Tricks and Treats

It's been a busy week, and it is only Wednesday. Halloween was an interesting day for me. The morning started off with a Halloween delivery. The patient, SpacyMom, had only a handful of pre-natal visits, due mostly, I think, because she just "forgot" to come to the appointments! Luckily, her pregnancy was very low risk. I had seen her in the office on Monday, and I had a feeling she would deliver this week. My intuition was on target. She arrived at L&D with ruptured membranes at 6:15 am. She delivered at 10:30 am. Her labor was fast and furious, and she literally went from 5 cm to completely dilated in 20 minutes. She pushed for another 20 minutes, and had a beautiful (and not in the least scary) baby girl. I'm so glad to have this delivery to replace my last Halloween delivery. That delivery involved honest-to-goodness self-proclaimed witches, whose entire coven was at the delivery, chanting, they chose Halloween as an induction date, and wanted to do questionable things with the placenta. Shiver. Now *that* was scary. The rest of the day was spent in the office, seeing 22 patients in between 1 and 5:30pm, and rushing home for the Halloween festivities.

I've always liked Halloween, even though I am the world's worst costume idea originator. Seriously, I suck. I don't think I have ever had an original costume idea. In Halloweens past, when I was younger and more lithe, it was an excuse to dress in a risque fashion (once I was a black cat in a one piece bodysuit, once I was a sexy devil, you get the picture) Ah, to have that body once again! This year, we asked CindyLou what she wanted to be for her first trick-or-treat. (Yes, she *is* two-and-a-half. Yes, she has been alive for 3 total Halloweens. Yes, we have dressed her up. No, we have not taken her trick-or-treating. Color us lazy.) She decided to be a "purple firefly," or purple butterfly in toddler-ese. Deciding what to be was the easy part, piecing together an actual purple butterfly costume, however, was an entirely different endeavor. My first bright idea was to order a pair of purple butterfly wings online, thinking that I would be able to find a toddler sized purple leotard and tights at the local dance shop. Maybe I could have, if only I had gone to the store 6 weeks in advance to order a leotard in her teensy size. And size 2 purple tights without a print? The single hardest clothing article to locate....ever. I had to settle for a long sleeved purple onesie (it is chilly here) with a slightly different shade of flower print purple tights. The two shades of purple looked funny to me, so I decided to get a different colored tutu to minimize the difference between the two. Part of the original costume idea was to buy a headband with sparkly antennae. Great in theory, but my child's head is still too small and her hair too fine to hold such a headband in place. Her final costume ended up looking like some kind of deranged pink and purple fairy ballerina, but she was happy as a clam. That's all that counts, right?

We live in a very hilly neighborhood, so we decided to just take CindyLou to the immediate neighbors' houses. She was appropriately adorable, and got way more candy than she (or we) needed. Our next door neighbors even prepared her a little Halloween gift bag, complete with toys, candy, and a PEZ dispenser! The people in our neighborhood are so awesome, and they give out great candy, but we have very few trick-or-treaters. (I believe it is due to the HILLS, we were dying just going to 6 houses!) Last year we had 4 total, this year we had 2 kids. Mr. Whoo and I decided that next year we are going to reward the trick-or-treaters that make the climb to our house with King sized candy bars. We had made the rounds by 6:30 pm, and made our way home for a dubious dinner of pizza and candy. It was fun, and CindyLou really enjoyed her sugar high. After we put our purple butterfly to bed, we snuggled on the couch and watched some exorcism show on the History Channel, that should have been scary, but must not have been since we both fell asleep 10 minutes into the show! Exciting times in the Whoo household, folks. When did I get old? Anyway, Happy Belated Halloween!