A Family Photo for Father's Day

Family photos are always tough. Mostly because we have to stand so close to each other, which is just a breeding ground for shoving and fighting.

But the kids all got together for this little gem in honor of Father's Day.



Nice, huh?

My father-in-law pointed out to me, "You're the only one who looks happy."

"Yeah," I said. "And I'm faking."

April Fools Day... again?!

So it's April Fools Day. I've said it before, but it's not my favorite holiday.

(image from fabuloussavers.com)

But this year the twins are apparently able to understand the concept. Sort of.

Little Girl said to me, "Mommy, my teacher said it's April Fools!" When I agreed that it was, she suddenly got a mischevous look on her face.

Barely containing a giggle, she said, "Mommy there's a sucker on your head!" I pretended to gasp and check my head, and she laughed and laughed. "April Fools!"

This gag got less funny as the night went on, by the way. (For me, I mean. She still thought it was a  riot.)

Anyways, this year there are some neighbors playing pranks on one another. For example, one neighbor gave another a plate of brownies:


http://thisthat2011.blogspot.com/2015/04/brownes-april-fools-prank.html

Isn't that cute? (And no Ex-Lax involved. Admit it--you thought it would be Ex-Lax, didn't you?)

A neighbor kid played a less-cute prank at my house, involving a rubber band and my sink sprayer, so that when I turned on the kitchen sink I got sprayed in the face with water.

Here's a dramatic recreation with a model who is obviously not me:
(image from popularmechanics.com)

That kid is lucky she's not mine, and therefore gets to live to see April 2nd.

On valentine's day, it's nice to hear a story of everlasting love

(image from wikipedia.org/)
Here's a sale ad I saw on facebook:
(I'll skip the details in the middle and go straight to the part I thought was funny.)

"For Sale: Like New, in box (.....) Inscription on back: Three Things Last Forever. Faith, Hope, Love."

She probably should have added: "One thing that does not last forever: The Christmas present someone engraved especially for me. So please take it off my hands and give me the cash instead!"

(image from cartoonstock.com)

This Year's Christmas Card Photo

I asked my husband and the kids to brainstorm ideas for this year's Christmas card photo.

Since last years's photo was creative and fun, I thought it would be great to do it again. The main reason it had gone so well then, was because the kids had helped come up with the idea.

(As opposed to moaning and groaning and complaining the whole time because Mommy was making them take a family photo, as in previous years.)

At first I thought I'd made a big mistake though, because they had some pretty wild ideas:

1. Make a snowman out of red dirt and pose next to it.

2. Take all our furniture outside and sit on it like it's our living room.

3. Pose in front of the neighbor's house, pretending to peek in their windows.

4. Go up on the roof and take a picture.

5. Walk out into the woods where we'd "planted" last year's plastic tree and stand next to it again.

Fortunately, we didn't end up going with any of these. In fact we didn't do anything weird at all!

Well, maybe just a little weird.....

Funny ecard--Columbus Day edition

I still don't like April Fool's Day

I said this last year, but April Fool's Day bugs me.

(Read last year's rant HERE if you're interested.)

I just don't approve of a holiday that's all about lying to people and/or making them uncomfortable.

And yes, I AM a party pooper. That's why I'm MOMMY!

(Image from sms.com))

This year's annoying joke I heard about from an 88-year-old lady at church who lives in an assisted-living home.

She came down to the dining room Sunday morning for breakfast and they had a big sign up, "Dining room will be closed for lunch and dinner today due to health department violations."

Seriously.

Yes, it was an April Fool's joke. And she took it well. Unlike many other residents, I'm sure.

But should we REALLY be joking like this with the octogenarians? I mean, I get mad when someone messes with MY meals, to be honest. And I'm not trapped in the old folk's home with little else to look forward but banana pudding after lunch on Tuesdays!

I'm surprised no one had a heart attack.

This joke exemplifies all that I dislike about April Fool's.

Sorry if I sound too preachy here.

Just don't mess with the old people's banana pudding! OKAY?!

The Post-Christmas Let-Down

Okay, so the Christmas tree is finally taken down.

I put this task off every year because I hate it. Also everyone else hates it, and no one wants to help.

Here’s a photo of putting the tree up.

See how everyone is happy and full of family togetherness? There’s Christmas music playing, and we’re all holding up old ornaments and cheerfully saying, “Oh I remember this!”

