Candy thief confessions

Last Monday, I drove to Hemet to pick up my mom.  She’d hitched a ride with relatives from Washington to the desert almost a week earlier (detouring to scenic Utah before arriving in California).

We set up a bed for her in the dining room, which sounds super weird, except that our dining room is rather secluded and we never, ever dine in it.  A pocket door separates the kitchen from the dining room, making her space fairly private.

Anyway, so my mom is here for a few weeks.

In other news, Halloween is coming but we haven’t carved any jack-o-lanterns.  No one in  my household seems to care but I might buy a big pumpkin just to be sure.

I am nostalgic for the days gone by when I’d sew or create a handmade Halloween costume.  (Those days didn’t even extend to the two younger kids, but ended the year my boys insisted they wanted those horrible cheap polyester costumes from Target.)

Regardless, the kids would be so cute!  We’d hope for a rainless Halloween and circle our neighborhood. (These costumes probably came from Target.)

They would always fight over who got to ring the doorbell.

Afterward, we’d return home tired and sometimes damp, and they’d dump their candy haul on the floor.  Some kids would sort it while others just rolled around in it.

Then they’d go to bed and I’d steal all the Snickers because none of my kids liked nuts.  I’d also steal Paydays, but there usually weren’t many of those.  This was a public service, a display of mom-love.  When a sacrifice must be made, I’m first in line (to get the Snickers).

This year, my 13-year old is planning to trick-or-treat with her friend.  She’s wearing a costume I got tricked into buying (that matches her friend’s costume).  My  17-year old is working on Halloween (at Pizza Hut).  Afterward, he plans to hang out with his friends.  My other kids will just be ignoring Halloween as they usually do.

I personally will be answering the door and passing out full-sized Snickers and trying to calm the barking dog after each ding-dong of the doorbell.

Then I will sing a chorus of “The Cat’s in the Cradle” and call it a night.