We drove for like, how long? Two hours I guess. idiot Janna was with us and god for bid Henry put like 40 jackets on me.

when we got in line this BUNNY-DEAD KILL ME it was chasing everyone else BUT then a gas mask dude  I wanted the BUNNY-KILL ME and the gas mask dude to chase me but then some dead jester thing came out of nowhere with a stick with a skeleton thing on top and got in my face, slammed his stick with the skeleton into the ground but henry told us to go in line with him because it was shorter and there was this glass window thing in the register and I looked right through it and saw the bunny dude’s face.

so now we’re inside and first came Clown Town. the best of all is The Fog, number 10. Each one was in a different part of the park and we had to walk to each one. and henry and janna were talking about having to pee all the time, that’s all they did.

Me and my 40 jackets.

mommy was scared but nothing was even in there!!! All I saw was when we went into the merry go round I looked to the right and saw these two clowns looking on their phones. iphones, I guess.

haunted hotel Conneaut scared me the most. Mommy told me “ghosts are real” because they are. to prove that ghosts are real, I slammed my right leg on the step! wonder who pushed me mommy or a ghost?? then this ju-on lady just came out of nowhere in this dark room. I saw it first, no one else saw it. it was like gonna slam her hand on my leg but then I did this—hop!

when we were in line after the hotel Conneaut for apocalypse zombie we had to walk on this boardwalk when it ended these two dudes came running at us. I wasn’t even scared. mommy is the one who came running behind janna and henry. then the chainsaw guy came. back to the mommy was running scared part, those guys were like touching mommy and janna and henry but not me at all.

last house on the left. I did not think it was scary, when we went in, we had to go upstairs. this dude had a metal stick and slammed it on the wall and then we went THE WRONG WAY BECAUSE OF MOMMY so then we had to go through a black curtain or something. when we went through the curtains we had to walk through a living room and this girl came popping out of nowhere and said “do you know what the fox says?!” and I was like “a ring ding ding ding ding” and she was like “good job!” and then we came to another guy who said “do you want to know what the fox says?

it says nothing!” This guy in a pig mask was like on the right of mommy and mommy didn’t even notice it. he was a bloody pig guy, just with a pig mask on.

this was after we walked through Demon House with all the bubbles at the end. After we came out of the Devils Den we passed this kitten named Boots.

It was cute. The end. Hope you enjoyed! write a comment!

This may have been the most stressful Halloween yet. I almost said it was the worst Halloween, but that’s not true, because Chooch had fun and even though I AM THE MOST SELFISH MOM EVER, even I am able to acknowledge that that’s all that really matters. Right? Right.

You know how I always said I would never put my child in a box, after spending most of my childhood Halloweens being chafed by cardboard thanks to my overambitious mother? (Just nod.) Well, it took seven years, but it happened. We put Chooch in a box.

But first let me say that I repeatedly asked him, “Are you SURE? Do you REALLY want to be this for Halloween?” and he kept saying yes, so I’m not really the bad guy, right? I don’t ever want him to look back on these years and say, “My mom MADE me be this and I hated it.” Not that I know anything about that.

Anyway, I know the Claw Machine thing isn’t exactly original, but I thought it would be fun to make it a little more post-apocalyptic. Have all of the stuffed animals be ripped open and bloody, etc etc.

Oh and also? This didn’t happen until last Friday night. Just the birth of the idea itself, I mean. And we were barely home at all during the weekend, which meant that Henry had three work nights to try and get this done. I’d nervously text him for updates while I was at work and he would give me vague responses, like, “It’s coming along” and “This is Henry’s girlfriend…who’s this?” and “I want a divor—-oh, wait. Haha!”

By Wednesday night though, he swore he was “like, 95% finished.” So then I was feeling kind of OK until I read the Halloween rules that Chooch’s school sent home which included the most restrictive costume guidelines ever, so why even bother celebrating Halloween!? No fake weapons (OK, I can understand that one!), no makeup, no masks, it has to fit into a bag, and no parents permitted in the classroom to help with the costumes.

