A Little Taste of My Second Home

Last night, I had the wonderful opportunity to share a little bit of my mission with my kids and wife.  Unfortunately, I have never been able to make it back to Germany with my family yet, but maybe someday we will make it.  Until then, I love to look for opportunities to share some of the German culture with my family.  I found out this week that This is the Place Heritage Park has a Christkindlmarkt every year. I had no idea, but once I found out about it, I was determined that we were going.  Last night was our chance.

If you are unfamiliar with the Christkindlmarkt concept, let me explain.  Each little town in Germany has their own Christkindlmarkt, or Weihnachtsmarkt, in the middle of the town in the pedestrian zone.  The zone is lined with little wooden booths where people are selling great little Christmas gifts and foods and drinks and what not.  It is awesome.  It seems like they run the whole month of December, and it makes for a magical atmosphere at Christmas time.  There are many of these markets throughout the United States, some larger than others.  This is Salt Lake's little version, and I loved it.

It was very small, and I really wasn't interested in most of the shops, because I just wanted to be there because it reminded me of Germany. My kids thought it was really cool, though.  They liked the lights and the smells and just everything there was to see.  We of course bought some Lebkuechen, because that is a German Christmas must.  Siegfried's was there, and their little food wagon smelled amazing, but they were also the most popular stop there, so the line was long, so we skipped it.

The kids thought it was cool because it was like dad's mission.  They were also all excited to see St. Nicklaus while we there.  At least they all said they were excited.  That changed when we got up to St. Nicklaus, and they all chickened out, except for Lucy, who we had to hold back so she wouldn't run in front of the other people waiting ahead of us, and Johnny, who all of a sudden had no idea what he wanted.  St. Nicklaus promised that Johnny would get a big empty box that just said "I don't know" on it.

On the way out, I decided to go back to one of the little booths to get one item.  When I was on my mission, I really started to appreciate a particular thing they had there at Christmas time.  I knew about the nutcrackers before my mission, and I had seen the spinning pyramids, but I had never seen the little smoker men.  I thought they were zoo cool on my mission, and I always wanted to buy one, but I never did.  They had some at the Christkindlmarkt last night, so I looked to see if they had any in my price range, which was between a little and not a lot.  I was in luck.  They had a couple to choose from, so I picked one, and was so excited to bring it home.  I call him Fredrick.

One of my favorite things about Christmas time is all the traditions.  Things you do each year that remind you and tell you that it is really Christmas time.  Things that remind you maybe of when you were a kid, or things you hope your kids will look back on and remember fondly.  It is always exciting to try something new and discover a new activity that could become a tradition.  I feel like this adventure last night will be a new tradition for us.  I  plan on going back next year, seeing all the same things, and possibly adding to our smoker man collection (my wife says it isn't a collection since we only have one.  I just remind her that's how collections start).

You Worry When it's Quiet

Kids make noise. I live with 5 of them, so I know what I am talking about here.  The make noise.  Lots and lots of noise.  When I am home and the kids are awake, it is just like mass chaos sometimes.  It makes my head hurt just thinking about it, to be honest.  They're not being bad or naughty when they're making noise, it's just part of the package.  They run around, playing all sorts of games and each game has a different noise value, but it is all loud.  This is compounded, by the way, if you are traveling anywhere in your car.  For whatever reason, they feel like while in the car they must make more noise than usual, and there is no escape for you. You're stuck in there with them and all that sound.

With kids, noise is a basic part of life.  Yes, there are the times when they're asleep and you're awake when they don't make noise.  This lasts for about an hour and a half at our house in the evening.  It is a glorious time, and frankly, there is not enough of it.  That time aside, when kids are awake there is sound in the house.  Unless there isn't.  These are the times when you need to worry.  If a child, or children, are awake, and you do not hear anything from them, this is a bad sign.  They only stop making sound for two reasons:  They are sleeping; or they are getting into trouble.  They figure out at a very early age that when they are doing something they shouldn't be doing, noise just draws attention to them, so they are quiet about it.  If one of my children is out of sight, and I can't hear them, then I know I need to find them, and fast.  More than likely, they are destroying something or getting into something they shouldn't be. Let me give you an example.

