I threw on some mascara before I picked up my boys (late) from preschool today. Sometimes the pretense of organization and personal hygiene in the form of mascara is enough to fool the world. On the best days it’s enough to fool me, too.
Today, I fear my black smudge failed to divert eyes from my unbrushed hair, my pasty complexion, or my wearing-’em-for-the-third-day-in-a-row jeans. My mascara is fooling no one. A mascara wand, after all, comes with limited powers, and covering up a mama’s Halloween weariness is apparently not one of them.
I know. I know. Halloween is so… yesterday.
And yet, with the Halloween shrapnel from the detonated holiday littering my house, I feel like I’m still living in the trick-or-treat moment.
This is how I can tell it’s November 1st:
Costume bits are strewn about my house.
And no matter how many times I wave my mascara wand at them…
…they appear unmoved.
Evidence of “breakfast” is scattered from here to there and everywhere,
including under the couch, on my table, and behind a couple of lamps… one of which was also hiding an entire bottle of ketchup, two Otter Pop wrappers, four Legos, a My Little Pony, and a red Fruit Loop. My mascara wand didn’t work on any of that stuff, either.
I’m pretty sure they call today, November 1st, All Saints Day for a reason.
To all you mamas and pops out there (and, in our case, nanas, papas, grandmas, grandpas, cousins, friends, aunts, uncles and perfect strangers we met out there walkin’ the Candy Beat with us) who made last night’s All Hallows Eve into, well, “All HOLLA! Eve” for all the kiddos, you earned your sainthood. May today’s sugar lows and houses-full-of-crap highs remind you of your many wonderful family moments.
At least one person out here in the internet ether knows you for the saint you are.
Happy All Saints Day!
Beth
8 responses to “It’s called All Saints Day for a reason.”
Ok. THere are two half-burned jack-o-lantern candles on my dining room table. I lit them once, two halloweens ago, and then put them on a shelf in the kitchen. They stayed there for two whole years, because last halloween it flooded and we had to evacuate. Though judging from this year, I might not have lit them then, either, because the are still on my table. I swore to myself I would light them this year and then toss them. I forgot! So tell me, can I still light jack-o-lantern candles on Nov. 2? Lord, give me strength not to put them on the shelf for another year.
Enjoyed the growth represented in your joker with the duck! Makes the tired mama mess worthwhile!
I’m so glad we got to see the kids IN the costumes! Thanks for stopping by–we always enjoy it.
As do we! Our kids are lucky ducks to have all the g-parents in town. (Or lucky parrot, joker, Thing 1, and Stitch, as the case may be. ;))
On Halloween, they originally they believed on that night the spirits of their dead ancestors would come back and try to haunt and/or possess them for the next year IF they recognized you–hence, the disguises.
I figure looking like crap is the next best thing to a disguise. And if your house looks like crap, which ours kind does, then maybe our dead ancestors won’t be able to recognize it enough to be able to haunt or possess it either. (Aha! Another excuse to leave the mess in place…!)
Can looking like crap still count as a disguise if it’s our normal state of being? Please say yes. Please say yes. Please say yes.
Next time you’re going to sneak into my house and take pictures, would you give me a 10 minute warning so I can pretend to tidy up a bit first?
Cause, seriously, it’s 5pm and I just looked down and there’s an M&M wrapper by my feet. I’ve gathered all the costume bits into one pile…at least I think I’ve gathered all of them. I’ve sorted the candy into 5 piles…chocolate, tootsie rolls (not to be confused with REAL chocolate), suckers, candy, and nasty candy that already went into the trash. There are 4 McDonald’s buckets, in various stages of dismantling, withing my sight right now. My 6 year old? She “SOOOO tired” she asked to take a nap after school!
This mama, though? I’ve already made an oath. You know the one. The “I’m officially done with candy” oath. This usually takes several weeks, but doggonit, I can’t afford weeks of candy thieving!
Good luck to you in your post-Halloween-chaos re-organizing. Thanks for remembering all of us moms (etc) who take the brunt of the holiday “hit!”
Since you and I have the same name, Elizabeth, I can only imagine that we’re twinsies. As evidence, I present a) the fact that I photographed your house and TOTALLY thought it was mine, b) your chocolate vs. tootsie roll differentiation (um, YES!), and c) broken candy thieving oaths. (If I’m just “helping” my kids finish theirs, does it still count as robbery?)