There was something missing. We did all the usual things, we hit every tradition…We even squeezed in watching the Disney Halloween Special from the early 90s! But something was missing. It was only a day or two later that I realized what it was. Chaos. There was no frantic getting everyone ready and out the door, everyone managed mostly on their own and none of our events had a time crunch feeling. There was a level of Chill that was almost uncanny and if I’m honest, I missed the crazy. I think I can say that’s a general theme of my life lately. Time is passing in a weird flow (parts of the day/month/year crawl while the rest sprint) but with all my free time and my kids growing older…there is more quiet and less crazy. There were other things missing, namely The Boy. He took the torch in stride and dressed up for his classes and I even got to help with a bit of his costume. I had to explain that he has entered into a really depressing life stage if you are an adult who loves Halloween. Unless you can get invited to a costume party, there’s not much excuse to dress up, which is so sad. But I told him there is hope…once you have kids, it’s game on all over again! No one thinks twice about an adult dressed up as long as they are following or holding a child! I’ll have to send him some ridiculous ties to wear on his mission in lieu of a costume. One other thing that was missing…my costume. All my ususal events that I would have dressed up for got co-opted by other events that were not conducive to me being in costume. Sigh. And really it’s all still on me. For actual Halloween and Trick or Treating I could have pulled something together. It is entirely my fault that I didn’t do it. I have big plans to make up for it at Ren Faire in two weeks.

Ps. Speaking of dressing up…Corra finally got to wear her costume! She is a satyr. At first it was a satyr with wings because of her noble lineage (and there is more background but I’ll let her tell you later). Once she saw the picture she said, “I look like a Ren Faire fairy!” This was not a happy thing. So she ditched the wings (side note: That makes 4-5 different pairs of wings that we own, not counting Naomi’s dragon wings) and added her pauldron, belt, and fur cuffs. Oddly, and perhaps ironically, she will be wearing this exact same outfit to Ren Faire and will probably still be taken for a fairy instead of a satyr. The furry pants are just not messaging as well as we hoped. Either way she’ll get lots of attention for being a little girl not dressed in pink and frills.