Somehow Muddling Through Halloween

Monday's are hard. I find them especially hard after a holiday. I don't think I have ever picked up so many candy wrappers in my life. I almost want to set my house on fire and just forget about it.

Alex collected 9 pounds of candy.

Read it again...YES--9 pounds (that's the size Olivia was when she was born--she was a rather chubby baby). I see that pillow case full of candy and it makes me want to dry heave--and I usually love me some candy. But this has GREED written all over it. When does it switch to a contest. I mean, at what point in a child's life does he/she switch from a sweet, costume-wearing cherub graciously and deliberately getting a couple of little candies (so cute), to a candy-mongering juvenile racing, pillaging and plundering every house within a five mile radius?

I'm glad, though, that Alex is now old enough to go trick or treating with his friends around the neighborhood, and we don't have to take him. I don't know how long he and his buddies were gone, but I think it was a couple of hours at least. I'm hoping they minded their P's and Q's and didn't like, I don't know, try tying fireworks to poor unsuspecting feline victims in the neighborhood (just hypothetical, of course). Alex is usually not one to get into trouble, but who knows what 5 12-year-olds will do when bored or provoked.

Alex also had a rather nice head-start on his candy collection because we went to Microsoft to trick or treat and the kids insisted on doing two floors of Martin's building. If you don't know Microsoft's buildings layout, it is like this: Everyone has their own office...there are no cubicles. So each person has candy to hand out to all the kids....row after row after row of offices (after row). I think there must be around 100 or more offices per floor. So you get the idea. The kids obviously were not lacking in the candy department.

After going to M's work, we were "scheduled" to go to the ward trunk or treat. After looking at all the candy in the kids' buckets I vetoed that. They didn't argue too much with me. I thought they might, but I think they were tired; at least the littlest ones were tired. Alex, again, couldn't have cared less. He had other fish to fry.

I'm hoping that his costume wasn't too appropriate for the night.