Halloween

This Halloween, we stayed in the neighborhood and did trick or treating with The G's.  To recap, The G boys J and O play soccer in AYSO with Nico.  Their Dad coaches them and we have gotten to be pretty good friends with them.  They have a younger sister L, who just turned two (and is so adorable).  

Nico went as an army guy again this year.  He wasn't so much into the trick or treating, but was a lot more interested in running around the neighborhood with the boys.  

We trick or treated with them in the neighborhood, then headed back to their house for beers and dinner.  Their house is very cool- with a huge fenced in back yard and swing set.  Plus the basement is basically a big kids play room.  So, essentially, the boys run around like banchees and have a grand time.  

Their candy haul was impressive.  Turns out, the G's part of the neighborhood has their candy game on point.  

The One When Aunt Judy Visited

Last week Aunt Judy came to visit.  It was pretty fun- I think Nico liked having someone else to wear out.  And Aunt Judy had no problem wearing Nico out! Nico and I headed down to the train station to pick her up on Friday night.  Dave had Lou Malnati's and beer waiting for us when we got home, which was very nice.

Saturday morning, we took Aunt Judy to Nico's soccer game.  He had a really good game- the kid scores at will.  As much as I hope that he will be a goalkeeper- I think he likes playing defense too much.  And let's be honest: defenders who attack out of the back and are legitimate threats are rare.

Saturday afternoon, we got Nico dressed up as Captain America and headed to Lincoln Park for some type of Halloween Spooktacular Fest... where kids trick or treat at businesses in the Lincoln Park area.  Aunt Judy and I may or may not have had macaroons from a french bakery.  After, we grabbed a couple of pints and lunch at an Irish place called Gallway Arms.  

Sunday was pretty chill: we wanted to try a new restaurant in the neighborhood, so walked up there while Nico rode his bike.  After, Nico and Aunt Judy had a water fight at the park while I sat on a bench and knitted.  I'm not sure how that happened, but I think Aunt Judy didn't realize that Nico would hold her to it.  She was a terribly good sport.  After, we took her down to the Loop so she could catch her train back to Michigan. In all it was a really fun weekend.  

Happy Halloween!

Halloween ended up being pretty fun.  I had an epic win yesterday, when I swung into Walmart on the way down to the county for practice.  I found firefighter boots to complete Nico's outfit.  Seriously.  How adorable!!  Can't you just eat him up?

He was pretty excited about putting the costume on.  He loves the suspender/bib part of the pants.  Thinks it's pretty funny.  We went to the Lafayette Park area of town, where they close off streets and people take Halloween WAY too seriously.  Lots of houses decorated and people having parties.  I am not sure, but I think the neighborhood must have some sort of contest on decorating the outside of one's house because there were lots of houses with elaborate decorations.  Which is awesome.

Next year, Dave and I must acquire a wagon for next year.  One, so that when nico gets tire of walking, we can stick him in there.  But also, so that we can have a cooler full of adult beverages.  Not that this is the point of Halloween.  We did one street and Nico was pretty much done.

And speaking of which, someone is not really good at Halloween.  He goes up to houses and is so shy- he wont say "trick or treat".  At the end, we got him to say "Thank you."  But someone is going to have to step up his game.  I guess that is okay.  The world is full of kids who have no problem going up to adults and saying, "Give me some candy!"  I guess its not the worst thing if Nico is a bit shy.  We tried to meet Nico's friend Ovid, but I was not really clear on where they were, and they were on the way out as we were getting there.  :(

They are setting the fair up this week, and we have a date with the fish game.  Following the debacle with the "Skill/Crane" game at the Golden Corral in Taylor County, I promised Nico that when the fair comes to town, we'd go try to win a goldfish.  Yeah, want an exercise in difficulty?  Try to explain why you don't always win in those skill games?  To a three year old who is in phase 2 of a five phase melt down.  Not nearly as easy as you think.

In any case, in our house, the fair is kinda a big deal.  Street food, games, petting barn? How much fun can one have in 2 hours?  Exactly!! Friday night is Family Fun night and we are going to meet Ovid.  Hopefully they will have some fun together!!

On the verge of a mom Fail...