Well, fuck. There was no way we were fitting a huge box into a bag and also no way he was getting this on by himself. In fact, I couldn’t even do it. Only Henry could, because only he could understand his own stupid design. Oh and also? Everything else we have laying around the house involves makeup and masks–animal masks, clown masks, gas masks. I couldn’t even resort to the old vintage ghost-sheet standby because god forbid, HIS FACE WOULD BE COVERED IN COTTON. And there was no way I was going to the stupid Halloween store….

….so it was decided that for the school party and parade, he’d wear his old ice cream cone costume.

Oh! And did I mention that no baked goods can be sent along for the class party? Everything has to be storebought and individually-packaged. No creepy cupcakes or cookies, no rice krispie treats or cakepop eyeballs. (I’m pretty sure Henry was actually relieved about this rule, though. One less thing for him to labor over!)

I know it’s not the school’s fault, and I know that these stringent rules have been implemented in schools all over the country, not just Chooch’s. But it just makes me so sad that this generation will never know Halloween like we knew Halloween. All those “Creepy Vintage Halloween” articles have been circulating on Facebook, but you know what? I would even take 1980s Halloween over what it’s become now, thanks to religious zealots and all of those motherfuckers who just can’t help themselves from shooting up schools. You assholes with nut allergies probably fucked this up somehow, too. (Kidding. Save the hate mail for next week’s blog post about Satanic abortions.)

It’s goddamn depressing. So I ranted and cried about this for a long while Wednesday night. I think Chooch genuinely felt bad for me (I do play a pretty fantastic sadsack), and he agreed to take his ice cream cone costume to school the next day.

And then I conveniently got a call from the school nurse that afternoon, telling me that Chooch puked and wanted to come home. I was 100% convinced that he puked his way out of the parade, but he insisted that he got sick off of a taco at lunch. By the time we got home, he swore that he was feeling better and wanted to go back to school for the parade and party. I asked him if he was sure at least 87 times before signing him back into school. (He’s lucky we live close enough that it’s less than a 10 minute walk.) When I was standing in the hallway talking to his teacher, some other mom was there picking up her kid and she overheard the teacher say that Chooch threw up after eating a taco for lunch.

“My son pukes EVERY TIME IT’S TACO DAY!” the mom bystander shared, so maybe he wasn’t actually Tracy Gold’ing it to get out of the parade after all.

45 minutes later, I was walking to school for the 4th time that day to watch the parade, which was scary because Henry couldn’t leave work in time so I had to GO BY MYSELF. Obviously I didn’t know anyone there because I’m so parentally antisocial, and pretty much everyone else was buddied up with other parents. So I stood next to the only other person there who appeared to have gone stag—some mom with a septum piercing.

Luckily, the parade was short…..and very anti-climatic. Tons of kids didn’t even dress up at all! And then there was Chooch, who was doing his best to smile in spite of the fact that he was probably daydreaming of killing me in my sleep.

“Everyone was laughing at me!” he told me afterward (and no, he wasn’t CRYING ABOUT IT).

“Because it’s funny! It’s SUPPOSED to be funny!” I cried. Yeah, I’m definitely going to bite it in my sleep one of these nights. You guys were all right.

Meanwhile, the school’s stupid costume policies allowed Henry more time to finish the real costume that was supposed to be 95% done but somehow took another three hours to complete. So while Henry did things that required the use of a ruler and math, I figured I could use that time to maim and mangle the stuffed animals. I asked Henry for the fake blood, which he SWORE WE HAD IN THE GARAGE, and it turns out we definitely did NOT have any fake blood. (I know, it’s hard to believe that people like us actually forget to restock our fake blood.)

So I threw a huge fit and Henry was all, “OH YES LET ME JUST STOP WORKING ON THIS AND GIVE A SHIT ABOUT FAKE BLOOD!” He suggested I walk to CVS and just buy some, but hey, FYI: CVS replaces all of the Halloween stuff with Christmas stuff on HALLOWEEN. I even asked one of the cashiers, thinking maybe they could just snag a tube for me out of the back, but she crinkled her nose and repeated, “Fake BLOOD?” like I was asking for a Englebert Humperdinck 8-track.

