Seven Quick Takes: All Hallows' Weekend

I
Little Bear is down for an early nap after last night's bedtime fiasco, and there's a whole list of things I should be doing with this block of time before we leave in an hour (or less) for the All Saints party. Working on the freelance project due Monday. Working on the other freelance project due Friday. Sewing the second horn onto Little Bear's blue ox hat. Taking a nap of my own. Getting changed and brushing my hair.

Instead, I'm sitting here eating crackers, trying to convince myself that going to the party and doing errands afterwards is a good idea even though I feel the sickest I ever have in all three pregnancies so far. "You can stay home and feel sick and have to deal with Little Bear alone," my rational brain argues, "or you can go and hope that the cold air outside helps, and even if it doesn't and you still feel sick, you can sit in the corner with your eyes closed while other people keep an eye on Little Bear."

I'm pretty sure the rational side will eventually win, because the only argument the rest of me can muster is "But I feel siiiiiick..."

II
I've gotten the house up to 80 F every time I've built a fire this week! The thermostat is set at 60, so mornings can feel chilly if I banked the fire down by 8 the night before. One (of the many) advantages of the nights when Matt doesn't work late or have class is that he keeps the house at 80 until 10pm, and then it's still at least 65 when we get up the next morning. It's like there's an invisible thermal barrier in the hallway, though; even with the living room at 80, take three steps past the fireplace down the hall and the temperature tumbles drastically. We've finally decided to get an electric heater, and run it in Little Bear's room for an hour or so before he goes to bed. We wouldn't leave it running in his room while he was in there, but we need to do something about how cold his room gets -- most nights my nose is pretty cold by the time I'm done putting him to sleep!

III
Did anyone else actually hear and announcement last weekend at Mass, or see something in a bulletin, saying that the Solemnity of All Saints has been abrogated as a holy day of obligation this year? It seems like here, they just assumed that if they didn't explicitly say that it WAS a holy day of obligation, nobody would even think of the possibility of going to Mass on November 1. It confused me to no end this week: One parish in the next town over announced their Masses for All Saints and All Souls on Facebook, and so I thought perhaps it hadn't been abrogated, but our parish isn't offering Mass for All Saints at all; the Saturday vigil will be All Souls, because that's Sunday's Mass. I'm so disappointed that we can't realistically make it to Mass for All Saints; the one parish that is offering Mass is probably close to 50 minutes away from where we live now, and it's at 9am. Between Matt and Little Bear, and the ridiculously small amount of sleep I got last night, it's probably not possible for us to make it.

IV
...And now it's Saturday night. Happy nearly-belated solemnity! Little Bear was so wound up last night, bedtime took forever and then some, and the one morning Mass in the next town over did indeed prove unattainable. We did sing "For All the Saints" with Little Bear several times—he was quite excited about the "church song"—and talked about saints with him and read his book of saints. I'd intended to make a nice meal for the solemnity, but the baby nixed that plan... Supper was a somewhat cobbled-together affair, but Little Bear and I did make chocolate pudding for dessert. (Instant pudding, and the 2-year-old honestly did more of the work than I did. First trimester is so much fun.)

V

I wish I had photos from the All Saints party yesterday afternoon! Little Bear was very proud of his St Romanos the Hymnographer getup; okay, he didn't know who he was supposed to be, but he did know that it was a costume and costumes are exciting. Going to a party with a bunch of big kids was also exciting; by the time it was over, he'd given up the "pick you up, Mama" refrain and was following his youngest aunt around on his own without too much trouble. The doctor didn't say to keep him off of his leg, just that he'd likely want to stay off it for a couple of days, so we figured he was probably fine.

VI

And I did finally finish his other costume in time for trick-or-treating last night:

Such an exciting hat.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox had great fun during our first foray into trick-or-treating! Matt and I drove Little Bear and my youngest siblings around my parents' neighborhood. We were the only ones that stopped by most of the houses, and people were so happy to see the kids. I noticed halfway through that they'd unintentionally put together a "frontier" theme: we had Paul Bunyan and Babe, Daniel Boone, Laura from Little House on the Prairie, and a gold miner.

VII

One last photo, and I'll post before I'm two days late again. After building this morning's fire, we were all out of kindling and down to the last row of wood in the deck wood rack, so Matt spent two hours out splitting wood this afternoon and refilled the rack and kindling buckets. Little Bear had fun helping him stack the wood for a little while:

Stop by Conversion Diary for more quick takes!