Twas the Night after Hallo-Giving Chrismakuh . . .

. . . and all through the house, all the creatures were STILL bouncing off the f*&#ing walls because mommy DID NOT  manage their sugar intake and in fact she made sure they ate so much sugar it was going to take 4 days to de-tox them!!

In true Runamuk fashion mommy and the girls hosted a mish-mash holiday party with a purpose.  This time it was Hallo-Giving Chrismakuh and it’s now November 12^th and we’ve done all we need to do for the holidays, right?!  We’ve celebrated all of them and we even added our standard charity component that wouldn’t be Runamuk if it didn’t combine a canned food drive meets extra candy drop off meets toy drive!

Mommy’s been away from blogging for a little while (something she’ll explain in the next post), but she thought she’d start up again with a bang so you all didn’t wonder if she had a lobotomy or fell down a holiday rabbit hole!   

Here’s what I learned happens when you mix 32 kids + 12 mommies + 22 TONS of sugar (and I’ll explain at the end how we did it all):

Mommy's drinking the kool aid . . .

. . . and definitely NOT the red-dye #5 kind.

Tis the season of Tricks and Treats, and we all know how much mommy likes to trick the children – why did I put them on this earth, after all??? 

So, as we enter this season of filling our kids and ourselves with crap of one kind and another, I figured it was time to reveal how to torture your kids all year long so that when they do get treats, you can actually throw in a few tricks!  And of course, it wouldn’t be Runamuk if a few of these tricks weren’t on mommy.  So here's what I've learned about playing with food:

Some Tricks, some Treats and one BIG Rutabaga wakening

Here’s something no one ever tells you at the grocery store . . . rutabagas should actually be called “rotting licorice”.  We are still continuing our real food journey and mommy decided that she would branch out and try some of those foods that you only find in the Martha Stewart magazines.  And, they had them at the farmers market, so they must be good, right?!

Let’s just say that there’s a reason those foods have a season span of 2 ½ months and that no one really laments when they leave.  I actually tried to make a rutabaga stew because I couldn’t find anything better to do with them.  I found out that the really great smell of the stew was only masking the nastiness underneath.  I threw the entire dinner away and wouldn’t even let the children try it for fear that they might actually spit it at me . . . and I really couldn’t blame them. 

Of course, Husband from Heaven (or as we like to call him, "the human garbage disposal") ate the stew and said “it tastes fine”.  I’m not sure whether it actually tasted fine to him, or he just couldn’t bear the thought of throwing out an entire crockpot of food.  Probably both!

Because I like to continue my food torture, I moved on to Halloween treats.  Here’s what I learned about THAT:

SHHHHHHHH. . . . . .

. . . . . IT happens!

We all have those days, but it seems that this has just been one of those WEEKS for mommy.

Before I go on, I want to mention family fun.  We visited the San Diego Children’s DiscoveryMuseum in Escondido and they had a pumpkin patch, music, face painting, etc.  The kids had a great time, but did spend most of it inside because it was so bloody hot.  For the next several weeks the museum will be having gardening lessons and live music on Saturdays.  They also have Kids Free October for kids under 12.  I highly recommend checking it out!

The Id is waaaay out there, the Ego is hiding and the Superego is acting crazy!  What else is new?!

No, those two additional blonde children are not mine.  They are my friend's, but they're cute, aren't they?!  :-)

So, rather than pontificate about how insane my life is, I just figured I’d entertain you with all the sh*t that’s happened in the last 72 hours and how you might avoid these problems yourself – also, at the very end I give an update on our real food journey!

The Great Pumpkin IS real

Halloween has come to a close and mommy is completely exhausted.  What began with a miniature pumpkin patch concluded with The Great Pumpkin.  The Ego . . . you know, the child who keeps writing “give me 20 bucs” notes to the tooth fairy . . . has now decided that she is Linus and needed to write to the Great Pumpkin.  Right down to the Nuh Nuh she now carries around (this is a name that she learned from BFF Molly’s son - it is how he refers to his blankie)! This kid is going to kill me with all her notes to fictional characters.  It means that I have to keep showing up and I have to take ½ an hour to write my left handed notes.  And, this one I could not screw up – there was no way I was going to be able to convince her that November 3^rd was still Halloween and the Great Pumpkin was on a spy mission.

So, last night, to round out our Halloween family fun mommy became the Great Pumpkin and transformed the kitchen for the girls.  Here’s what I learned about the Great Pumpkin and Halloween night family fun:

From Pie to Princess . . .

Halloween family fun and other shenanigans are ramping up.  Yesterday we had a “kids” party where Aurora, the three fairies, and oh yes, even Prince Phillip made an appearance, and today we carved our pumpkins.  Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dugdale Halloween without some mishaps and missteps along the way. 

Here’s what I learned about fully participating in the madness that is Halloween:

She's my cherry pie . . .

WARNING TO THE NANA AND THE GRANDMA – The following will contain material that will make you wonder how you raised such inappropriate children.  You may want to stop reading right here. 

