Six easy Halloween lessons

1. Halloween isn't scary, but it's so exciting that two children cannot sleep for two nights prior. You can imagine how happy and cooperative this makes them around 6 pm on October 31st.

2. Home-made (or home-altered) costumes are the best. Halloween becomes so much more exciting, when you can sit around the sewing machine, collecting helpful hints from the little people. The costumes themselves were worn for 3 straight days, and new personas adopted. I now live with "Peter" and "Mary," who love nothing better than to go on "carriage rides" in my car and talk about their manners.

3. Pottery classes on Halloween night are a blessing. You go out with the kids for a while, stuff your face with candy, and when you know that you're feeling that sugar high, you take your energy elsewhere and put it to good use. And you can't eat any more of that fattening garbage.

4. When it comes to the Day After, the Sugar Sprite still trumps a 7-year old's cynicism. Oldest questioned where the gifts really came from ("but the cups with the fairy pictures have something PRINTED on the bottom, mama!"), but when I shrugged my shoulders, she was quick to come up with a reasonable explanation. It was also explained that there were two different sugar sprites at our house last night, after all the fairies on the cups looked different from each other!

5. In terms of the children's behavior, the day after Halloween truly is scary. Can't wait until they've caught up on their sleep and realize that yup, the rules, they still apply.

6. Little girls in ponytails and a boy's colonial outfit make you want to call them "Amadeus." Of course that's not allowed "because my name is Peter, mommy!"

Happy November, everybody!