This is Lucy.  I know, you're thinking that she is just the most adorable thing you have ever seen.  And that smile is just too cute.  Let me tell you about that smile.  That smile is her trouble maker smile.  We call her Hurricane Lucy at our house, because at any given time she is causing some kind of disaster in some room in the house.  Don't get me wrong, she is cute while she is doing it, but the results are the same either way, disaster.  Last night, we put all 3 girls to bed at the same time.  This is always a bad idea.  They stay awake much later when we do this because they decide to play or whatever instead of sleep.  In fact, normally when this happens, Lucy and Eliza keep each other awake for a couple of hours, and we can hear them in their room making noise while they play.  Lots of noise.  Last night, that didn't happen.  Erica needed to run to the store, but she was going to wait until they calmed down.  Within 20 minutes, she felt like everybody had settled in and she could go.  This was abnormally quick for our girls, so we should have known what was going on, but we were foolishly optimistic.

Erica went to the store and came back and we were sitting on our bed enjoying NetFlix, when we heard a thud, followed by Lucy crying.  We figured she must have fallen out of her bed.  Kids do that sometimes.  I don't know why, but they just fall out of a perfectly good bed that is really huge compared to them, so they really have no business being that close to the edge any way.  Erica went to go check on her, and she was blown away by the scene that met her when she went in there.  Lucy was crying uncontrollably, and her face and hair were covered, caked in diaper rash cream.  It took Erica a minute to figure out what it was, but the smell gave it away.  As she walked into the room to pick Lucy up, she noticed she was near the crib, not her bed.  And the crib was covered in the cream as well.  As she looked more closely, she discovered they Maren, asleep at this point, also had her face covered in the cream.  9:30 at night, we were called into action.  I started the bath water, and ran to our laundry to grab some clean pajamas for the two girls, while Erica began trying to while it off of Lucy's face.  As she was working on her face, I retrieved Maren from the crib.  First she was mad because I woke her up.  Then she was mad because she had diaper rash cream all over her face.  I would have been mad about both of those things as well.

As we bathed the two girls, we learned some things.  We learned that Maren, who normally dislikes baths, hates baths when she is barely awake and covered in diaper rash cream.  We learned that said cream does not wash off easily, regardless of how many times you put shampoo in there hair or lather up the soap.  We learned that Lucy, who normally loves baths, does not like baths when she has to be dunked in the water multiple times.  We also learned, or re-learned, that if they kids are not making noise in a situation where they normally would make noise, we need to see what's wrong.  Something is happening, and it is sneaky and not good.

Fortunately, both girls fell back asleep pretty quickly after the baths were done and they had fresh pj's on.  Of course, we couldn't get all the diaper cream out of Lucy's hair, so she fell asleep with some still stuck in there, and she will need another bath today, bout at least we got it out of her eyes and off her face.  Maren spent the whole time being mad until I had the opportunity to snuggle with her until she fell asleep.  Lucy just smiled after her bath.  She thought the whole thing was a great time, apparently.  I felt like we were just lucky to have survived another touchdown of Hurricane Lucy with minimal damage.  In any case, the whole event reminded me that Kids make noise, and if they're awake, not making noise, then you have to worry about that.  It is never good.

How to Find Your Missing Child in Walmart

Have you ever had a really dumb idea?  I mean, an idea so bad and so dumb that it makes you wonder not just how you thought of it, but how anyone could ever be so dumb that they would come up with the idea?  I had one such idea on Saturday.  My idea was to give my wife a little break and to take the kids out.  I didn't have any specific plan for going somewhere, but I just planned to take the three older kids out while the younger two might take a nap.  My wife had the brilliant idea to take the kids to Walmart because we needed a few things.  To be fair, she did suggest that I just go by myself, but like I said, I was determined to give her a break.  So I talked the kids into getting dressed and going to the store.  Of course, I had to tell them that we were going to buy donuts just to get them to go.  That meant that I would, in fact, have to buy donuts.

Going to the store with small children is used in many countries as a form of criminal punishment.  Taking kids to Walmart is reserved for capital crimes.  These punishments would never work here in the United States because we have laws that protect criminals from cruel and unusual punishment.  My wife has told me stories of going to the store by herself with the kids, and none of them end well. I have gone with her to the store with all the kids, and it never ends well.  I don't know why or how I thought this trip would be any different.  If you have never had the pleasure of accompanying multiple small children to the store by yourself, let me break it down for you:

• You get a cart, but forget keeping any of the kids to sit in it.  They all want to walk because they are all "Big" kids.  You try to get them to sit, but forget it, unless one of them breaks and sits down on their own.  Then they all want to sit, but only in the one spot where the first one is sitting.
• The kids move slowly through the store because they get distracted by everything.  Every two minutes, you have to stop and wait for the kids to catch up to you because they have seen something shiny, so they had to stop and look.  It's like shopping with three Dugs from the movie Up.
• Be prepared to say no a lot.  They ask for everything.  Stuff that they simply don't need.  They have never once said they wanted it before, but when they see it in the store, they "love" it and have to have it.  You can try to be one of those perfect, practical parents and explain how money works and how you don't have any, but you are waiting your breath because they know you have one of those magic money cards.
• You will go to the toy section.  If the store where you are shopping has a toy section, you will be visiting the toy section.  You can try to put up a fight, but eventually you will give in and you will be going to the toy section. It is simply what happens.  You will be going up and down every toy aisle.  

Maybe this doesn't happen to you when you go to the store with kids.  This means you are one of those perfect parents no one likes to be around because you make the rest of us look bad, or you are simply lying to yourself and us.  I think the majority of people have experienced the events described above.  One thing I had always been proud of was the fact that I had never lost a child in one of these huge box store.  I was proud of that, until it happened to me on Saturday.

I have mentioned before that Jak has some interesting quirks.  One of those is that sometimes he seems to get lost in his own little world, which can lead to situations like this one.  The three kids were looking at all the toys and were expanding their ever growing Christmas list.  I stepped away from them for just a minute because we were right next to the toothbrushes, and I needed a new one.  I came back to the toys just in time to see my two oldest riding around the bike section on some fancy bikes.  I got them to stop, and noticed we were short one child.  "Where's Jak?"  I asked.  The two just looked at me and gave some very helpful shoulder shrugs.  Jak had wandered off.  

We began searching for Jak in the toy section, but all the aisles were empty.  We went back to his last known position, and he was no where in sight.  He knew we were getting donuts, so I frantically raced across the store to the donut section (some people call it a bakery, not us), Jak was not there.  We went back over to the toy section, and I split up the other two, giving them specific directions on where to look and when to come right back.  They were surprisingly obedient for once.  They both completed their missions and reported back with no luck.  It was time to call it in.  I had no idea where he was, and I needed help.  I found the nearest employee and told them what was happening, and they directed me to the customer service desk.  I let them know what was happening and the woman there leapt into action.  She sent out a call to all the managers and then began racing over to each of the exits to tell the employees to block the doors.  This was serious business, and I was beginning to panic just a little bit.  My first thought was that my wife was going to kill me if I didn't come back with the same number of kids I left with.

If you are a parent and you have ever misplaced a child for any length of time, you know it is the worst feeling.  Your head is filled with a lot of thoughts, and none of them are very happy.  There is just a giant pit in your stomach and you are just worried sick.  On top of that, you realize that obviously, you are not very good at this whole parenting thing. Maybe I should just give it all up.

These were the thoughts in my head as we left the customer service area to tell the greeters to block the exits.  And as we left the service area, I saw the most wonderful sight I had ever seen.  A woman was walking up to the service are with Jak following behind her.  Jak saw me and immediately started running up to me.  It was like one of those scenes from a movie where two people see each other across a field and just begin running toward each other.  It was like that, except at Walmart.  I had been a little angry with my son up to that point, but as I held him in my arms, I realized he was just as scared as I was.  It was hard to be anything but relieved and happy at that point.  Plus, he didn't need to be yelled at, he needed to comforted. 

I had my cart with me, so I put Jak in the cart, and he didn't argue this time.  I just couldn't let him walk anymore.  I asked him why he had run off like that, and he said, "I didn't run off.  I just wasn't paying attention."  I asked him where he had gone, and he said "I couldn't see you guys so I was looking for you."  He hadn't just run off, he just wasn't paying attention and when he realized he was alone, he did the only thing he could think of, he started looking for us.  I was scared while he was gone, but then I thought how he must have felt.  Those stores are ginormous for little people like Jak, and it must be terrifying at his age to feel all alone in that store.

Anyway, the point is, well just love your kids.  I guess I just wanted to share.  They put us through a lot, but usually they don't mean to.  It was a scary 20 or so minutes looking for him and not knowing where he was, but since then, I have found myself hugging each of my little ones a little tighter for a little longer.

