She’s got diamonds on the soles of her feet.

Halloween was fairly uneventful in my neck of the woods. I stayed home with Gab expecting to get all sorts of kooky, crazy trick-or-treaters. We got THREE. And, those three were neither kooky nor crazy. A Tigger, a dog, and maybe a princess…I was too busy dumping my entire bathtub full of candy into her bag to take notice of who she was portraying. Three? So disappointing. Luckily, Gav took off with some school friends to hit the ‘Candy Hot’ neighborhood.

The neighborhood we lived in before this one lived for Halloween. It was the hub of all things Halloween. Streets were closed, bands played, kegs and full bottles of wine awaited parents along the way. I have now lived on both ends of the Halloween spectrum.

Costume recap: I’ve already told you about the Nemo costume purchase debacle…”Noooo Mimi.” Well, the kid, she does not lie. I tried roping her into the Nemo costume and could only handle the screaming long enough to snap a quick photo (there’s a hat portion which is now buried behind the couch…I’ll never know how the complete set would have looked on her). So, that was $20 that would have been put to better use in the bathroom. We settled for the traditional orange and black comfortable clothes and headed to a party at our local library the night before Halloween.

Gav was Borat again, only we had tie, mustache, and hair malfunctions this go ’round.

• The tie: I have no idea how to properly rope a tie together. I tried and failed over and over until Gav was to the point of “Forget it. I’ll go as Nemo. And, I’ll even wear the hat. Who is your favorite kid now?” I told him not to worry; we would make friends with some nice gentleman at the library who would be proud to tie his tie. And, we did, and he did. The tie was tied. Crisis one averted.
• The mustache: Gav had the mustache ripped from his face at school, so the adhesive was not so much adhesiving anymore. (I know, adhering) I thought I could fashion my own wads ‘o tape to the ‘tache for a successful all night tickler. Nope. Gav developed a nervous tick wherein he pressed the mustache to his face every 2 minutes all evening. Oh, well. Crisis two, not so much averted.

• The hair: This was all totally my fault. I had beginner’s luck with the first ‘do I created for his trip to school as Borat. While he’s needed a haircut the past couple of weeks, I held off so he’d have more fabulous Borat hair to curl and wisp. All might have gone well had I not continued spraying his hair with the leave-in conditioner I had idiotically mistaken for the hair spray (pregnant brain times two, but to my defense, the bottles are very similar). I could not, for the life of me, figure out why his hair was not only not getting stiff and crispy but looking more vibrant and healthy with each spray. (I did not learn the errs of my ways until the next night when, for the third time, I was feverishly searching for the hairspray and kept coming up with leave-in conditioner in my hand, “No, ding dong, this is not the hairspray. Where’s the hairspray? I used it just last night. This looks like the hair spray, but I’m brilliant enough to know it just ain’t so, Joe.” (I had stashed the hair spray bottle in the car so I could blind Gav spray Gav’s hair one last time as he exited the car for school.) Epiphanies all over the place, “So, that’s why he had Farrah Fawcett hair last night.” Crisis three: full mode one night, averted the next.

We went all out Halloween night and even sprayed Gav’s hair black. The Russian dad of his school friend gladly tied Borat’s tie, and Gav just sucked it up with the dangling mustache. He returned home with the jacket, tie, and mustache wadded up in his candy bag. Borat stripped down. But, much candy looted in the process.

Speaking of stripping, let me briefly touch on Gab’s library party antics. We know Nemo sucks and regular street clothes rock the casbah. She was casual, comfortable, and enjoying the mostly ‘inedible for toddlers’ treats the party had to offer. I’m juggling drinks and spinning plates of cookies while I’m aware of her presence below me by the periodic clawing at my ankles, tugging at my already falling down maternity pants, and steadying her wee little 20-something pound self against my legs, i.e. I did not have my eyes on her at all times. I was using the motion sensor technique of child whereabouts awareness. When I finally finished my circus act/balanced the drinks and plates to walk away, I look down to find a very comfortable Gab. All that action below my knees was Miss Thang actually removing her shirt. In the middle of a hundred horrified Halloween party-goers. Seriously, people, is it that shocking of a spectacle to see a toddler sans shirt? People gawked at us, but what was I to do with the mountain of shee-ite I already had in my hands? And, I felt like Momma Crack was on the verge of peaking out and adding to the Halloween horror. So, we shuffled to a far corner of the room, Gab enjoyed some snacks with a breeze, and eventually agreed to put her shirt back on.

[I left out how, already late for the library festivities, I drove 2 miles before realizing I wasn't wearing any shoes. Leave-in conditioner as hairspray and no shoes on my feet...I'm a danger to society.]