Party Pooper

We didn't dress Chase up for Halloween this year. Seriously, at this age, it's really for the parents, isn't it? I have no desire to deal with keeping a bucket of candy away from Chase and fighting a possible tantrum, so I didn't feel entirely too bad about it. I didn't grow up Trick-or-Treating and believed that we just had ourselves 2 full weeks of plenty of horror and nightmares, so when Wil actually felt good enough to take over the house work and the care of the Mutt, I was more than happy to just hang out around the house and fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the day instead of braving the cold and having to concoct a last minute costume. There were some German kids that came around asking for candy, which we were going to buy had we actually made it to the grocery store today, so I suggested that Wil passed out clementines instead. He looked at me like I was nuts, but I would be more than thrilled if someone gave Chase a piece of fruit next year instead of just another piece of candy. Ok, let's talk about the kids for a minute. What is up with the teenagers who are not even dressed up and running around pestering neighbors for candy? Since we are in Germany, where Trick or Treat is not a tradition (as also in Thailand), there were relatively few coming around knocking on our door. But most of them were not in costumes and just there for the candy? How lame!

So an update on Wil's condition? Since it's 6 o'clock here and I just really want to take a quick nap before the baby rises for the day, I'll just tell you the short version of it. If you are following us on Facebook, you already know what happened (yes, Mom, it's a hint for you to get a FB account, so I can finally ditch the blog). After a slight arm twisting from neurosurgery, the OR people finally decided that they could actually open up a surgery date for Wil instead of footing $700/day for inpatient care for nearly two months. His surgery is set for November 17th, and it will be a marathon of a day. That was the biggest problem--to find a day when the OR was completely free because his surgery will start early in the morning and will not end until nearly early evening. It's scary but we're beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Our dear friend Geoff, who just had a back surgery himself recently, suggested a drug for Wil to try that had worked well for him, and what do you know!?! After being on it for only 2 days, he was able to walk, with a help of a back brace, like a normal human being and was mostly back to his old self again. He felt so great he cleaned the whole house (and vacuumed the ceiling!), did the laundry, and took care of the baby, while I feebly put up a relatively weak protest from the comfort of the couch just before snoozing off pretty much all day. We were going to meet with our friends for Trunk or Treat in Sembach, but I didn't want to interrupt his cleaning madness. He said it felt great to actually be useful and do something around the house, who was I to argue otherwise?