hallow's eve

Halloween is a Big Deal around these parts. We generally do a neighborhood gathering in someone's front yard with chili and beer and combine forces to pass out candy. Neel always takes Callum on the trick-or-treating rounds and I hang here with the other left-behinds to await the kiddos. Tradition.

Yesterday afternoon was a nightmare. I'm fighting a little cold, and I had a mini-freakout over my debit card (everything is fine). It took forever to get off campus after school. F O R E V E R. Callum needed a hair cut, and by the time we finally got home it was already five o'clock. I felt frazzled. We never got a pumpkin. It's been a weird fall.

Somewhere during all the driving in miserable, stuffy-nosed traffic I did yesterday, I had the thought that it would be nice to do the neighborhood walk with Callum and Neel this time. Could I do that? I don't feel great; could I leave the block behind and head out with my men? I decided to think about it, and before I could say anything to anyone Neel came home and said, "You should go out with us this year."

I'm so glad I did.

Callum started making his own costume last year. This year he decided to be a Klondike Bar. From scary to sweet. Or scary to diets, perhaps.

He was a huge hit. Grown-ups eat that stuff up, and I do too...who doesn't love a homemade costume? At house after house, he was told that it was the best costume, the most original, and again and again he was offered extra candy for making his own.

Trick-or-Treating, this year? A good walk: not ruined. The rain held of until just as we got home. And he gave me the Whoppers.

what would you do...

for a Klondike Bar...

Another year of a less-than-menacing costume. Of course we had to get a few Klondike bars for, ahem, research.

slow and steady

Once again, Callum falls prey to my capricious whim. It's not all that capricious, really. But I should have paid better heed to his resistance.

This weekend was the preview of "Aesop's Fabulous Fable Factory," the fall play that his school's theater program puts on. It's a sweet show, featuring four or so different fables. Callum is, can you tell? The tortoise in "The Tortoise and the Hare."

He never came out and said point-blank that he didn't want to do it, but all the signs were there. Silence when I brought it up. Lack of unbridled enthusiasm.

I kinda made him anyway.

When we broke it down, he had two specific fears: that he'd be the only 6th grade boy, and that it would be hard to manage the homework on practice days. "Oh, come on!" I reassured him. You can see where this is going. He was right on both counts.

It's such a tricky thing as your children get older, to know when it's right to push and when to give way. So many times in his young life, he wouldn't be doing something if Neel and I hadn't been behind him, giving him a nudge (walking comes to mind). Since starting, he hasn't complained much at all (for our boy, that's pretty good!), but I can tell his heart isn't in it. It's his last chance to take part in the program, and I so wanted it to work out.

But I have to remember that it's not about my own desires for him, but more about what he really needs. I don't regret it necessarily, but I've learned a lesson here. Pay better attention. Listen more.

Still, can you fault this mama for wanting to see her boy on the stage (a place he's long loved) one last time?

evening

we did our homework together

new pen

he got the desk

Pooh and I got the bed

box score

He's been worried about his hitting.

Everything changed with Saturday's game. He went four for four, with a 2 RBI double at his first at bat. Stole some bases too. In the bottom of the last inning, with the score tied and runners on second and third, Callum comes to the plate.

Neel hears the coach for the other team tell his players, "Play's at home; this guy will hit." And he did. Walk-off RBI single.

This look on his face says it all.

As does this one. I don't think he's stopped smiling yet.