Taking the tree down is a whole other story.

At dinner I said cheerfully, “Who wants to help Mommy take the tree down tonight?”

There was a little silence, and suddenly everyone remembered urgent errands that needed to be performed after dinner.

This year we had the added fun of calculating just how many of those nostalgic old ornaments had been broken by the twins.

Here’s a little sampling of the casualties. The ornaments that go in these boxes, including one that we’ve had since 1995, were smashed beyond repair. (A less happy reason to say, “Oh, I remember this!”)

This is of course not including all the ornaments I glued back together, with varying degrees of success, and put away.

I don’t know how one pair of three-year-olds manage to break so much more in one year than the three kids before them combined over fourteen years.

My husband says the twins’ destructive potential is not just double the average toddler’s, but quadruple.

Here’s the math:
  Stuff Baby Boy breaks alone
+Stuff Baby Girl breaks alone
+Stuff they break together for fun
+Stuff they break accidentally while fighting
=Four times the stuff broken!

There. (You see kids? Math can still be useful!)

Anyways, the tree is put away for another year.

Now we’re left with the sad empty boringness of the room. It’s strange, because this is the very same room that looked perfectly fine a month ago before we put the tree up, and in fact we wondered where the tree was going to go, since the room was so full. But now it looks empty.

It’s like that weird old story about the guy who visited the wise man because his house was too crowded and the man said okay bring in your cow your goat your chickens etc, and then after he finally took them all out again the man felt his house was sized just right.

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about I found the book at http://us.macmillan.com)



So I should remember the lesson of this book: It could always be worse.

The twins could be triplets!

Yet another reason why I wasn't nominated for "Mother of Year" this Christmas

Because I'm Last-Minute-Shopping Mommy.

I ended up at Toys R Us on December 23rd fighting the other panicked parents for the last Barbie Dream House.

But it wasn't really my fault!

Okay, here's the whole sad story...

(image from http://ny.racked.com)


I had bought the older kids some books, video games, and DVD's from the school book fair and the electronic store by November 30th.

Check.

I had finished all my shopping for people out-of-town by the first of December and mailed it all by the second.

Check.

I had proposed a let's-don't-buy-gifts-for-each-other-this-year plan to my husband, which he leapt upon with relief.

Check.

I had ordered several toys and books online for the younger children by December tenth, qualifying for free delivery in plenty of time for Christmas.

Check.

I headed to a couple of specialty stores and a clothing store for the rest of the stuff for the kids, and finished all that by December 19th.

Check.

I confirmed with my husband that we really did make a no-gifts-for-each-other pact and that it was not a trick.

Check.

Then we hit a little snag in the checklist.

December 22nd, 11:30 p.m., just before falling asleep: I realized I hadn't received that package I'd ordered two weeks ago with most of the younger kids' stuff in it. I tried not to panic.

December 23rd, 8:00 a.m.: I looked at my inbox and couldn't find the confirmation-of-order email. I tried not to panic. I checked my online credit card statement and did not find a charge for that store. I tried not to panic.

I went on the website and began to try to track my package. When I logged in it said I had no open orders. I started to panic.

Then I looked up at the top of the screen where it said cheerily, "You have 15 items in your shopping basket!"

ACK! Time to panic! I realized I had apparently never placed the order! THERE WAS NO PACKAGE ON ITS WAY AT ALL!!!!!!

Now, I don't know what kind of moron I have to BE to do this. I distinctly remember placing this order. Really. I do.

But there was the evidence staring me in the face: that cute little virtual shopping cart was winking away at me, chanting, "Fifteen ITEMS never ORDERED! Fifteen ITEMS never ORDERED!"

Christmas was two days away and I had almost no presents for THREE of my kids!

(image from http://blog.cayadutta.com)

So what else could I do? I went to Toys R Us with all the other waited-until-the-last-minute moms and dads.

And of course, spent more than I should have in order to compensate.

Sigh. Maybe next year I'll have it together.

At least the pact held up: My husband got me nothing and I got him nothing. That's one expense avoided.

Check.

A Christmas Card Photo--The Weird Way

This year we took our Christmas card photo on the beach. Which makes sense, because we live in Hawaii.

But just to mix things up we decided to bring along our Christmas tree.

You should have seen people's faces on this beach when we hauled out the big Christmas tree box and started putting it up. It is an old-style artificial tree where you have to sort the branches by size and then put them all on the central pole individually, so it was a fairly long process. They had lots of time to stare.