Last night my husband and I were invited to an adults only Halloween party.  This was the first “adults only” party we’ve been invited to in about 10 years, so I was really excited!  Anyone who knows my husband, of course, knows that he’d rather have his head stapled to the carpet than go to a costume party.  But, I found the perfect solution for the man who refuses to dress up! 

Anyone who knows me well knows about my obsession with cherries.  I love all things Cherry.  Cherry pie, cherry jam, cherries from Costco (they’re the best); you name it, I love it.  So when I was looking online for an appropriate (or in this case completely inappropriate) costume for this adults only party, I came across the “Hot Cherry Pie”.  How could I resist this one?!  The best part, this is actually a couple’s costume  - I’m the cherry pie, and my husband is the “Deep Valley Cherry Pie Eating Contest Winner”.  I dressed up as my favorite dessert food and all my husband had to do was wear jeans, a hat backwards and a baseball shirt with “Deep Valley Cherry Pie Eating Contest Winner” on the front – oh, and a 1^st place ribbon.

Here’s what I learned about going to an adults only Halloween party as a dessert food:

I want my mummy . . . meatloaf

So before I dive into today’s Halloween family fun, a couple stories.  Tonight I was driving home from a charity function (which I’ll mention more later) and it occurred to me . . . I missed a HUGE opportunity with yesterday’s post.  The title of the post should have been “Give ‘the finger’ to school lunches”.  I have never had so many people comment to me about how much they too hate packing school lunches.  My favorite comment came from my mother-in-law.  Here’s what she wrote in an e-mail to me:

I too hated to make school lunches - choosing to have them buy instead.  I never felt creative about lunches.  There was a time when [my son]* couldn't remember to take lunch money and I finally had to tell the teacher "No more lunch loans!"  She thought I was really cruel!

(* “my son” has been substituted for my husband’s name so as to protect the guilty).

The best part about this little story, at the very moment that I received this e-mail I had just hung up the phone with the school district’s automated system that said “Dear Mrs. Dugdale – the Superego (yep, the automated system calls her that too) has a school lunch account balance of negative two dollars and fifty cents”.  Now isn’t it interesting that we have three children at that school, all three of whom always have the same lunch scenario, and yet only one of them has exceeded her account balance.  Apparently the school lunch account apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

Ok, on to family fun.  Today it was mummy meatloaf.  Here’s what I learned about making shapes out of an otherwise mundane dinner:

New meaning to the phrase "finger sandwiches"

I absolutely despise making lunches.  I know I cannot be the only mommy out there who feels this way.  I would rather risk that my children put all kinds of junk food in their lunches than have to make them myself.  Unfortunately for them, there is no junk food in our house, and I have actually convinced them that Veggie Sticks is junk food! 

Not sure what my aversion to this task is, but I hate it.  AND, I also am unwilling to let my children buy lunch everyday from the cafeteria.  So, until I can get a “Rosie” Robot to make the lunches for me, I’m stuck with it (this is, by the way, one of the things I miss about working motherhood – paying the nanny to make lunches).  I know, hard life.

Anywhoo,  today’s Halloween family fun was making skeleton sandwiches and jack o lantern oranges.  Here’s what I learned about making Halloween lunches:

Your very own pumpkin patch for Little People

So today I learned that Martha Stewart not only served time for insider trading, she also made her child wrap her own Christmas presents.  Alexis Stewart’s new book just came out and apparently she’s airing all her mother’s dirty little secrets.   Here’s what occurred to me - are you f***ing kidding me?!  The queen of all things domestic could not even be bothered to actually wrap her ONLY child’s Christmas presents?!  And then it dawned on me . . . some may think this is fraudulent – to create your entire persona around being domestic, crafty and always put together – when in reality, you’re so overcommitted you can’t even wrap your own kids’ presents.  To me, this woman is brilliant!  She created an entire empire that portrays her as the picture of perfect domesticity, and yet, she’s just like the rest of us with not enough hours in the day to get everything done (though I have to say that making your child wrap their own Christmas presents is a bit over the top). 

Here’s what also occurred to me.  I'd better pull my kids out of school and home school them so that they unlearn all their reading and writing skills and can’t ever write a book that will reveal all my dirty little secrets.  My girls would hold nothing back!  That’s why I have to reveal it to all of you first, before they can get to it.

OK, back to the pumpkin patch and today's family fun.  This was a project from Disney Family Fun and it was a miniature pumpkin patch made of Circus Peanuts.  Following is what I learned about making your very own pumpkin patch for Little People: 

From Wonderland to the Hood . . .

This weekend’s easy family fun began with a visit to the “Wonderland of Treats, Eats and Drinks” benefitting the Poway Unified School District Foundation, and ended with Mommy and 4 of her friends at the Poway Center for Performing Arts for a “Party in the Pit” watching Street Beat (a Theatrical Drum and Dance Show with lots of drumming and hip hop dance moves).  Mommy was hoping to end our weekend fun with a little Halloween activity, but you’ll have to read on to see how that went.

Here’s what we learned about too much sugar, partying with girlfriends and messy houses: