I Should Have Worn Ruby Slippers

Ok well, my fairy godmother never showed up. There was no Bippity, there was no Boppity, and the only Boo was from the occasional kid passing by in a  sheet. I gotta tell ya, I was a little ticked, but it's not totally her fault. It probably has something to do with the fact that at the last minute we had a costume change and she was probably a bit ticked herself that she was cast out of the evening. Camryn found a lion costume that we had purchased for the dress up box and refused to take it off, so with that I grabbed my eyeliner, pinned her arms and legs to the bed, colored her nose black and declared her the lion from "Wizard of Oz." Turns out it was a perfect theme, because later in the night I would be banging my black pleather boots together in vain, chanting in my head " There's no place like home, there's no place like home, please let me go home!!"

As we all know, Halloween fell on a Monday this year, which means there is alot to get done in the three hours between getting home from school and getting in full costume for the night and with Brad not being home until the very last minute, that meant I was going to have a very busy afternoon. Camryn came home with a pair of plastic fangs she got in a goodie bag and insisted I put them in her mouth as soon as she stepped off the bus. I was actually surprised she wanted to wear them, as she usually doesn't want anybody messing with her mouth. I was able to get them fitted over her teeth and she went right to the mirror and said "Roar I'm a monster! I'll eat your fingers for dinner!" I couldn't believe it! I started cracking up and she started laughing and for about thirty seconds it was like she was a normal kid and we were sharing a moment. Then she grabbed the teeth out of her mouth and handed them to me in all their saliva covered splendor and signed the word more, meaning she wanted them back in her mouth. Turns out, these things only stay in place until you move your lips. And Camryn moves her lips....alot! The whole ride in the car to pick up her sisters, she kept taking them out and handing me the spit covered teeth to put back in. At one point she shook them and drops of spit landed on my arm. Even though she's my kid, I was totally grossed out and when Mason and Nat climbed in the car with goodie bags I demanded they give Camryn something to eat immediately!!
We got home and Mason got straight to homework. Nat went in to make her bed and I went into the bathroom with Camryn. Lately I spend a large amount of my time sitting in the bathroom. Not because of my own intestinal issues, but because Camryn has a miraculous ability to keep her stool in place all day at school and then by the time she gets home it must be so stuck up there that it takes extreme effort to push it out. And while with Mason and Natalie I just allow them to schedule their bowel movements at their convenience, with Camryn I know that if I don't see her go with my own eyes, then I risk a Haz-Mat situation in her room in the coming hours. So everyday after we pick up Mason and Natalie, Camryn and I go into the bathroom for a little one on one time with the toilet and each other. I sit on the tub and she sits on the, well I think that's obvious, and we talk about her day, I make puppets with my hands and I come up with some pretty catchy yet concerning ditty's about getting the poop from her bottom to the bowl. Yes folks, my life is pretty glamorous! It usually takes on average twenty to twenty five minutes of seat time before she decides to let it go at which point I breathe a sigh of relief knowing I am free for at least an hour without the worry of a blowout.
I put her in her room, started dinner and then went to get myself ready for the evenings festivities. Mason was having a friend from school join us for trick or treating. This little girl has only been over one other time, at the Halloween party, so I don't know her all that well nor do I really know her Nana, who she lives with. She is a sweet girl and her Nana seems nice so I was happy to have her join us. I wanted to dress up myself to make it more fun for the kids so I dusted my face with green eye shadow, lined and filled in my lips with black eyeliner and drew black stictches around my lips and on my cheeks. I wore all black and put spiders in my hair. By this time dinner was ready so the girls came to eat quickly before putting their costumes on. Camryn got ketchup in her hair so I put her in the bath and gave her a quick scrubdown, then put her back in her room while I got her sisters ready. Natalie was a witch so I painted her face green and brown then dotted her nose with a big black wart. She ran off to put on her hat and Mason came in for her makeup. I was already sweating so I took the spiders out of my hair and pinned it up while I turned her freckled face into a spotted dalmatian. Halfway into the job I heard Camryn say from her room " Wipes honey" and I thought I would scream! "Poop, do you have poop honey? Moooooommmmmmm!! Pooop!" I was livid! There I was, green eye shadow dripping off my face, black stitches smeared by my lips trying to transform my daughter into a dog after transforming my other into a witch with thirty minutes until Mason's friend arrived and Camryn s**t her pants! "Uuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" Mason already knew this was a take five and left the room. I opened Camryns door and there she was sporting a fresh pile of poo sagging down in the panties I had put on her not fifteen minutes earlier! And of course, it's consistency was not one where I could simply slip the panties down and wrap it up in toilet paper, no it was mushy and gushy and squishy and before I could help her step out of them she tore her panties down, smearing her legs with poop, "spilling" some on the floor and splattereing some on the shower curtain. Mmm-hmmm, yep, all this while Mason is waiting for me to finish her makeup, Natalie is wanting me to help her with her hat and my own makeup is smudged and creased from the sweat running through it. I scolded Camryn, sat her on the toilet and went to throw ANOTHER pair of underwear away. In twenty minutes our guests would be arriving and the house smelled like s**t. Oh well, it's Halloween right? I ran the bath AGAIN, wiped her butt and legs clean, wiped the floor, scrubbed the curtain and went back to helping Mason.