It was kind of you-might-be-a-redneck moment....

The School Carnival Haunted House

There was a carnival at the elementary school, so I took Boo and GG.

ET declined to go, being officially Too Cool For Elementary School Carnivals, and one of the twins was sick, so they stayed at home.

Well, as soon as we got there, GG ditched me, being officially Too Cool To Hang With Parents. My husband and I took Boo around to the various carnival things: you know, cake-walk, bean-bag-toss, et cetera.

We ended up in a long line for the hanuted house.

Can I just say that school carnival haunted houses have really changed since I was in school? I mean, all we did was hang a bunch of black paper all over a classroom and turn out the lights, then make people crawl under desks and stick their hands in a bowl of cold spaghetti, telling them it was guts.

It was lame, but it was what you expected from a school carnival. After all, what do you think you'll get for fifty cents?

This haunted house was WAY scarier. I mean, we still crawled under stuff. But then there was a guy with a knife in his mouth lurking under there.

image from www.myanimelist.net

Scary!

And there were still walls hung with black. But one of them turned out to be a tarp-covered man who lumbered toward us saying, "I'm going to get you, Boo!"

That's right! The guy in the tarp KNEW BOO'S NAME!

Super scary!

I'm telling you, it was NOT what I expected from a school carnival. And it still only cost a dollar!

But... we didn't get to stick our hands in a bowl of peeled grapes. Bummer...

Haunted house image from http://printables.kaboose.com/haunted-house.html

April Fools?

April Fools Day is not my favorite holiday.

I don't actually know what my favorite holiday is, but rest assured: it's NOT April Fool's Day.

I'm not trying to be a hater here, but pranks and mischief are just not my cup of tea.

I think it's my Inner Mom.

St. Patrick's Day isn't my favorite either.

It's nothing against the Irish. I don't approve of the sanctioned pinching.

But I digress. We were talking about April Fool's Day.

Several of my friends on facebook posted April Fool’s Day jokes yesterday about being pregnant.

Wow.

Talk about tempting fate, huh? This just seems like a bad idea to me.

It will be interesting to see if any of them end up REALLY sorry in about nine months….

Back to School...FINALLY!

So my kids are back at school.

Does anyone else hear the Hallelujah Chorus playing, or is that just me?

School breaks are really tough around here. I have a lot of children, and I’m just not used to having them AROUND all the time.

I mean, I love them. But not ALL DAY LONG, for WEEKS, you know?

No seriously, the real problem is actually all the unstructured time spent in close proximity to each other. It tends to lead to a lot of fighting.

So my choices during school holidays are:

(1) Plan a lot of activities and then force the children to participate in them.

(2) Allow the kids to lounge around the house like slugs, watching junk on TV and idly picking at each other.

You would think it’s a no-brainer: Just pick Option #1 and be done with it. Plan a lot of activities, and don’t allow them to be irritable sloths!

But the problem is Part B of Option #1, forcing the kids to participate in said activities.

This requires me to turn into a combination head cheerleader/Mary Poppins. “Won’t it be a lark if we all pop over to the park for a picnic, and then to the grocery?” (Remember, put that in a British accent and it’s automatically funnier.)

Oh yeah, I’ll admit that sometimes the activities are just errands in disguise. But often it’s something really fun.

But don’t forget the Rule of Multiple Children:

There will always be at LEAST one kid who hates anything you pick, no matter how great it is.

I mean, we live in Hawaii. It’s paradise, right? But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard variations of the following whine: “The beach? AGAIN?”

Ungrateful little slugs, aren’t they?

And there is the little problem of most outside-the-house-activities costing money…

Anyways, usually our holidays are a mixture of Forced Activity and Rampant Sluggardry.

So by the end of the time off I’m thoroughly worn out. Then I have to really watch it, because that’s when my resistance is down and I might let the kids do something I’ll later regret, just to get them to be QUIET for five minutes.

That’s’ how we ended up with some pet mice last January, by the way…

But forget all that; the good news is: I’ve survived Christmas break once again!

This year, WITHOUT any unwanted pets.

Hallelujah!

Ringing in the New Year

Well, it’s 2011.

Personally, I’m still wondering where all the flying cars are. Not to mention my robot maid.

It’s completely lame how the Future is here, and I still have to mop my own floor. And drive on the GROUND.

Although I guess we do sort of have those video phones they had on the Jetsons, what with skype and all. Which was, in my opinion, the lamest technology they had on that show. (Besides the dog-walk treadmill, I guess.)

I think that’s one of the best things about the phone, that you can talk on it and the other person can’t see you. Because MY phone always seems to ring when I’m in the shower or something. Let me tell you, you people are LUCKY you can’t see me!

Anyways, Happy New Year. Or whatever.

People in Hawaii are big on saying “Happy New Year.” They really love the new year celebration here. You should SEE the fireworks! It’s amazing.

It’s not a formal fireworks show or anything either. It’s just a bunch of regular people, buying up tons of small firecrackers and setting them off continually from about 6:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. Seriously.

My kids went outside to watch them from the yard; it was a pretty good show.

I was bummed that I was stuck staying up until midnight this year; usually I ring in the new year doing my favorite thing: sleeping. My husband always waits for midnight and supervises whichever kids are old enough to try to stay up, but this year he had to work overnight.

I think this was the first year that all three of the older kids stayed awake all the way until midnight. I know Boo particularly was proud of herself for passing this milestone.

Obviously the twins were not given the option of staying up late, so that means they were up bright and early the next morning.

Happy New Year!

Bye Bye Christmas Tree

Well, the Christmas tree is all put away.

I usually leave it up until Epiphany, but this year it’s been looking more and more bedraggled as the twins slowly strip (and smash, if possible) all ornaments they can possibly reach.

Even WITH the safety fence around it, there is apparently a substantially-sized reachable area of the tree. As you can see from the bare spot here.

Honestly, I just got tired of looking at it. Plus I was worried about how many more ornaments we could afford to lose….

I put the tree away during the twins’ nap, so they were extremely surprised when they woke up. They walked around in the empty space where the tree had been, going, “Christmas tree? Christmas tree?” as if they could call it like a dog.

I told them, “Christmas tree all gone,” which they repeated like a mantra for about a quarter of an hour, in slightly baffled voices. You could hear the subtext there: “Okay, what’s the deal here? This giant tree covered with pretty things has been sitting in our living room for a MONTH, and now it’s just GONE?! What’s up with THAT?”

(This is how the twins are, by the way. They talk to each other all day long, mostly by repeating the few words they know and adding gibberish to it. But you can get the gist of it; generally they’re commenting on something, or protesting something, in concert, like a Greek chorus, or a small mob.)

Finally their daddy took them to the closet and showed them where the artificial tree was stored, dismembered in its box. This did not reassure them.

Baby Boy said, distressed, “Christmas tree BROKEN!” and Baby Girl took up the cry as well. “Oh NO! Christmas tree BROKEN!”

My husband tried to console them. “No, it’s just night-night,” he said.

They exchanged looks. “Christmas tree night-night?” they ventured. They clearly appeared to be thinking, “Is Daddy snowing us, or what? I saw that thing, and it was BROKEN!”

He kept repeating that the tree was only night-night, but the twins were still pretty concerned.

It took them over an hour to get over it.

I guess they know the difference between something asleep, and something torn up and shoved into a box in the closet. They’re pretty smart, for a couple of two-year-olds.

Escape, or The Best Christmas Present Ever

Note: This was written on 22 December at 2:00 p.m.


I am writing this from a hotel room in Waikiki.

Really. I’m not kidding.

Although I may not be able to post this until I get home tomorrow; I’m not paying a $15.95 connection fee.

This was my Christmas present from my husband: I am spending two days all alone in a hotel. I have no current responsibilities. No one is asking me for anything. I don’t have to cook, or clean up, or break up fights for two days.

Obviously I have no idea what to do with myself.

No, seriously. I’m going to read a lot, and write a little, and take baths without anyone banging on the door.

This is an awesome Christmas present.

Actually, the best part of the whole thing is having my husband admit that watching the kids all day is a tough job.

When we talked last night, he said, “You can’t accomplish ANYTHING! You spend one minute doing something, and then someone wants something, or is screaming, or is hitting someone else.”

Bingo.

Welcome to my life, honey.

I’ll just be over here escaping it for forty hours or so….

Can't we just watch Frosty?

We’re having a little trouble with Christmas spirit around here these days.


Me: Do you kids want to watch Christmas specials?
ET: No, I want to watch this show about the lady who’s addicted to eating chalk.
GG: Yeah, it looks AWESOME!