I am not too big a fan of Halloween.  Never have been.  Even before Nico was born, it always seemed like such beatdown.  I guess its mostly because I have difficulty striking that perfect balance between creative/original/yet culturally relevant.  Add to that my difficulty in buying store bought costumes and that basically means I find its too much work for basically one night of the year.  My past halloween costumes (as a grown up) have included Sarah Pallin, Monica Lewinsky, Cleopatra, Kenny (from Southpark), a blind person and Captain Elizabeth Lindy (one of the armed services personnel wrapped up in that whole Abu Gharib scandal).  Except for the year Dave and I went as the Blind Leading the Blind, I always eschewed "general" costumes.  Like "sexy witch" or "ghost" or whatever because it always felt wrong to be something that 10 other people were going to be.  I guess I felt like if I couldnt come up with a great halloween costume that no one else had, I didnt want to go at all.  I have no idea where this attitude comes from.  But alas, there it is.  Maybe from the fact that in high school my mom made formal dresses for Nicole and me.  

In any case, its been hard doing Halloween right for Nico.  Mostly because I don't have the time in my life to do it right.  I would love to be able to make Halloween costumes... but it seems I am too tired to be creative with it... that combines to a perfect storm of Nico wearing store-bought costumes and me not being really excited about them.  In any case, I got out in front of it this year and ordered a fireman costume on amazon.  It came with a stupid floppy hat, bib/overall pants and a jacket.  Luckily we are tossing the hat and going with the standard one that he has.  

That said, we dont have any boots.  I know that it probably doesnt really matter- because you probably arent going to be able to see them anyways.  But I looked at Target and ToysRus to no avail.  I will run into the Walmart down in the county on the way to practice. But its not looking promising.  Add that to the fact that we never got around to actually carving the pumpkins.  And he painted them.  With the baby sitter.  I had her send me a pic.  It kind of makes me sad for Nico. His parents are so busy they couldnt even carve a pumpkin with the poor kid.  Hopefully running around midtown tonight trick or treating with his little friend Ovid will make up for it.   

5 little pumpkins

I took this video on Friday night.  Seriously, how cute?




We had a really fun weekend.  We spent Saturday in Taylor County playing in a preseason tournament.  We tied our first game and won our second.  We ended up winning the tournament on goal differential.  We were up 2-0 at half time and we got word that if we won by 6-0 we would win the tournament.  So, four goals later and we were the tournament champs.  That is kind of nice to be able to do that.

Sunday morning Dave took Nico to the Highland Games out in Marianna.  We kinda forgot about a birthday party we were supposed to go to.  I guess that makes us bad people.  I felt horrible when Dave told me about it this morning.  Yesterday we played soccer.  It was kinda chilly.  Nico ran around with some of his friends at the soccer field, but by the last period, he was pretty ready to go home.

I put the breadmaker on to have a loaf of bread ready when we got home.  Combined with corn chowder and beer?  You can't shake a stick at that kind of combination.  We tried to get a fire going, but someone whose name rhymes with Save didnt open the flue all the way so the entire house filled up with smoke.  Oh well, at least its good to go now.

Looking forward to Halloween on Wednesday.  We have Nico's firefighter costume all ready.  He just needs a pair of boots and maybe a new hat.  Should be lots of fun.

Pumpkin Festival

So, this weekend was pretty awesome.  We started with playing at the park till dark on Friday night.  His BFF Ovid was there.  And since Dave and I have been doing tryouts all week- we wanted to let him get some play time in.  

We took Nico up to the pumpkin festival in Havana on Saturday. 

 

Ovid was there- although for some reason Nico insists on calling him Ovi.  I don't know why.  Here he is listening to Ovid's Dad, Tim read curious George.  

By far, one of Nico's favorite things ever, is to ride on these little train things they have at festivals.

This festival had two- one that had little cars mounted to a trailer, which are all linked up (like a train) and pulled by a ATV.  Note to self: if this tenure track faculty thing doesnt work out, I need to get one of these things.  They cost three tickets (=three dollars) per ride.  And Nico would have ridden it all day if we had more tickets.  Basically, the guy on the ATV pulls the train down the closed off street, turns around and goes back and turns around.  And all kinds of kids were queing up to ride.  Pretty awesome.

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the house.  Sunday Nico and I went to get groceries while Dave went to the gym.  Then I went to the gym and when Nico woke up, we went to play soccer.  I was given an early birthday gift when the referee opted to not give me a red card for a hard tackle against an opposing player. To make matters worse, the guy is super fast and relatively smallish... so he flew.  We both laughed about it getting up.  I fully expected to be booked for it, simply because it was a clumsy tackle.  But not ejected.  To this I have only three comments:

1.  That guy had it coming.  He'd been roughing up my defenders pretty much all day.
2.  While he did have it coming, I wasn't actually trying to get him.  I was trying to get the ball.  And contrary to popular belief, I don't always look for the hard tackle.  Sometimes I try not to get the player (like when I am playing against the girls).  Sunday night I really was trying not to get the guy. And just so we are clear, I usually fess up when I get someone on purpose.
3.  I doubt I would have been called in the Prem.  Dave says its not uncommon for that to get called in the Prem.  Of course, I think its bullshit when it's called in the Prem.  The tackle in and of itself isn't a red cardable offense (probably).  It's just that he was in a goal-scoring position and I was the last man back.  To which I argue that giving a goalkeeper a red card for a tackle that had it been committed forty yards down field would not have been a foul is unjust.  And I didnt come from behind.  But, apparently that is neither here nor there, because the other captain wanted the game to go forward playing against a goalkeeper and consulted the referee to not eject me, so I was allowed to stay on. So I guess, yay?