Thanks for Giving

The holidays have officially arrived.  It all starts with Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays.  It is a great holiday because it revolves around the 3 "F's": Family, Food, and Football.  Really, in my opinion, it is the perfect holiday.  A holiday so perfect that it is almost immune to the ruining power of children.  Almost.  You know what I am talking about.  Kids have this insane ability to find a way to ruin everything, whether it's furniture, your meal that you're cooking, or just a night out.  Somehow, some way, they will ruin it for you.  Most of the time, well, some of the time, they don't even mean to do it.  For example, when my wife and I planned a night out one time, which for us takes some planning, and my youngest woke up the morning of the date and threw up.  Not her fault, she didn't do it on purpose, but the night out was ruined.  It is such a strong power that kids don't even have to try, they just do it.

Holidays are not normally immune.  Let me give you some examples:

• 4th of July: Normally ruined by the youngest child who has been up all day, in the sun, running around eating all the junk food they can find, and they now refuse to go to sleep because there is too much going on.  They need to sleep, however, because they are exhibiting behaviors that would make Oscar the Grouch look like a happy guy.  All of this, of course, is just in time for the fireworks show you have been waiting to see all day.
• Halloween:  You spend all day on Halloween doing things that revolve around your kids.  You go to their school to see their parade and help out in their classroom for their party and then after school, you help them get their costumes back on and take them from door to door to get candy, and all of this is great until they come crashing down from that sugar high and it's time for bed.  They stay up late, and then punish you the next day by finding their candy at 5 am, eating it and begin bouncing off the walls after they kept you up late.
• Christmas: Early Morning + Lots of new Presents+ Tons of candy in the stockings + over stimulation all day long + more candy and sweets from Grandpa who just can't say no to his grandkids = Nightmare by 6 pm.

Somehow, Thanksgiving seems to be the one exception, or at least I foolishly think each year.  This year, however, it really was.  Somehow, my kids made it through the meal behaving pretty well.  They even sat at the table with us and ate, which never happens the rest of the year.  My oldest even got excited about the football, for the first time ever on Thanksgiving.  It was a strange experience.  Most of the time in these settings my wife and I spend most of the time chasing the kids around, trying to round them up.  It usually looks like a circus to everyone else, but it feels like trying to wrangle cats to us.  Usually the kids are fighting about some dumb thing or another.  Sometimes, and I really believe this, they are fighting just to fight.  

But, somehow, this year was different.  We all sat down together and ate our meal, almost like civilized people.  As we sat there, and I looked around at each of them, it was a sweet moment as a parent.  I mean, this wasn't a Norman Rockwell painting or anything.  My oldest had his plate piled with his Thanksgiving feast: 2 rolls, my daughter had all the varieties of Jell-O salad on her plate and one small piece of turkey, my son Jak only had turkey and was going on about some PokeMon something, my second youngest was making multiple trips to the food for more of whatever she could reach, and my youngest was wearing more of the sweet potatoes than she had in her mouth, but we were all together, and happy.  For me, it was the perfect picture.  I felt something new this Thanksgiving: Gratitude.  I was grateful for my young little family and for how much they had each grown this year and just how great each one is.  I wasn't worried about the football game, or having seconds on the food.  The only "F" that mattered was family, and I felt blessed to have mine.  If only we had a holiday somewhere where there were no distractions, it was just an opportunity to be grateful for what we have.  That would be awesome.  We should do it June.  June only has Flag Day.  It could use a big holiday like this.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, from my family to yours!

You're a Geek, and You're Having a Girl: Now What?

Just over a week ago, my brother had a party.  A party to announce the gender of their unborn child.  This is a new thing, started by the Pinterest generation.  When we were having kids, we were part of the Facebook generation, so the most our friends and family got was a post on Facebook with a hard to see ultrasound pic and something like "It's a boy!" as a caption.  Now you have to bring all your family and friends together and have a themed get together and have everyone guess.  Yeah, it's cute, but I am way to lazy to pull something like this off, so I try to belittle it. I'm sorry, I am a horrible person.

The real point here is that my brother is having a girl.  I just want to say, I totally nailed it.  When I heard they were pregnant, I knew they were having a girl.  I don't know, why, but the truth is my brother is going to be the kind of dad that every girl should have, and his wife is going to be a great mom, and I am genuinely excited for them.  When I heard the good news, it made me think back to when we found out we were having a girl for the first time.  I was terrified.  Boys seem easy for whatever reason.  I get boys, I think, because I used to be one.  Girls are, always have been, and always will be a huge mystery to me.  The idea of trying to raise one in a world that seems to be against her, just seemed overwhelming.  So, I did what any self respecting geek would do, I turned to the world of geekdom to find some inspiration for the type of girl I wanted to raise. Unfortunately, you still have to be careful.  Sex still sells in the geek world.  Long story short, we avoided comics in general.  Here are my top three female characters in geekdom.