Well, phooey. I guess at this age the kids are more interested in the freaks featured on Discovery Health than in Rudolph and Ralphie.

Sigh.

Although there is a light at the end of the tunnel here: Apparently Discovery Health is being bought out by Oprah. It will become the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN; isn’t that a clever acronym?

ET is pretty upset about it. She feels that Oprah will probably do away with the two-headed babies and such, and put on her own stuff.

We can only hope, right?

It's been a crazy week!

Note: I started writing this LAST FRIDAY, and I'm just now getting it posted!

I've been busy this week, trying to get ready for Christmas, and Boo's birthday.

Why did I have a child in December anyways? It was really poor planning on my part...

So here's some things that have happened recently, in no particular order.

(I numbered them anyways.)

#1. Someone left a pen in his or her pocket, and there was ink all over my dryer.

That took a while to clean up.

No one has yet admitted owenerhsip of the pen in question, by the way.

#2. Baby Girl has started screaming, "I WANT IT!" twenty-four hours a day. (These numbers are approximate.)

It doesn't matter what "it" is either. Whatever is in her field of vision, she WANTS it.

Particularly if her brother happens to be holding it....

#3. The twins are on a mission to ABSOLUTELY DESTROY everything in the house, particularly Christmas decorations!

Baby Boy brought me one of my husband's grandmother's glass balls from the tree last week, saying ,"Uh-oh! Broken!"

(I thought we had those up high enough on the tree as to be unreacheable, but I guess not!)

Oh, he also had his clothes off. So he was naked AND holding broken glass! I'm not winning Mother of the Year this week!

#4. Lesson learned: Make sure to put up ALL gift-wrapping supplies immediately upon finishing with the presents.

Or ELSE!

Anyways, things have been NUTS around here! Hope to write more later.

Thanksgiving

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone.

You know Thanksgiving; it’s the holiday in which I spend four hours cooking an elaborate meal it takes my kids less than ten minutes to eat, and then spend an hour washing up and putting away the leftovers.

I’m not actually exaggerating the times here, surprisingly enough.

Of course, I always look for ways to save time on the feast. For one thing, I make Stove Top stuffing from a box instead of homemade dressing.

I know. GASP!

I’m not ashamed of that, but perhaps I should be. I told a friend that I serve Stove Top on Thanksgiving and she looked at me like I’d just said I feed my kids cat food for dinner.

I don’t, by the way. All that Meow Mix I buy is for the kitty. Really!

Anyways, the reason I skimp on the dressing is because I spend a lot of time on another bread dish instead. My husband’s family is Czech, and we always have Bohemian bread dumplings on holidays.

These dumplings are not like the little ones you see floating in soup; it’s a big loaf that you slice and serve with lots of gravy. They’re very good, but a little labor-intensive, so I only make them a few times a year.

Of course, my kids will eat anything with gravy on it. Every holiday someone asks me if they can have a cup of gravy to drink. This year I had to refuse that icky little request three times!

Anyways, one good thing about this year is that my in-laws were visiting. It was nice to have someone sit at the table for longer than five minutes and actually savor their food. Adult conversation is also good.

Plus there’s the help with the dishes; that never comes amiss!

So despite the fact that the twins whined inexplicably throughout the meal, the older kids gulped their food and dashed away, and Baby Boy did a face-plant out of his booster chair as a finale, it was a pretty good holiday.

I mean, there’s always dessert, right?

Pumpkin pie... or better yet, chocolate!

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

Post-Halloween Pumpkin Smashing

November first is traditionally Pumpkin Smashing Day around here. We usually carve the pumpkin around the 29th or 30th of October, and then smash it right after Halloween so the pumpkin doesn’t have a chance to get rotten.


Here’s Official Pumpkin Smashing Day 2004, when Boo was a toddler.

She said, "Uh oh! Broken!" It was very cute.

Apparently, prompt pumpkin disposal is even more important when you’re celebrating Halloween on a tropical island, as we recently discovered.

Last year we weren’t able to carve a pumpkin. There seemed to be some sort of pumpkin shortage on the island; I didn’t buy a pumpkin the MINUTE I saw them for sale --it was around October 15th or so, and it seemed too early-- but they were all gone by the 25th when I went pumpkin shopping.

We ended up carving a pineapple. I’m not kidding.

This year I bought three pumpkins on the 15th of October.

