a bad weather day around here in WNY. It's rained the past two years, and this year was shaping up to be no exception, with gray skies and wind abounding. Meanwhile, inside our house, a storm cloud was perched firmly over my daughter's head. She was not feeling 100%, with new cold-like symptoms developing, and expressed dissatisfaction with some of her costume details. Every Halloween, right around 6 pm, somebody in our house is crying. Every.single.year. :0

Here's the Catholic Librarian crew, just prior to the festivities beginning:

Anne initially refused to pose for the picture and only Daddy's coaxing made this happen...

We worked our way through Anne's temper, and thankfully the sprinkles had dissipated by time trick-or-treating was upon us. As is our norm, I took the kids out to gather candy while Mike stayed behind to hand out treats. Anne had perked up, and delightedly moved from house to house. Henry, nearly 10 now, has moved on to the "morose" stage of his life. ;-) He was feeling rather mortified, I think, to be trick-or-treating with Anne and I, but it's not like we forced him, he just hadn't booked any other plans. :-) We covered good ground, running into two little girls dressed as Elsa from Frozen, companions to Anne's own Anna costume. One of the moms was just delighted:

"Look. IT'S ANNA!! You two found each other!!"

Very cute.

At any rate, we made our way through our regular route, and then Mommy was very happy to head home with 2 tired, but sugared up, kids in tow, and an empty "water bottle." By the time we got the kids settled and in bed, it was much later than usual. And we were hoping for some relaxing time. ;-) We head upstairs.

Approximately 25 seconds later...

"What's that?! I think it's Anne."

"No it isn't!!"

Denial is always the first reaction I have when children wake up anytime within the 9 pm to 7 am span.

"It is. Let me see if I can soothe her real fast."

*5 very long minutes elapse*

"I don't know what's wrong. She's crying. And she won't talk."

Great.

But I figure, Mommy's Powers sometimes dwarf Daddy's Powers when it comes to night soothings. I head in, feeling confident:

"Anne, what's wrong, Honey?"

*violent shaking of head*

I have another moment of unease when I see that sunny little Anne looks like something straight out of The Exorcist, hair sticking up, eyes wild, thrashing limbs. All offers of water, back rubs, application of Vick's VapoRub, extra pillows and snuggles are resoundly rejected. She won't say what's wrong, nor will she stop wailing. Relaxation time is officially over.

She refuses to stop crying unless I sleep in her room, and let me tell you: Bodies over 25 years of age are NOT meant to sleep on the floor anymore. Every muscle in my body ached the next day. But there I stayed until about 3:30 am. In between being woken to be asked:

"Is it morning time yet?"

"NO dear, let's go back to sleep, OK Muffin?!"

At 3:30 am, Anne started coughing. And coughing and coughing. I knew she wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep with it that bad. So she and I headed downstairs for cough drops, fresh water, and to prop up on the couch for some Golden Girls viewing while we waited for the coughing attack to pass. She very happily set up shop at one end of the couch, while I curled up on the other. I own the full Golden Girls collection on DVD, so I popped in a disk and hit "PLAY ALL." Glorious, so glorious, I tell you. Three hours of soothing Golden Girls hilarity followed in the background.

After assuring that Anne had finished her cough drop, she and I propped up on pillows to try and fall asleep. Anne has gotten quite long legged of late, and soon she was stretched out and taking up 95% of the sofa, snoring loudly without a care in the world. I was curled into the fetal position on the other end, dreaming of being able to move my legs. I woke up at 6:30 when Mike came downstairs, my poor legs having moved onto *the coffee table* in an effort to not be twisted like a pretzel any longer.

Anne was still asleep and he took the reigns from there, allowing me to go upstairs to try and sleep for an hour or so. The time change couldn't have come on a better night.

I was undecided as to whether to go to Mass or not given how little sleep I had gotten, but ultimately I ended up going, and I am SO GLAD that I did. As ever, it cheered me right up. After Mass, I spent the afternoon following football and making my mother's patented recipe for chicken soup with meatballs, which proved incredibly soothing. And then I was exhausted and ready for bed well before 9 pm. :)

Hence, there were some fun moments, but my Halloween was a bit tiring this year. How was yours? Do detail in the comments. :)