Naysayers gonna naysay.

Today, T's sister threw a Halloween party.

She has been on the fence about it for a couple of weeks because some of the religious families around here are offended by it. But in the end, fun won out and she had the party. Last night, I forced the kids into making decisions about their costumes.

Monkey still wanted to be a kitty, which is good, because it's simple. R decided to be a witch, because she knows of my fondness for them. J opted to be a robot.

But he almost didn't get a costume at all.

This week, the contractors have made some progress. And then yesterday they weren't here at all. We had a day of peace and quiet.

I got one strange phone call for T at the house, and they didn't say who they were or anything, but they said they would call her cell. I wondered about it, but only briefly before I went back to being happy about my quiet, restful day.

We would be eating Shabbat dinner at T's mom's, who had just returned home from a week in Israel. She and T's father went without me even though I told them I wanted to come. So mean.

Anyway, since we would be eating there for a late dinner, I made some pasta for a snack and the kids and I sat around the kitchen table in the foyer and talked about our days. When I asked who had the best one, as usual, they all yelled to have the first turn speaking, and I let Monkey because unless he goes first, he just repeats what everyone else says or yells, "To the river!"

So, he rambled incoherently about a song or something and then it was J's turn.

"I got to go to the office today!" He exclaimed this with a big smile on his face.

"What?"

"I went to the office today. Coach B took me."

"J, going to the office is bad. That means you were doing something naughty. What did you do?"

"I don't know."

"Well, going to the office is not a good thing. It's very bad."

"It was cool."

Oh boy.

T got home a couple hours later and explained the phone call and J's confusion.

He had been spitting and saying bad words and standing and not listening on the bus on the way to school that morning and Coach B had been the one waiting at the school to take him to the office. He is not being allowed back on the bus.

So, basically he ruined our lives forever.

On the way to Shabbat dinner, the parents pried and got a few more details out of him. He still thought he was sooooo funny. He always does, and I should add in here, that when he got home from school he had been so bad I had put him to bed. He thought that was funny right up until I left the room and he had to go to sleep.

So, today rolled around and T told him he would get no costume for the party as punishment.

He cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and then she said, if she changed his punishment it would be something longer. He agreed.

He has been banned from the iPad and iPhones for a week, and I know for a fact that he is going to ask for it and then cry and freak out, but today when making that deal he was ok with it. He got his robot costume and we headed off to the party.

I looked fantastic.

So did T's mom, who was Queen Elizabeth, and a few other people. There was a family of Wizard of Oz characters. T's dad showed up as a monster but he changed when one of the babies started to cry.

Everybody was having a good time and the kids were all hyped up on candy and occupied, so I sat in on some conversations with T and the other moms. They were hiding in a corner talking about how some people were offended by Halloween.

When I said I had seen that in my church to, two Jewish heads looked at me in surprise.

"Isn't it a Christian holiday?"

"No," T said and I beamed because I have taught her so well. "It's a pagan holiday."

"But we don't worship the devil or anything." Another mom said. "So, why can't the kids dress up and be silly?"

Exactly.

Why can't they?

I know a lot of people who struggle with this holiday because of its roots, but allow me to just point out that all of our Christian holidays were pagan holidays first. Christmas was the winter solstice. The Christians changed it to show the pagans what was up. The same for Easter, which was the spring solstice. Technically, Thanksgiving was a pilgrim holiday, so that has the closest thing to Christian roots out of any of them, but it was still not started by the church or in a church or anything. It's more patriotic than anything.

So, what is wrong with taking Halloween, too?

Valentine's day was a massacre, for crying out loud. And we've turned that into romance. Don't ask me how. Americans are crafty.

So, to show all the naysayers what was what, T's sister threw her party and the kids danced and I looked fantastic and everybody had a grand old time.

So, here's to neutralizing Halloween.

Then, after the fun was over, we had to come back here to the money pit.

Today, the floor people tore out the kitchen tile and deposited five million tons of black dust and debris in my room, which was ready this time. The whole house was covered in dust, so we split the work three ways.

First, we left the two big kids at T's sister's.

Then, each female took one of the remaining two children and put them to bed while E stood around whining about being hungry.

Next, T asked E to watch the baby, who hadn't stayed asleep, while she wiped surfaces and I wiped floors. He obliged by putting the baby down and going into the bathroom for ten minutes. Baby D started to cry and T had to go tend to him.

E then stood around thinking while I mopped. T returned and we finished up. She gave him a little attitude for his method of help and he sighed. When she went upstairs to get dressed to go out, he shook his head.

"This is why people get divorced after they redo their houses."

I laughed.

"You need to work through it. Your homework tonight is to rewatch The Money Pit. Clearly, it's not fresh enough in your mind."

And then for my homework, I set up shop on my couch and watched a scary movie and did this.

Today was long.