6

So yesterday Connor turned 6, though he said this morning that he won't really be 6 until all of the family comes over to celebrate his birthday. Which is happening tomorrow. Perhaps he just wants more presents. But of course I had a few presents for him to open in the morning, before I had to load him up in the car and take him to school. And his Ma got him a little cake for after school, so he has at this point already ticked off the most important criteria for celebrating a birthday: cake and presents.

Anyways, yesterday was Halloween and Connor and I dressed up as ninjas and terrorized the neighborhood. Actually the neighborhood was already quite dead; probably 70% or so of homes in the area were not serving. Everywhere you looked it was lights out. Even several homes that were decorated for Halloween were dark. And we tried knocking, we tried. It was a weird year. Get this: I left my big dish of candy 'salad' out for trick-or-treaters, for when we were out hitting the pavement ourselves, since the cats weren't about to answer the door and hand out candy. And Connor is too young yet for me just to send him on his own. It was still almost all there when we got back. Then we left shortly after to go to a get together (pronounced: "party") at Bernie's house. So I left it out until we returned after 9pm. Not only was almost all of it still there, but there was MORE candy in it - a Butterfinger was on top, and I didn't buy that...someone actually dropped off candy. Was my selection THAT bad? Or did someone just see an opportunity to offload something they didn't like??

It was that kind of holiday. To be fair, in my neighborhood the houses are setup in rows of three that face each other, so the street alternates with rows of six garages or six front doors. And ours is the furthest back in the row. And in our row, ours was the ONLY house with a porch light on. A solitary beacon in the darkness. Not surprising that kids don't want to waste their time walking all the way to the end of the walkway just for one potential house to get candy from. But I had it, it was there. So now I'm left with a whole lot of M&Ms and Twixes and 3 Musketeers and Nerds and Milky Ways. And so on. Oh, and one Butterfinger. You know, for a little variety.

Actually, I also had some little packets of fruit snacks, in case anyone came who didn't really like chocolate. I know that's hard to imagine, but I've heard that they actually exist. Of course my thoughtfulness got slammed on Facebook for being "that guy" that hands out fruit snacks. Oh well, I just can't win. In any case, I have a lot of chocolate (and some fruit snacks) to get through, and with a birthday party tomorrow there's going to be even more junk food littering the house. This will be one fat weekend.

But hey, Connor turned six. Happy birthday to my little man, who's not so little anymore. And he did make a good little ninja, though he gave up the sword and daggers early on so he could focus on holding his candy bag. Priorities, am I right?