I hate it when that happens.

I have a stiff neck. A sore, stiff neck, from tensing every muscle for hours and days at a time, I have panic attacks in my sleep and I woke up last night actually choking on stomach acid, life is a bowl of something, can't remember what though and it's probably best if I don't guess.
Actually whatever my deal is is almost certainly in my head because on the face of it, all is hunky dory. Obviously my head knows something the rest of me hasn't discovered yet because I am, quite frankly, a total cow at the moment.
I am jumpy and nervous and oh, I am so ANGRY.
The preparations for the party are going really well, we started early and so we can take our time and do things at our leisure, which is great isn't it? Well it would be but there is no school this week and so everything I do, there are 3 little boys here undoing it or 'helping' or not even pretending to help, they are HERE and they are touching and moving and dropping and breaking and losing and just TOUCHING. Oh the touching.
I know they are little boys and there are so many exciting things around, we don't do things by halves and so we have many, many props and decorations, I am 47 and when I look through the boxes I squeal and exclaim and I am so excited by the plans of what to do this year with everything, how much more exciting it must be for little boys and because we brought all the boxes down from the loft on monday there has been an enormous amount of touching and squealing and fighting with bloody plastic daggers and glow in the dark machetes.
Elijah seems to have a knack, oft mentioned before and as yet still not grown out of, of being able to merely walk into a room and have everything fall apart around him, Oh look! Eli is just standing there and yet all those decorations fell off the wall, whoops a drink is there and Eli is there and ...oh never mind, we'll clean it up.
H has been more quiet than ever this week, barely a word has passed his lips and all the while he is cleaning and tidying and doing all those dreary things that need doing even when there is a party to prepare for, he has cleaned cupboards, inside and out, he has cleared the yard and scrubbed it, he has worked and worked while I have fussed and shopped and fussed some more.
He won't touch a single thing to do with the party, until after the party when he will clean it all away and take down and pack up. He is splendid and worth having around I tell you.
This evening Jordan and Mel came around to help with all the high up stuff, I love to see how enthusiastic they are, I have grand ideas on what to do but when it comes to actually doing it, I feel all overwhelmed and weary, Jordan and Mel came over and they did everything I imagined and more and they were so excited and unweary. We did the hallway ( oh it looks so good!) we then went upstairs and started on Seth's room....it was late and I really just wanted to have Jordan put up the high stuff, the ceiling stuff, the boys escaped from the lounge and came upstairs, all 6 hands and 6 feet and 3 mouths and 30 fingers, we sent them back down explaining that tomorrow they could join in, Seth stayed behind and picked up the large blacklight and in seconds it smashed, all over the floor and with it so did my composure, patience, temper. In the most spectacular and horrifying way.
I often yell, no-one blinks or even takes much notice.
This evening was so much more than yelling, it was, well I don't even know what it was, apart from shameful and draining.
I hate it when that happens, it isn't even satisfying in that the tension is released because they dreadful feeling of shame fills the gap so perfectly.
H, bless his heart, came upstairs and quietly said " Ok, that's enough, let me move this out of your way" and took out the iMac that is in Seth's room ( wonder if he heard the smashing, followed by the screaming and thought I had smashed the lamp in my temper)
There is nothing that will stop a tantrum in it's tracks quicker than a quietly spoken, non judgemental word. Had H stormed in and started berating me for my totally unacceptable behaviour, he would have got a piece of it all for himself. The fact that he gently said " that's enough and let me move this out of your way" killed my outrage dead. I sat down on Seth's bed and just deflated, hypothetically that is, if only I had literally deflated too, shame things don't work out that way isn't it?
I slumped and I told Jordan and Mel that it was probably best if we left the rest for another day ( other days are becoming frighteningly scarce now though, will have to do a lot tomorrow!)
I have been sitting here all evening with my stiff and painful neck and feeling sorry for those who had to witness such a spectacle, Seth is unfazed by the whole episode, he's a tough nut that boy.
I shall take pictures when this house is all partified and ready, I shall take more pictures when it is filled to bursting with people and I shall breathe a sigh of relief when it is over and done for another year. I love that we do this every year, I also feel every year, right about this time, that I am completely out of my tiny mind for ever suggesting it!

Happy Halloween!

