The Four Days of Halloween

So in the Barrett house, we've been Halloween-crazy since last Friday, and only today are we getting to the main event!  It's just amazing how much the holiday has expanded.  Trick or treating at the kids' school on Friday, a pot-luck Halloween party on Saturday, "Boo at the Zoo" trick or treating on Sunday, and just today – actual Halloween with another party and trick or treating for real.   My two little SWAT team members will be headed out early with their dad while I stay home with the baby (she's in the "graham crackers are cookies" phase, and I don't want to mess with that).   Is it too much?  Some might say so.  This is our first year of really doing the holiday (our oldest is only four), so I'm inclined to go with it.  For now.

I envy those friends who are able to work (i.e. write) over the weekend.  I'm knee-deep in bicycle rides and park trips and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and errands and keeping three little creatures entertained for 14 hours a day.  I channeled Martha Stewart and carved an enormous jack-o-lantern, and the boys were absolutely thrilled.  Daddy took them through the spooky "haunted" woods at the SF Zoo, held ERB's hand and carried Big Red when he was scared. 

But, no writing. 

Not even a little brainstorming.  By the time 8:30pm rolled around each evening, I was brain-dead (not the zombie kind, the tired Mommy kind), so I just kind of puttered around the house and cleaned up and organized things for the next day – you know, the stuff that requires no brainpower at all.  Just some simple locomotion.

With NaNoWriMo coming up, and a new book to write and finish (before the end of the year – I swear!), I was going a little crazy.  But it's worth it.  Of course it is, to see my kids so happy and awestruck and amazed. 

The plotting can wait.

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