Invalid...

Good morning kiddos!!

Not much going around here.  Things are crazy.  I was in an evaluation workshop MTW of this week.  Usually, it would be snooze fest central, but it was actually kind of cool. 

Feel like I am trying to juggle a million things at once.  Its cool, because it feels like the weeks go by pretty fast.  Just think, a week from today, we open against Chiles.  Yeah... its going to be craxy.  I think we are going to be pretty good this year.  I say this every year.  But this team feels kind of different.  Its hard to explain.  In the past, we'd be playing well in practice, but it always felt like we were a tiny bit out of control- one mistimed tackle away from getting spread too-thinned and too stretched out, that how well we were playing was a result of us pinwheeling out of control.  This team, while they definitely play with a lot of pace, it never feels truly out of control... lots of speed up front.  And my goalkeeper seems to be learning at an exponential pace.  Which is funny because there are times when we are doing something in practice and it feels like she might not be listening... the next day, she will be telling the JV keeper how things are.  I love it.  I am really looking forward to the season. 

I also got Nico's Halloween costume yesterday.  Dont judge me... Yes, I know, Dr. DIY actually bought a store costume for her precious.  I know... its just, I have a hard time coming up with costume ideas for myself and Dave, let alone Nico... and its never simple.  It always involves working with crazy materials, like fake fur.  In any case, I bought Nico the elephant costume from Target. Which is actually pretty great, since a couple of the other moms whose bambinos are about Nico's age got ther animals (Monkey, Giraffe).  So they will be their own little zoo.  I can only hope its 95 degres out, because that would complete the ensemble- cranky, sweaty Super-Beasts!!

I myself, am going as a ninja this year.  This is the first job that I have had where I will dressup. In order to do so, I am donating money to our charitable campaign.  So that its cool... even cooler is getting to wear pajama bottoms and a tshirt to work, with a sword.  Which leads me to the other thing I am going to do: state, "I have a sword.  Your argument is invalid" as I brandish said sword.  SWEET.  Aint nothing like going to see HR when you're dressed as a ninja.

Have you seen the pumpkin man?

Some pictures from the pumpkin patch...

What is that on the back of his shirt you ask?  Oh yes, that is the red ink that got on his brand new shirt from Auntie Nic-Nic before he even put it on... Isn't it cute??

My boys...

So I went around and stuck my head through the pumpkin-and Nico thought it was funneh... So he came around and I held him up... I am pretty sure he is thinking, "Well, this is dumb."

Aren't we precious?!

Survival Mode

So, Nico's new thing is putting on clothes.  He sometimes will find clothing and try to "put it on" by holding it on top of his head.  This usually ends with him throwing it on the floor.  He is getting even more helpful- he mostly listens now when I ask him to put something away... like today he helped me pack my bag for the gym by putting my shoes in for me... he really is very adorable. 

Other than that, things are going okay, I guess.  I am definitely getting my ass kicked by life right now.  For some reason this season has just felt much harder than previous seasons.  Like, usually I dont shift into survival mode until much later  (Late November), but I already feel like it.  Survival mode, BTW is basically where I start to loathe any part of my "free" time being taken up by ANYTHING.  For example, we have to go today at lunch to take delivery of our life insurance policy.  With our guy, this means having lunch for an hour and talking about our financial future, etc.  I would rather he just give us a big envelope with instructions that say, "Here is a phone number, if you one of you dies, the other one should call it.  Have your account number on hand."  But, instead, we have to do this thing and I don't get to work out today.  Which, I guess isn't that big of a deal- but I really count on having lunch to do that. 

Speaking of which, I am not sure what it was that Dave bought at the grocery this weekend, but it just seems like we dont have any food in the house.  I am sure we do... it just doesn't seem like we do.  This is actually kind of a big deal because I try to feed Nico and my own self at the soccer field.  Because by the time we get back to the house after practice, he is pretty cranktastic (if he isnt asleep) and really just needs some sleeps.  Maybe we just dont have any food that I want to eat... Who knows?  All I do know is that I bordered dangerously close today to saying, "F- packing snacks, Imma pack 5 bucks in quarters and get my snacks from the vending machine."  Apparently this does not constitute good nutrition.  Who knew? 