I am so glad that is over. This year wasn't fun, not at all and I can't understand why. It just wasn't.
Nothing seemed to go smoothly, people didn't call until today to say if they were coming, many people didn't call at all, people told me they were coming and didn't.....
The 1st party we had was amazing and I worked out that way because we staggered it, school friends and little kids first, then older kids and church members. Perfect.
Last year we were in the hated house and so we kept it smaller, a good mix of big kids and little kids and we had lots of room.
This year, everyone turned up at once and there were many people, too many to count people. Most of them children aged 4-9. Too many! They ran riot and ripped decorations off walls, screamed, ran outside and threw all the basketballs over the wall, it wasn't good ( though they had fun!) It calmed down some when we started to do the doughnut game ...mini doughnuts on string, covered in cream and eaten with hands behind the back.....then we hit the pinata, with a baseball bat while H held it aloft on a vacuum hose....necessity is the mother of invention as they say.
Alfie cried, the hoodlums set of the smoke alarm by going overboard with the smoke machine, chaos really from start to finish.
H doesn't rush, he doesn't believe in worrying, he is a plodder, a take your timer, what's the big dealer-er. This year he even outdid himself.
At 4pm ( yes a mere 2 hours before the start of the party) he said " I am going to go get pumpkins, they would look good outside there in front"
"good luck with that" said I, having been shopping for this for the past several weeks and having been at Tesco, followed by Asda at 6.45am, I knew that apart from 32615 devils pitchforks, there was nothing left to buy , not a pumpkin in sight...at 4pm? Forget it. But he had to see for himself.
Meanwhile the house was nowhere near done, it wasn't ready AT ALL!
I didn't bother to ask when he planned on carving the pumpkins because THERE WEREN'T ANY! That was one fight we avoided, in fact we avoided all fighting because, well what's the point.
He did have the decency to say " Man, I don't know how I let this whole month get by me like that!" which is his way of saying, "whoops!"
We did it, there were high points...like this one


My dear life, I could eat this boy on a biscuit!
He was so happy and before everyone arrived he was belly laughing at the big boy uncles...



And Seth, who wanted to be a street Skeleton..he is a laugh that boy!



The house looked sort of OK but nowhere near as good as before, I was just disappointed with it all this year, grrrrrrrr!







The pictures don't show how the blacklights made everything glow, that was cool.



The doughnut game was great, hoorah for that one that I thought everyone would be bored with by now.







When everyone left, it hit all of us the same, we were cold, aching and sort of 'flat,' None of the buzz we have had in other years. I am just happy that we have done it and now we can concentrate on the trip. Hoorah!

I hope people had more fun than I did, it was great to see everyone and I love having them come to us, the kids from school were happy and they did have the best time.

Oh the cakes were good...revolting but caused just enough exclamation.


And they are amputated FINGERS...digits, not stumpy willies thankyou. Some people ( more than is decent) thought they were penises, imagine that!



I made some regular orange ones for the squeamish amongst us.



And now we done, until next year. If we do this again I will do it differently, staggering the guests was a great idea, I wish we had done that this year.

Sophie's passport came today, that's so exciting, we are all ready to go, I am changing some £s to $s tomorrow, that helps make it more real.
That's out focus for the next few weeks, and a happy thought it is too!

Hey!

Would love to stop and chat but am having a party tomorrow ( today, it's already today!) I think an awful lot of people are coming, I love that we get so many people turn up and each year the word gets out that it was fun and so the next year we get more people come, wonderful, maybe next year we will hire a mansion!
H has cleared Seths room, completely, empty and we have turned that into a safe and far away from the front room place for lively and sugar filled small people to go and be loud and hyper.
The front room is orange and pumpkinny and shall be a lovely place to be. The huge inflatable pumpkins filled with candy and juice boxes will be in the front room, so we can monitor what certain small people ( who shall remain nameless) shove into their precious mouths.
I have no idea where the pinata is going and please PLEASE let tomorrow night be dry so we can hang doughnuts from string and let people eat them covered in cream with hands tied behind backs OUTSIDE because they DEMAND to be able to do that. We aim to please.
Someone today asked if there was a prize for the best costume....hmm, that would be nice but oh to have to disappoint the losers..couldn't do it.

I feel mean because I really don't enjoy the help of my sweet children when trying to prepare for these things, it always ends in tears ( mine) like today, we were working on Seth's room ( graveyard) and blowing up stacks of balloons...which hyper kids can throw and kick and pop if they like) to leave in there, and guess what? My hyper kids were throwing and kicking ( though not popping, oh such small mercies) so WHY did I feel so cross that they were doing this? Because it's not tomorrow yet is it? IS IT? Is it time for FUN YET? No! And the help...such a word isn't it? Because really, can 3 little boys of 5, 7 and 8 be of any help, if we're being honest? No, not a bit, except when they actually DO what is asked of them, they can be helpful little gophers, when not whining that THEY did it last time and it's HIS turn now and WHY is it ALWAYS ME??? Oh what memories we shall have.
I am hoping my 6' 5" boy will be here in the morning to hang all the ceiling things, the ghosties and bats and trailing curtains. Now kids like THAT are indeed worth hanging onto but by then they almost always live somewhere else, typical isn't it?
So, I am busy. H went to bed and said " this time tomorrow it will be all over" Indeed.
The best bit? He always clears up. Now he really IS helpful.