Halloween

Update on the boy:  slowly progressing and feeling better until about 4 pm when fever and exhaustion pulled ahead in the race.  Boy has been resting up since then, having a little ibuprofen, some yogurt, and today he will get to hang out at home and watch Star Trek movies to his heart's content with his mom.  His dad will be over to help out for a couple hours, though, while I dash over to teach my monthly class at the Cancer Center.

Yesterday, before she was allowed to go trick-or-treating, Sierra was told she had to clean up her room, at least enough so that I could run the vacuum in it.  For Sierra, this turns out to be
1. a task that should take 5 minutes but turns into an hours-long ordeal (yes, that s at the end of hours is intentional) and
2. an opportunity to be in her room and create! without interruption except an occasional "Sierra are you still cleaning?" from her mother.

Yesterday, about halfway through the afternoon, she came down the stairs from her room into the living room, carrying...a big rake.

I asked two questions in no particular order:
1.  Are you using the rake to clean your room?
2.  How did you go outside to get the rake without me noticing you walk by and carry the rake up the stairs?

The short answer to number 1:  No.
The short answer to number 2.  I didn't go outside to get the rake.

Long answer to number 2 is now about to unfold.

On Saturday afternoon Nick had stopped by to play with the kids.  I was raking leaves in the front yard and the kids were on their way home from their dad's house.  So I told him to wait if he wanted to.  While waiting he took Wolf for a walk and then took the rake from my hands and finished the job for me.  I was so stunned that I didn't remember to put the rake away, and apparently it spent the night sitting outside under Sierra's window.

On Sunday afternoon, while "cleaning" her room, Sierra noticed the rake, because after all climbing up on your bed and looking straight down into the yard below is an important part of the process.  She decided to bring the rake in for me, but just two little problems.

1.  Still wearing her PJs and didn't want to go outside in them
2.  Not supposed to leave her room until floor cleaned up.

So, she did what only Sierra could do.  She took a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels, a spool of purple thread, a paperclip, and some parts of some toys I could not quite identify (they were just for decoration) and made a rake-rescuing tool.

She is definitely Ted Tingley's granddaughter!

I took some photos of her using said tool to raise and lower a big stick from the yard.  Of course you can see them, thanks for asking:

What does a girl that smart and clever dress as for Halloween?
Answer:  anything she wants to!  This year it was a red ninja, shown here with her dad in a combination of Dr. Quacko wear and an old Dora the Explorer wig.  Yes, she put that costume together for him herself!  I think he looks like a reggae rapster. 

She came home with enough candy for herself and Jeremiah, plus a small army.  So even though the boy slept through all the trickortreating he will get to experience the joys of the sugar high again soon, but not today.