The verdict, Halloween, confessions of a horrible mother

The day after my "minor" procedure. A 5" long diamond of skin excised, 65 stitches, etc. I was told that if he'd needed to go any deeper it would have been under general anesthesia mostly because any deeper and he'd have been at the carotid artery level. He kept hitting spots that hadn't been numbed and would have to get out the lidocaine and do some more-I think 4 separate times!

Just this morning, so 10 days out. Looks much better. Feels much better, but in Portland traffic yesterday I very much found out I'm still not good to jerk my head around real quick when trying to navigate the traffic lanes. Ouch. It's pretty tender this morning because of that I think. There are 3 layers of internal stitches and only ended up being 2 on top. I removed those on Tuesday and probably should have left them in a bit longer than a week. Oh well! In theory it should fade down to almost nothing. The dermatologist took such a large section out partially so that he was getting the best margins he could-so I wouldn't have to come back in for yet another excision-but also so that he could close it in a nice line right along a natural "crease" (polite word for wrinkle, I'm sure! 30 is creeping up on me fast!) I think he did a good job, but time will tell!

I did get a call letting me know that the pathologist confirmed borderline melanoma-so it's a good thing we removed it-but also that clear margins were confirmed so no worries on having to go back into that area again. Now we just keep an eye on the rest of me I guess!

This is about the extent of Halloween at my house. Ok, not true. We have a witch who seems to have crashed into the front of our house. Very scary. And I have some more decorations which have yet to be stuck, to windows. But other than that, this is it. The ghosts are from a tutorial at 7Layer Studios. Hers look better. But she probably wasn't working with a 4- and 5-year old to achieve her look! I have the stuff for one more, just haven't gotten around to making her. So right now the daddy to our ghost family is at work. All the time. *that's the explanation for only 3 ghosts according to the girls*. On the lights I have some vinyl cutouts that I made over at Yaya's house (my grandma). She has a cricut and between me, my mom, and Yaya we might almost know how to use it. There are bats, spiders, webs and a Boo! and Happy Halloween on there. I love it.

Remember these spooks from last year? Debating having them be ghosts again. The costumes I made are so cute and they've talked about wearing them again...and I much prefer ghosts to princesses/ballerinas (read: I still haven't made their tutus for this year!) Anyone who knows Keira knows that she's a bit of a spooky girl. For Christmas last year Scotty got her a Jack (Nightmare Before Christmas) ornament which she cherishes. She's loved Jack since before we moved here-I think she was not quite 18 months old when she first showed an interest in it!

The reason I bring their spookiness up has to do with some other Halloween "decorations" we bought for this year. Decorations which have never made it to being hung up. Instead they've become toys:
Meet Batty, Greeny Cat, Ghostie (who has a bandaid on his finger because someone *coughscharaecough* bit a hole in his finger because she thought it was her blankie) and Sprinkles Spider. These four friends have provided HOURS of entertainment to these two since Tuesday! They are the sole reason that they lasted so long at work yesterday morning for me. They love them! And I've been told it's a bit creepy. Eh...creepy it will be, then!


And on to my horrible mother confession...are you ready? It's long.

we had a great afternoon/evening planned for K's day off of school yesterday. The girls were rockstars hanging out at work with me for 4 hours in the morning and then we were on our way to Portland. We went to OMSI-a sort of science museum. First thing we did when we were in the door was go to the bathroom, all 3 of us. Then we went and got tickets for a planetarium show-John was coming to meet us in time for Ice Worlds and the girls were excited. Then we went up to the kids' area. 15 minutes there and Scharae tells me she needs to pee. We've been having attention issues with her on the toilet-she lets a small amount of pee out but not all of it and has to go so soon after (which is near impossible when you're out and about in the car!) or else she can never do both her peeing and pooping in the same trip, etc. So I told her "sorry, kiddo. Remember-you need to get it all out when I take you. You're going to have to wait for Dad to get here now"...yeah...bad move. And mean, too! She said OK and went back to playing at the water table...and 3 minutes later I hear her shrieking "I'm trying to keep it in but it squeezed out, Mommy..." and then tears. I felt horrible. HORRIBLE! Even worse when I admit that they have bathrooms in the kids' area not 30 feet from where she was playing And do I have clean clothes with me? No. She was soaked from the waist down to the knees. Usually at this point she'll only leak a little and then tell me "it's really really really coming out, Mom." Not this time. So I take her to the bathroom and she finishes going. I swear this kid pees disproportionate to how much she should. Then we go to the gift shop-nothing that can pass as pants or shorts for her. Out to the car-I was really really REALLY hoping that we'd have some random set of bottoms from one of our road trips stuffed into an obscure corner of the trunk. Nope. So I load the girls in-as they're shrieking about leaving OMSI (they'd been counting down the days since Sunday) and we head over the bridge to a Fred Meyer that my GPS helped us get to and which John said had a parking garage so I wouldn't have to worry about paying to park. It's literally the only one on the west coast without clothes. I'm sure of it. Seriously!? By then we missed our planetarium show. We went and picked John up because we were on his side of the river. And left Portland-with freaking out girls in the back. Get to his truck at the park 'n' ride and realize it's across the street from an outdoor mall. We decided to take the girls to a movie instead-I didn't feel like we could really punish them when it was honestly all my fault that they weren't getting their fun day. Found a Gymboree and paid way too much for clean panties and leggings. Went to see Legend of the Guardians (a cute owl movie) on the Imax in 3D...and Keira wouldn't wear the glasses, had a tummy ache and her throat hurt. So she all but went to sleep. $63 for us to have her take a nap. And then dinner...urgh...don't get me started on the fiasco that was. It was very obvious that it was 7pm and the girls usually go to bed at 5:30. Very obvious indeed...but we are going to do it all over again so that they can go play at OMSI for real today. This time with unlimited potty breaks and dry clothes...just in case