3. Captain Kathryn Janeway

I'll start with one of my favorite Sci-Fi franchises.  Star Trek is known for its commanding officers, but it took four series before they had a female in the captain's chair.  Janeway had to be good.  And she was better than good.  She was great.  She had quite the challenge.  Somehow, she had to find a way to get two crews who hate each other to work together,  while they were in millions of lightyears away trying to find a way home.  Janeway was a great captain, a great leader.  She was fair, she was strong and everything I would love my daughters to grow up to be.  Often times, when women characters are written, they are either too sexed up, or they are written as cruel, witchy villains.  Janeway was neither.  And it worked. Imagine that.

2. Donna Noble/River Song

I love Doctor Who.  I'll be honest, I have only gotten into Doctor Who recently, so I am only super familiar with the reboot that started in 2005.  To be honest, the new series has a major problem. The companions.  They are all young girls who follow the Doctor around like doe-eyed little puppy dogs and fall all over him.  Except for these two: Donna Noble and River Song.  I am going to say this, and it is going to make some people angry, but Donna was the best companion the show has had in the modern era.  In my opinion, it's not even close.  Why?  Because while she was on the show it was about adventure and exploring and not about how much she had a crush on the Doctor and wondering if he felt the same way.  She was the only companion that did not have any kind of romantic interaction with the Doctor at any point (Amy had the whole series where Rory was missing).  Donna and the Doctor were friends, that's it.  And they respected each other.  

River Song, in my opinion, is the only woman in the universe who could win over the Doctor.  Why? Because she was his equal.  There was really nothing the Doctor could do that she couldn't.  She wasn't some stupid little girl having a big crush on some older man.  She was a woman,his equal in every way. She didn't need the Doctor to save her.  In fact, she often saved him.  She was fun, independent and strong.  When my girls start watching Doctor Who, it will be these episodes.  We are going to skip Rose entirely.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Chosen one? Check.  Killer moves with a wooden stake? Check.  Save the world?  Check, check,and double check.  Buffy is about as tough as they come.  She was the character that earned Joss Whedon a reputation for writing strong female characters.  It was a bold move for the 90's to have a female in the lead role of a vampire slasher series.  It was an even bigger move to market it to a mass audience. The gamble paid off, and Buffy was a huge hit.  She didn't wait around for some prince to come save her.  In fact most of her princes had to end up with a stake in their hearts.  Buffy is the classic hero's journey, except she's a she.  Tell you what, if I had to pick her or Luke Skywalker to save me, I'd pick her.  I think I'd have a better shot.

Well, there's my list.  Who would make yours?  I'm sure not everyone will agree with mine.  I think the real point is that there are some characters, role models, out there, you just have to look for them.  

JAK-isms: Just Be Yourself

I Love my kids.  Little kids just have a different way of looking at life than we do as adults.  It's refreshing to every once in a while take a look at the world through their eyes.  Our little boy Jak (short for Jakob, pronounced Jack) seems to see the world in an even more different light.  He has his quirks and we love him for them, most of the time.  Sometimes, he says things that really make me think, enough that I want to write them down from time to time and share them with the world.  He doesn't know it, but Jak is about to enlighten the Internet.  His stuff is typically pretty inspirational, so I would recommend sharing this post with everyone you know, because someone you know might need it.

The other day, Jak and I were talking.  Jak doesn't always do well with pretending.  He doesn't like to pretend that he is someone or something else.  he is always just Jak.  He might be Jak in a Captain America costume or Jak in a Wolverine costume or a Ninja Turtle costume, but always still Jak.  So we were talking and I told him that he was pretty great, and that we were like Batman and Robin.  I could be like Batman and he would be like Robin.  He didn't like that one, so I said I could be Superman and he could be Superboy.  Still no good.  So I asked him, "Jak, which heroes do you want to be, then?"  He looked at me and gave the first JAK-ism that I really wanted to write down. He said:

"Daddy, you don't have to be a super hero to do good stuff.  You just have to be yourself  to do good stuff."

Wow.  I couldn't help but smile when he said that.  I gave him a big hug and told him, "You're right, buddy, what was I thinking."