We attending a group pumpkin carving held at our church a week before Halloween. We had a nice time carving with everyone else, and I saved one pumpkin intact at home for later carving, figuring the two that we carved a week early would shrivel up before Halloween came around.

I was not wrong on that.

But I hadn’t counted on the effects of a tropical environment on a carved pumpkin.

After only a couple of days, when the pumpkin had started to rot. I looked at it, took a picture, and then forgot about it.

The next day, it looked a LOT worse. (No picture of this. In fact, if you're squeamish, just skip the rest of this story.)

I went to throw it away. I got a plastic bag to pick it up with, figuring it would be a little yucky.

It was a LOT yucky. The top part went up with the plastic bag in my hands, but the bottom dropped off onto the porch with an oozy plop. It was teeming with bugs, almost more black than orange. As I watched in horror, a single roach, a good two inches long, struggled out of the pile of slime, crept over the smaller bugs, and crawled to the top.

Ewwwwww….

And I still had to get this mess off of my porch!

Now THAT’S scary!

Next year we’re waiting until the morning of the 31st to carve the pumpkin.

Halloween Safety

So this weekend is Halloween.

It's a holiday that brings to our stores a plethora of individually wrapped candy and strange costumes.

Don’t even get me STARTED on the costumes by the way! When did every costume for women become “sexy?” I mean, the WHOLE female costume section is full of short skirts and misplaced cleavage! “Sexy French Maid?” Okay, I’ll accept that. But “Sexy Nun?” That’s just WRONG! And this year they‘ve introduced “Sexy” Sesame Street Characters? Is this a sign of the apocalypse? Or just seriously bad taste?

But I digress.

I was talking about Halloween and its accompanying precursors. Like many holidays, it also brings to magazines and internet postings a bunch of health and safety advice.

Most of the advice makes sense: Put reflective tape on your kid’s costume, and/or make them carry a flashlight. Make sure your child’s costume isn’t too long so that they might trip. Don’t let them wear a mask that obscures their vision.

And in case you’re a complete moron, they’ll offer you this tidbit of wisdom: If your child’s costume includes a cutting-type weapon, make sure they carry a fake knife, not a real one.

Why THANK you, Nickelodeon parentsconnect.com! I’d better call Junior inside right now and snatch that Ginsu from his little fist! Crisis averted!

But I’ve also seen some downright BAD Halloween advice.

Here’s a quote from the heath editor of a popular magazine:

“I don’t like to give out unhealthy things like candy at Halloween. I prefer to give stickers or other small nonfood items. The kids are always pleasantly surprised when they see my ‘treats’.”

Oh yeah? And are YOU “pleasantly” surprised by the gifts of rotten eggs and T.P. you receive later in the evening? Good plan!

And here’s another cheerful headline:

"Let's make our own candy! It's easier than you think!”

Sure! If you want your stuff to get tossed into the trash by the trick-or-treater’s parents as soon as they get home. Knock yourself out!

Another blogger I read (tbd.com/blogs) talked about an article advising people to never take their children to an unfamiliar neighborhood to trick-or-treat.

His argument: How else are they going to get good candy if they live in a neighborhood full of old people and/or helath nuts like the magazine lady above? I have to agree.

And of course, every article says to inspect your child’s candy and discard any unwrapped or “suspicious-looking” candy.

Now I do this myself, mostly because it also serves the purpose of allowing me to skim off the good stuff as my cut.

What? I feed, clothe and house these kids all year! I’m not entitled to a measly fun-sized Hershey bar (or two) once a year?

By the way, as much as I’ve heard rumors of poisoned Halloween candy and/or razorblades in apples on Halloween, I’ve never seen any of this actually documented as truth. So I did some research on it.

Okay, I checked snopes.com.

That counts as research in this day and age, I think.

Poisoned candy passed out at random? (www.snopes.com) Nope. Never happened.

But the razorblades in the apples? Actually true! (www.snopes.com) Although most of the razorblades were planted by the kids themselves before they “discovered” them and showed them to the horrified parents, or by older brothers and other pranksters.

Besides, what kid would eat an APPLE when he’s got a pillowcase stuffed with sour patch kids and kit kats? You save those apples to throw at the healthful-hander-outer’s home later!

Not that I’m advocating such a thing.

But anyways, with all this advice floating around, we should all know how to be super safe on Halloween!

Now to go comb through my kids’ candy…..