Then on top of all this, we named teams this week. This is the first time that we've ever had to cut anyone... which I guess is good... good that we have enough to cut players... bad that this is the first year.  Bad that I made 5 little freshmen cry at practice last night.  I wanted to tell them personally, so they don't go up to the soccer board have their little hearts broken and have to walk away from the board crying acting like everything is okay and that they didnt really want to play soccer anyways.  While I tried to be as gentle and as nice about it, but its never easy.  Frankly, I don't know what its like, to be cut from a team.  I tried to be as gentle with them as possible, but I don't really know if that helps. 

On the upside, we're going to be pretty good this year, I think.  The Harris kids are on the team... for those of you who dont know...the younger Harris kid is the next big thing to come out of the County.  Seriously... she was leading goalscorer in the county at least two years in a row.  When Maclay, JP2 and Florida High have been able to have their best 6th and 7th graders on Varsity, we've lamented how it wasnt fair becuase MH needed to be on with us, as a 6th grader.  She and her older sister are going to set it on fire round here.  Aside from MH, we didnt have a lot of freshmen coming in who overwhelmed us from the get go.  We have a lot of kids who've played soccer before... many spent the summer playing with TOF... so its nice in the sense that we aren't starting from square 1.  I think we might just be okay...

Oh, and another thing- the beautiful but scary jack-o-lattern I carved this weekend? TOTAL.ROTTEN.MESS.  Already.  Yeah... like, rotten pumpking juice leaking on the floor.  So we had to throw it away... doesnt that suck?  On the upside, I will be stealing Nicoles idea by getting a new pumpkin and letting Nico paint it, then draw a face on.  Oh, and Guess what?  Dave isnt the boss of me this time at the pumpkin patch!!  We're going to get two pumpkins... one for Nico and one for Mama.  How do you like me now? 

And I never learned to read!! (WAH-WAH!)

LAME

So we were pretty lame for Halloween this weekend. Originally, we were supposed to be spending most of our day on Saturday down in Wakulla for the Big Bend Preseason Classic- but there was some communication problems with some of the coaches that we usually do this thing with. So we could have had huge plans for Halloween. But then, Dave and I have been getting our butts kicked by life these days. Turns out Life+1 is pretty crazy. So much so, that I have come to realize that the greatest Saturdays aren't lounging on the couch watching soccer, napping, and eating donuts. Great Saturdays are when you can put the house together from the tornado that went through it during the week.

Its even worse these days because we are working on *(FINALLY)* setting up Nico's room. This is good for several reasons, but mostly because it might help us corral some of the accoutrement that is ALL OVER THE HOUSE. Unfortunately, it means that DR and I no longer have a place to corral all of OUR stuff... so I am trying to figure out what to do with it all. Hiking Backpact I bought for EuroTrip 2006? Seems kind of useless now... dont foresee backpacking anywhere with a kid in the near future. Fencing foil? Taking up precious space in closet. Taking down the bed in the guest room has meant that stuff that was under our bed in the Master bedroom was displaced. And this is how we spend our life: moving stuff from place to place around the house. My college roommate called this "nomad" behavior. Seriously, I wish it didnt take so much time and effort to list stuff on ebay, because I would get rid of half the stuff in this house- I am so OVER stuff!!

So Halloween was pretty low-key this year. We got some candy and stayed in: doing some work around the house. I worked on job market stuff and Dave did some whatnot. Nico did get to chill out on the porch and wait for trick or treaters:


Per usual, we only had a handful of trick or treaters. I don't know why this is the case, except that maybe most of the people that live in our neighborhood dont have children? We wanted to dress Nico up in his tiger suit, but "one one of us" seems to have lost the top that goes with it (by "one of us" I mean, not me :). Good thing Nico's parents are weird enough to dress him up in animal outfits year round. That purchase may have gone to waste if we weren't strange!

Soccer season starts tomorrow night (Monday) against Maclay. Should be a nice test to see where we are at. Am really looking forward to it. It is the team that Dave and I have been waiting to coach for 3 years. Everyone on the team has comparable levels of skill and they look good in practice (so far). So it should be fun. Should also be cold. Which lets be real here, is the way it should be for highschool soccer. I would so much rather deal with cold and trying to stay warm than "oh-my-God-why-is-it-so-sticky-outside?" I feel that I am adequately prepared for the game and being on the sideline: warm pink hunting socks (check), blue and red waffleknit footie sleeper for Nico (check), blankets for girls (check), blankets for Nico (check), thermos for hot chocolate (check), hat/gloves/scarf (check).