It's a true statement.  Within each of us is the capacity to do good.  We don't need to wear tights (thankfully), or a cape to help others and do good stuff.  I didn't press, but I wonder what Jak thinks of as good stuff that I do or that he does, but chances are it's probably everyday kind of stuff like playing with him or helping with dinner or taking him out for ice cream.  It made me really stop and think.  To our kids, we are already super heroes.  And if we're not parents yet, we can still do good stuff.  We don't have to wait to get some cosmic power ring or get struck by lightning while standing in some chemicals or anything like that.  We can start today.  How?  That was Jak's real wisdom.  Just being ourselves.  Nothing "extraordinary," except I think on some level, we could say that each of us extraordinary and special and have something to add to our communities, our families, our workplace, our school or wherever we are.  Jak realized that each of us is special and that being ourselves is enough to do good stuff.

Halloween 2 or the Morning After

So, you survived the night with your little ones, or you survived a night of handing out candy or going to parties.  Congratulations, and welcome to the other side.  Last night and yesterday we had a lot of fun.  We trick-or-treated until our kids literally began to drop.  For us, that meant doing one side of a street and then the other, and we had 3 that were done.  The other 2 could have gone on for a little while longer, but after coming to my work, they had plenty of candy, so I didn't feel too bad calling it a night.  The kids looked great in their costumes and even our youngest got the whole get free candy idea.   It was a productive, seemingly long night and day.  On the car ride home, the long day finally caught up to each of the kids as they picked and bugged each other all the way.  Listening to your kids fight in the back seat  while you're sitting in the front is just so much fun.  I believe they use this as a form of torture in some countries.  Needless to say, when we finally got home and won the battle that is bed time,  we just crashed and went to sleep.

That brings us to this morning.  The morning after. Our two boys were up early, as always.  Every few minutes, one of them was coming in and asking us to open up some candy, and we weren't really keeping track.  Our children have learned that the best time to ask us for stuff is in the early morning when we are still trying to sleep and we just want them to go away.  The only problem is that our plan never works.  We have 5 kids, so that combined with the fact that they each of my kids needs something every two minutes, it ends up being a constant stream of neediness in the morning until we finally decide to pull our lazy bottoms out of bed.  At 5:30.  6, if we're lucky.  Today, we made it to 7:00, so it's almost like we got to sleep in, except that there was still that constant stream of neediness for about an hour before we got up.

I got up and walked out into our front room and was amazed at what I saw.  We had 2 buckets of candy from the trick or treating and from the candy we were giving out.  Not small bowls, BUCKETS.  This wasn't even all the candy.  Some of it was still out in the car, we were just too lazy to bring it in last night.  This was also in addition to the giant bowls of candy we had up on our dresser in our bedroom.  The 2 buckets were dumped all on the floor.  It was like a sea of candy in out living room. Well, not all candy.  There were some wrappers mixed in with the candy.  Who am I kidding?  It was mostly wrapper with a few pieces of candy mixed in.  The candy that was left was the kinds that nobody really likes, like the vanilla tootsie rolls.  Our 2 boys were sitting on the couches across from each other, each surrounded by a pile of their own wrappers in a sugar coma.  Our littlest girl was standing there, big  smile on her face, a tootsie pop in each hand, while our next youngest was picking up every vanilla tootsie roll she could find.  She's not picky, she just wanted sugar.

My wife and I just stood there and stared.  We realized that the kids were not to blame for this. They just wanted candy, and what kid doesn't?  It was our fault for leaving it where they could easily find and access it.  We should have known better.  Obviously, with 5 kids, this isn't our first rodeo, and it seems like this same scene plays out every year.  We know this is going to happen, yet every year it still does.  Why?  Because we are so exhausted for the actual night of Halloween, that we don't think ahead to the next day.  We only think about getting in bed.  So this same story plays out each year, followed by the next thing.  My wife takes away all the candy.  She scoops it all up and takes it to her secret hiding place.  And it is secret too.  Sometimes, even I can't find it.  Now, the rest of the day will be filled with kids asking for candy, us saying no, them finding stragglers that we didn't see and eating them.  Plus, they are all overtired and cranky, so they are all fighting with each other all day.  If they do find candy, they eat it, run around crazy from the sugar rush, then fight and crash once it wears off.  Kids love and look forward to October 31, parents hate November 1.

Maybe next year will be better.  I doubt it.  I am sure it will play out exactly the same as this year and last year and the year before that.  I guess it is one of our Halloween traditions.