I managed to get them all dressed by the time Brad got home and my mom and Pam, a family friend, showed up soon after. Mason's friend arrived on schedule and much to my surprise so did her eight year old little brother. Her Nana explained she was having a crazy day and could her grandson please join us as well and she would catch up with us in an hour or so. Of course I obliged, but this poor kid had never met any of us and now we were taking him trick-or-treating? He lifted up his "Scream" mask to whisper a barely audible "hello" and I could see his eyes widen with fear when he saw Camryn galloping toward him, tweaking and biting her hand with excitement. "I wanna pet him!! I wanna give him a hug!!" She gets so excited when there are other kids at the house and not only was there one additional kid but two and she was super hyped. "Have you ever heard of autism?" I asked him. He shook his head and said he had heard of ADHD. "Ok, well, it's kind of like that.....Camryn's brain works differently than ours and she has a hard time communicating what she's feeling." He looked at me like I had two heads. "She is so excited to see you but her brain doesn't let her tell you that with words instead she may come up and squeeze you to show you how she feels. Do you understand?" Again, he just looked really confused. Meanwhile, Camryn was bouncing around, trying to get at him and we were all doing our best to intercept her aggression, because this little guy was about fifty pounds and seventy six pounds of autism was getting ready to tackle him. I finally just looked at him and said "Basically, just try to stay away from Camryn tonight, ok?" That he got and we all scrambled out the door, candy buckets in hand, ready to brave the night.
The first house we came to had two little girls standing at the front gate dressed up and greeting trick or treaters. They were about four and all I could see was bloody cheeks and bald patches if Camryn got anywhere near them. I grabbed both of Camryn's hands and guided her to the porch where I told her to say "Trick or Treat" but she just stared into space. The man dropped candy in her bag and I said "What do you say?" Again, she stared into space and then said "That was very nice of the man". Well, that counts in my book. I laughed, he laughed and we made our way back to the stroller she was riding in. Not bad. I was making sure to keep a close eye on Mason and her friend and her friend's brother, for obvious reasons and watching Nat. Nothing like two more kids to be responsible for! Camryn only wanted me to push the stroller and screamed, cried and pushed Brads hands away when he tried to push her. This is the stroller from hell, with it's wheels suffering from some sort of rubber arthritis and trying to maneuver it over sidewalks raised from roots and over curbs with Camryn sitting in it was quite a venture. The crowd was growing now and it was getting dark. We would stop at each house, the kids would go get candy then I would walk Camryn up, both her hands in mine. She never once said "Trick or Treat" even though last year she did. People could tell there was something going on and just handed her candy anyway. It was going okay until we hit the first house with a dog. OMG!!! If it wasn't hard enough to restrain her around other children, now we've got a dog in the picture???? This is a neighborhood where people love their dogs and consider them part of the family, so to them it only made sense to include them in the Halloween festivities, but I guarantee you not one of these people has ever encountered a child like Camryn or they would out of the kindness of their heart kept the dog inside, out of sight. As soon as Camryn saw the small white pooch, she started trying to wriggle her hands out of mine. "I wanna give him a lick! Awwwwwww, he's a good girl. I wanna give him a hug!" She looked as if she were walking against a strong wind as she tried to make her way to the dog and I tried to pull her back. And at each house the owners response's were all the same.... "Oh he doesn't bite" to which I said "Well she does." I got some very straange looks, but hey it's Halloween right?
I have to be honest and say that I was really disappointed with Camryn's trick or treating performance this year. Last year she really did well considering and I had thought that this year she would at least do as well if not, do I dare say, better. But she didn't....at all and it was exhausting repeatedly getting her out of the stroller, making our way through hoards of kids trying to ensure none of them got injured by her roaming hands, watching people's faces as she screamed and made strange sounds out of frustration and feeling just the slightest bit of self pity as I looked around at parents who simply stood on the sidewalk and watched their kids go independently from house to house. They have no idea, I thought to myself.
After about fifteen houses, Brad and I decided it was time for Camryn to call it a night and he opted to walk her home. I was so glad! She got to share in the experience but you have to know when to shut it down and it was so time to shut it down. At this point Mason decided she could not go on a minute longer in her dalmatian costume without suffering a heat stroke so my brother offered to run her home to change costumes. She and her friend left with him and Natalie asked my Dad to bring her back to his house for a while because she was tired of walking. Which left me, my mom, Pam and Mason's friends brother that I hardly knew! That poor kid, trick or treating with three strangers! It was awkward, sad and hilarious all at the same time and I said to my mom "We are making quite the memory for this kid right now!" He said he wanted to keep trick or treating while we waited for the girls to get back so I took him up and down the streets and guess what I did???? I stood on the sidewalk and waited while he walked up to each house by himself and said "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you" on his own. It was so incredible!! We went to about ten houses and I told my mom "I may not know this kid but I will take him trick or treating by himself every year! " It was a breeze, a nice, cool , enjoyable breeze.
The girls caught up with us again and Mason's friends Nana called to say she wouldn't be able to meet up with us after all, which was no problem because her grandkids were no trouble. In fact I ended up letting them trick or treat till 9:30 and then took them for a happy meal before I dropped them off at home. It was so much fun plus I got "Coolest Mom of the Night" award.
By the time Mace and Nat and I got home it was 10:30 and Cam's was long asleep. Brad said she had a hard time when they first got back but finally settled down after about a half an hour. All I knew was I was glad she was asleep because I didn't think I had the energy to deal with anymore autistic behaviors that night. Mace and Nat went to bed and I sat down to my own happy meal followed by about fifteen Halloween candy chasers. I earned them, believe me.
So that was Halloween 2011. Busy, fun....scary!!! And over, don't forget over! Next year will be another adventure I'm sure, and thank God I have 360 days to recover from this one before we have to do it again. I already have a costume in mind.....I'm thinking "Invisible Woman!"