Today is Halloween. All Hallows Eve. The night for tricks and treats. The night of trick or treating. The night when all the people in my neighborhood dutifully give to my children, all the crap that I say no to them, on a regular basis. The kids love it, I actually do too, and the amount of sugar crap candies in my cupboard is alarming on this night. But I guess that's part of life. My girls can process sugar pretty well, Hannah doesn't get any sugar high, and Sarah is mostly the same way, but she does get a little amped up from the sugar. But Halloween is a superlative kid's holiday and that's the way it should be.
Hannah dressed as a baseball player and Sarah as a witch. We headed out with our friends from up the street and their girls, and both families had their wagons in tow. My wagon had a blanket, a flashlight, a couple of little girl jackets, and an 18 pack of Bud Select. I was like a traveling bar. My other neighbors saw the beer in the wagon and I provided several adult beverages to those in need. And we went out for about 90 minutes. We started to head home when Sarah had broken open a scab on her forearm and was bleeding through her shirt. But I give the little witch credit, she protested the whole way home, in spite of her need of a new shirt, and in spite of her need for a bandage and a half pint of blood.
So we got home and we bandaged the arm as Hannah brought all the candy in from the wagon. You see, the wagon becomes the "dump site" when the candy bags get a little heavy. And so after the bandaging was done, we poured all of the candy on the kitchen table. We categorized the candy into piles or stacks...kit kats, m&m's, snickers, skittles, etc. And most of the table was covered. It was a very successful night, and we seemed to have twice as much candy as we did last year. At this point, I thought it was important to get some "real" food into those little bodies. So I put a pizza in the oven and some chicken nuggets too, and made a can of spaghettios. The girls ate and ate some more. They asked for milk and I obliged, and they started watching some show on the Food Network, where there was a cake making contest, and all the cakes were Halloween inspired. The cakes were actually very cool. And about the time that the girls started getting full, Sarah made a little spill with her milk. And I wiped it up and told her not to do it again or she'd get in big trouble. So five minutes later, she dumped the whole glass and it went all over two chairs, through the crease in the tabel and all over the floor. And yes, I was pissed, but look, the candy was all over the table, there was a cool show on the tv, and it's freakin' Halloween. Plus, she's THREE. So I gave her the heavy voice, but couldn't get too mad at her with her candy eyes and her candy face. So I cleaned up the mess, and she got out of her remaining clothes, and she finished eating and I got her into her PJ's.
Cleaning the floor is not good for my hip, my back or my knees. It's something I really don't do, I leave that to others. So that kind of mess tends to piss me off more than a little. But i held back. Tonight was Halloween. The table was filled with candy, a fun show was on the TV. What could i do? Punish her? No. But seriously, who could I be mad at besides myself? And when I gave her the milk I thought "why are you giving it to her without a lid?" And I gave it to her anyways. And while I was cleaning up this mess, I thought about the saying "don't cry over spilled milk". And I didn't cry, and I didn't make sarah cry about it. But why would I? Why should she? It's freaking MILK! She's freaking THREE! And so I got to thinking...why would anyone cry over spilled milk? Why would milk being spilled make anyone cry? Why would there be an accepted axiom about crying over spilled milk? What makes this euphamism exist? And I don't have an answer because of the wagon earlier (remember the 18 pack of Bud Select?). The wagon has made me so lazy tonight that I don't feel like googling and learning about the entymology of the phrase. But i cannot imagine why there would be a saying about not crying over spilled milk. Why would anyone cry over a spill? Unless they worked at at a gold factory, or an oil refinery. But then why wouldn't the saying be about spilled gold? Or spilled oil?
So the point is, that today is Halloween. The kids loved their night. I enjoyed myself. The milk was a non issue. But the topic of Spilled Milk has me puzzeled still. If you care to indulge yourself in some useless trivial pursuit, you can look into it. If you would rather just go about your lives as if nothing about this blog post is relevant, then I say go for it. In the mean time, happy Halloween. I hope you see everything.
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