National Blog Post Month or something like that

November is National Blog Post Month, or something like that. I looked at the site from a friend's blog, and I started to join but then I had to give my email address, and I don't see the point of giving my email address, and I couldn't take the time to read all the fine print because I was up last night from about 4-6 am feeling sick from having put in my belly the following items: meatloaf, white wine, twix candybars from Abe's Halloween basket. Everyone steals their kids' candy, the best kind, at least before they're old enough to realize what they're missing. Abe hasn't asked for candy once today, not once. No idea why not.

I think anyone still reading our blog is going to regret my snap decision to join in the month of daily blog posts. I rarely have anything important to say. I'm hoping that committing to writing a post a day will nudge me into going more into details about this next adoption. I have been hesitant to write about the adoption for various reasons, which I may get into at some point.

For now, I'm pretty sleepy. And we have a guest in town that I'm ignoring (well, she's reading a book while Abe is rolling around at her feet, so I think she's okay with the current state of things). So I'll leave the obligatory Halloween report.

We started the day by going with our friend Staci who is here visiting from Los Angeles to the Portland Saturday Market, with a side-trip to the original Voo Doo Donuts.

Abe tried on his costume a few days before Halloween, yelled "Let the wild rumpus start!"

Halloween is exhausting if you're the parent of a toddler. Last year was easy. We just walked the little chicken to a few doors on our block and then came home to hand out candy from the warmth of our own home, with the little guy unaware of the sugar he was missing.

This year? Abe knew very much what was going on and wanted in on the action. Also, our neighborhood is a popular one, so it's always pretty chaotic and crammed with kids and parents. At several points during the night, I wasn't even sure where we were. I was so focused on these things: never letting Abe out of my sight, not stepping on his tail, keeping other kids from stepping on his tail, keeping him from stepping on his tail, making sure he actually said "trick or treat," making sure he didn't grab handfuls of candy, making sure he made eye contact with each neighbor as he said "thank you very much" when he was most wanting to tear open each piece right then and there, and again not stepping on the tail amidst the crowd of kids as we walked away. We were making the rounds with three other families on our block, Abe being the youngest of all the kids. Keeping up was a challenge. Thankfully, one of the dads kept yelling for everyone to wait for Abe.

Exhausting.

Here's just a little taste of the chaos:


We had trick-or-treaters coming by until after 10pm. We'd gone for an hour to our next-door-neighbors for drinks, came home, and had a crew of kids show up at 10:30. And I never should have consumed that combination right before bed. Gross. Made for an exhausting night.

One of my favorite things about Halloween in our neck of the woods: the George Washington statue always gets a hat. Last year was a dunce's cap. This year, a black bucket.