Happy Halloween

October 31, 2005

So I guess another Halloween has come and gone--this year Isaac was a scary ghost with stitches and chains, and Sonia was no less than four different things:  at yesterday's Halloween party she was a princess, and today at her "old school"  (Fermilab Children's Center) she wavered between being a lion and a dinosaur (both of which were once Isaac's costumes), and at her public pre-school Halloween party last Thursday she was a butterfly. 

Halloween presents yet another opportunity to feel guilty about how much time and effort I can manage to spend on various aspects of my children's lives--some parents really go all out and make gorgeous creative costumes (there are a few examples in the photo at the left), and some (like me) head over to Costume City and buy something and feel like we're organized if we actually buy costumes more than a few days in advance.  Luckily my kids don't seem to mind the Costume City routine, and I just have to bite my lip to keep my mind off the inane stereotypical options the kids have to chose from.  (Why are the police, fire fighters, and doctors costumes only listed with the "boy costumes"? I was so proud of a friend of mine whose 5-year-old daughter was a football player this year. ) 

But as skimpy as I might be about the costume part of Halloween, at least I always spend a few hours each year carving pumpkins with my kids.  Sonia is learning sign language in the Fermilab Children's Center, and she showed me that the sign for jack-o-lantern looks like someone scooping the guts out of the pumpkin.  Unfortunately she's more interested in making the sign for jack-o-lantern than actually helping with the gut removal, but as usual Isaac took the task very seriously. 

After writing this I realize I am in the same pattern with regard to work over the past two weeks:  there were so many things that I would have liked to accomplish! However, I could only pick some of those things.  Luckily I did have time to do the things I really wanted to do (like reviewing MINERvA detector designs and going to Southern Methodist University to give a talk).  Nevertheless I feel guilty for the things that got neglected (like finishing a few plots for an overdue report, and like writing entries here about my trip or about the relocation of my grandmother's piano to my house...). 

When they come up with a drug with no side effects that eradicates the need for sleep, I'll the the first one to sign up for a prescription (assuming I can get around to it!).