Cousins Weekend, Halloween Edition

It is fast becoming tradition that every 6ish months my sister and I load up the car and head north to Owatonna Minnesota for a cousins weekend with one of our cousins and her family. Usually we spend Friday just the girls shopping in the Twin Cities and eating lunch together, before heading back to Owatonna to spend the rest of the weekend with her family. This year, however, my cousin informed us that they were moving in a couple of weeks and she would provide the alcohol if we helped her pack.

The three of us. At the end of the weekend looking exhausted.

We should have known better.

Now don’t get me wrong I have no problem helping someone pack, but I will be honest it is one of my least favorite activities. On a side note I will probably die in the house I live in now just so I don’t have to pack and move again. But I am happy to help out a cousin particularly one I am this close with.  However, there were a couple of hitches in the giddy up that made the weekend even more interesting. One, my cousin has a 3 year old son. Two, it was Halloween.

He looks cute and innocent doesn't he.

Hitch number one, the 3 year old. I love Mr. Lukas with all my heart, however he is 3. This means he is old enough to have an opinion and think that his opinion is the only one that matters. Like they know enough about the world to dictate what I am going to do and when I am going to do it, I think not. My favorite opinion was that little boys don’t need to sleep OR bathe. Let me tell you he was wrong on both accounts, no one likes a smelly over tired 3 year old.

If he wasn't loudly expressing an opinion he was generally looking you right in the eye, grinning, and then doing something that he knew was naughty. It was usually unpacking boxes that we had already packed but hadn’t gotten taped shut yet, or climbing in the boxes and sitting there refusing to get out. At one point I watched him start pulling toys out of a box despite being told to stop no less than 3 times, I thought to myself this is why most of the parents I know end up crazy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the survival of children from the ages of 0 to 5 is based solely on their cuteness, because they WILL make you crazy.

This is the packing help you get from a 3 year old.

The second hitch was that it was Halloween. Which means one thing and one thing only. . .Trick or Treating. Of course we had to take Mr. Lukas trick or treating which proved to be quite the feat. First, the costume, he had worn the costume no less than 1800 times in the weeks leading up to Halloween and finally we get to go time and he doesn’t want to be Captain America. So the following scene ensues, Mom says we have to put our costume on. 3 year old takes off running crying nooooooo. Mom pursues stating I paid 40 dollars for this costume you are going to at least 2 houses. 15 minutes later after Lukas ran himself into a corner and couldn't escape (he needs to work on strategy) the costume is on and we are out the door. To those of you who have small children you probably feel my cousin’s pain, but for those of us without children it was pretty entertaining.

Captain America is finally ready.

Now we are out in the world with about a million other children and parents roaming the streets going from house to house dodging cars and collecting as much candy as possible. Little kids are crying because they don’t recognize their neighbors with masks on. Big kids are darting out in front of cars trying to ease their way down the street. It is quite possibly the closest things to pure chaos I have ever experienced in my life. And just to add more fun to the chaos, apparently in the small town my cousin lives in it is a thing to just have a bond fire on the driveway and pass out candy. So now instead of just worrying about a kid running out in front of a car you have to make sure their Superman cape doesn’t get set on fire. . .seriously?

Even the dog was exhausted

By the time we got back to the house we were all exhausted, including the dogs and the 3 year old who was getting ornerier by the minute but still, in his opinion, didn’t need to sleep. By the time he finally passed out, and the adults had a chance to sit and chat we were all so tired we could barely formulate a coherent sentence. But we got a fair amount of things packed, had some good laughs, found some good sales shopping and overall had a good time. And I was once again reminded that as much as I love kids I also love coming home to a quiet house where I can hear my own thoughts.

Sunday morning he's still happy, the rest of us are exhausted.