My marathon

I survived the Hallowe'en marathon. Overall my performance was OK. My speed was good, I was losing endurance toward the end, although to be fair, it was a pretty grueling race.  I knew this was the case when at 8:30pm I realised that the only time I had sat for any appreciable time that day was at 9:30am-during my spinning class. (And that's spinning on a bike rather then at a loom.)  And actually, we were doing a lot of jumps, so scrap that. I did not sit all day. And not only did I not sit, I was running all day. I may be the only person in the US who loses weight on Hallowe'en.

Notes to self:

1.don't do the class party  next year. Ok fine, you know you will- so if you do....

2. GET HELP. Also:

3. while the concept of the healthy creative snack is a wonderful one...well.....yeah....

I made these:

cheesy fingers

Edible eyeballs

Apple bites

And just to show that I am not a complete stick in the mud I added some caramel to dip the apples in.

All the kids rush into the classroom where I have just barely stuck the last almond tooth into the last apple mouth and there is a silence. Followed by confused sounding murmering. Like: 'these aren't cupcakes, where are the cupcakes' kind of murmering.

Then Benj bounces in, "WOW CHECK THIS OUT!!! THIS IS SOOOOO COOOL!!! WHO MADE THESE??!!"

"I did", I mutter quietly, (because at this moment, it was clearly not something to be proud of) he looks at me in amazement-YOU DID???! OMIGOSH!!! HEY YOU GUYS!!! MY MOM MADE THESE!!!

"no son, no! you are going to become a huge reject!" I silently scream,

"She is SO CREATIVE!! " he gushes.

The murmering becomes a little more politely enthusiastic... like "Oh yeah...haha.. a finger...for Halloween..I get it now!..."

Within a few minutes Benjamin, oblivious to the revulsion of his pals, has joyfully scarfed down all the body parts on his plate  and the plate of the girl who was not there. I could not bring myself to look very closely, but the general impression I got was that of children poking gingerly at the caramel with the apple and then trying to suck it off the apple because you know, heaven forbid they actually eat a fruit or vegetable. I have to give the kids credit though, nobody was outright rude about it but it was not exactly what one could call a hit. I actually did not expect it to be, and was frankly relieved that I  was not driven out of the classrom in a shower of edible eyeballs, and my child was not ostracized for having the freak mom.

I think there are some things in the universe that you just do not mess with and cupcakes or cookies at a Halloween class party is one of them.  Because there are just some days when a kid need more sugar.

OK so a brief breakdown of the marathon. I more or less ran negative splits (Ie it just got faster and faster as the day went on).

Get up, kids off to school, dash to gym, dash to grocery store, dash home to be in time for kid being dropped off there.  Start assembling the above gorey gourmet items at 11:30am (need to have them at the school at 1:30pm) in between doing this, I still need to: get kids into Halloween costumes, help one with homework,  make lunch for all (visiting child requires that I can't tell the kids to "open the fridge and eat whatever falls out". Visiting child also has a very limited menu of acceptable lunch fare, all of which require some sort of cooking). Assemble 19 goodie bags (this was delegated to kids-visiting child needed to earn her keep), drop kids off at school, continue to preschool, take a few photos, dash back home to grab all the food no one is going to eat, dash to the school, watch costume parade taking copious pictures, discover that I have not brought a knife to cut the apples (wanted to do them at the last minute because of the browning factor), dash to cafeteria, beg for a sharp knife, terrorise already hyped up children in the hall when they see I am furtively holding a knife at my side (probably breaking all sorts of major laws), frantically make the apple mouths, miraculously do not cut off any of my fingers (although it would have made for a more authentic display), frantically lay out all the plates, napkins, drinks etc at each desk...host the subdued class party-nothing like a vegetable to bring everybody down, grab kids, dash to pick up other kid, dash home, deal with very persistent meat salesman at the door, dash to get cross, exhausted children re-dressed into their costumes, dash to gather vegetables and bean dip ingredients required to make this:

for pre trick or treating party. Arrive at party, discover I have left all the vegetable at home. Delegate dash home to Aaron as I make the dip. People arriving as I am surrounded by various vegetable choppings and seeds. Attractive.

Dash to get kids fed. Dash to get kids made up. Dash to get photos of kids. Dash around trick or treating. Dash back to home base. SIT. Eat mountains of candy mindlessly while chatting with friends. Go home. Dash to get kids in bed. Horrible crash due to sugar overdose. Go to bed. Awoken 15 times by child who developed cough in the last hour and child who keeps waking up due to be overtired and high on sugar.

Begin November: much more tired then I began October, which I suppose is to be expected.

HOWEVER: My house was clean when I left it last night!! HA!! TRIUMPH!!! Where's my hot-dog? Where's my t-shirt? Where's my medal?

Comments

[Julie]

LOVE the goodies...you need to watch this:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=127672

[Carolyn]

WOW!!! Your Martha skills are so impressive. I wouldn't even attempt to tackle one of those awesome looking snacks. You are a cool mom in my book.

[Samantha]

I think the Halloween-themed snacks you made are fantastic and didn't see the problem until I read what you wrote and remembered that kids don't always like their vegetables! Silly me. Your entry reminded my that near the beginning of this school year, I read an article
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23kershaw.html
about the move to ban sweet treats (in particular, cupcakes) at kids' school birthday parties. The article says, "cupcakes have...[been] banned from a growing number of classroom birthday parties because of their sugar, fat and “empty calories,” a poster food of the child obesity crisis."