Of course today of all days, little prince crawls in bed with us this morning and its like an electric blanket has just been cranked up.  Immediately I knew he had a fever, the only question was how high?  Took one look at him, listless eye, bright cheeks, yep he's got an ear infection and maybe strep. 

 

Now on most days my kids love a free stay at home day, they get to lay around, watch all the TV they want and even the little nusance of not being able to play with friends makes up for any real heartache.  But today, today is Hallow-fucking-ween.  The mother of all holidays.  We spent yesterday decorating the outside of the house to make it spooky.  We've got bones in the yard, we've got pumpkins carved, we even got the halloween outfits all setout and ready to go. 

 

So when I told little Prince that he wouldn't be able to go to school, he was smart enough to think it through to the end (not like his father I might add) and realized, uh oh, my chances of gonig out and scoring a lot of candy are really slim.  Immediately burst into tears and wailed.  What about tonight? I HAVE TO GO OUT MOM, I JUST HAVE TOO.  Now growing up, and being the daughter of a school teacher, if you missed school, you missed everything for the day.  There was no, maybe do something later, it was a sentence to stay locked in the house all day.  I know if I called my Mom and said he missed school, the next comment out of her mouth would have been, he must be sad he can't go out tonight. 

 

I, on the otherhand, with all my working mom guilt can not bear to ruin halloween for this kid.  Yes, one of the kindergarten teachers at his school lives directly behind us, but we just won't got to her street!  I told my son this morning, he needed to take it easy all day long, eat some soup, take some medicine, and then we would see how he feels.  Being a great negotiator, he immediately went to - if I do that, how many houses can I go to?  I'm sorry, I have to reward brilliance like that - to get down to the specifics of a number right out of the gate- hello!  Thankfully, he is too young to quickly multiply so I said 10.  Ten seems like a lot, and he didnt' do the 2 peices of candy per house x10 = 20 stinking pieces.  My guess is that once he hits the street he'll quickly figure it out and try to sucker us in for more. 

 

And, why today? We had all weekend where he could have been sick and lying around, but no, had to come on halloween and Monday! Hubby and I spent a good 15 minutes fighting over who should stay home, or possibly doing half days, and negotiating all the way out to Wednesday just in case he doesn't recover sooner.  I of course welcome anytime off because it means another opportunity for a nap, but this is a really busy week at work and missing any time is not good - as in I better be at deaths door or get my ass to work not good. 

 

I was really looking to the joy of halloween, instead I see the week streching out in front of me like a mountain that I've got to trudge up and the best I can do is one step at a time while watching out for rockslides along the way.  The only consoliation is that I plan to hand out all the shit candy like flavored tootsie rools (gak) and keep the peanut butter cups and Kitkats all for my pretty little self.