Actually, that’s a horrible reference because that cashier was like 70 so she would have been happy about that.

I ran back home after that. Me! Running! In the rain! In the rain I ran!

Did I mention it was raining? Of course it was raining—it’s Halloween in Pittsburgh. All fucking day, it was drier than a nun’s kooka* until an hour before trick-or-treating was set to start.

*(Unless it was one of the nun’s in the Italian porn we may have recently watched. And by we I mean Henry by himself because I am too classy for that, obviously.)

With no fake blood to transform the bag of stuffed animals, I focused on doing Chooch’s makeup. This part was pretty stress-free because Chooch suddenly enjoys being made-up and even dug around my makeup box for the shade he wanted around his eyes. (All makeup used was My Pretty Zombie, of course.)

The final step for Chooch’s makeup was to adhere some stuffing to his cheek, to give it that “ripped open stuffed animal” feel. Unfortunately, in order to get the stuffing, I had to cut open one of the stuffed animals, which was the whole point in buying them from Goodwill anyway. We were going to decapitate some, amputate some, etc etc. Chooch beat me to the bag and furiously dug through it, desperately yelling, “Wait! Not the dog! Not the kitty! No, not the dragon, either!!” and before I knew it, he had almost the entire bag of stuffed animals in his arms, frantically hugging them into his body.

Finally, I found a frog and tried to be all dismissive about it. “Eh, it’s just a frog,” I said with a wave. “It’s not even all that cute.” But son-of-a-bitch, when I raised those scissors up to its chest, I was overcome with a wave of anthropomorphic guilt.

“Mommy, don’t!” Chooch whimpered.

But…I had to do it, you guys. I had to slice open this poor fucking frog that already had the misfortune of being orphaned at a thrift shop. What dumb luck. As the sound of those dull blades slashing through fabric rang through the air, Chooch burst into tears. Like, REALLY BIG TEARS rolling down his poor wolf-cheeks, taking strips of makeup along for the ride.

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Henry muttered as Chooch sobbed and I apologized profusely, more to the frog than Chooch, if we’re being honest.

Then when Chooch wasn’t looking, I smeared the frog with red paint.

Chooch, post-cry. I had to reapply his makeup afterward. At least he got to wear his Never Shout Never-inspired wolf hat!

So, that pretty much killed the stuffed animal idea. Luckily, we had enough pre-bloodied plush options, like the Batman that our friend Bonecrusher zombified for Chooch’s 5th birthday, one of Andrea’s zombie Barbies, Ju-On, a Jason Voorhees plush, the stuffed rabbit I bloodied for my Fatal Attraction costume last year and Chooch has still not forgiven me. All the while, I kept mouthing off to Henry about every last thing, all the way down to his audacity for even having been born. I have medals in this sport, you guys. My endurance for berating Henry is porn star-caliber.

Janna arrived right around this time, and she should really write a guest post about how comfortable and mellow it is to sit on the couch and listen to my mouth flap like your basic Roseanne Barr and Henry quietly simmers in a broth of domestic abuse and emasculation. I think my salutation as she walked through the front door was, “THIS IS THE WORST FUCKING DAY EV-HER-HER-HER-HER-ERRRRRR.”

He insisted on putting a non-maimed dog in the front with him, but he was telling everyone its name was Murder Victim.

I know, Chooch looks miserable in the video. But he was trying to look like a sad wolf, OK?! I’M NOT REALLY THAT BAD OF A MOM.

Finally, Chooch was situated in his box and we set off in the rain. We tagged along with our neighbor and two of her kids. Her son Josh is in Chooch’s class and they’ve known each other basically since they were born, since they’re only 2 weeks apart in age. Sometimes they don’t play very well together, but they made a good trick-or-treating duo. I was really glad for that, because this day did not need any more stress! Plus, Josh was really enthused about Chooch’s costume, which made him get even more into it.

Too bad the rain forced him to take it off after the first block. Totally broke my heart, which I communicated by being a complete asshole and stamping my feet and threatening that I was JUST GOING TO GO HOME. Because you know, it’s all about me and my feelings. Meanwhile, Chooch was like, “Erin, Imma let you finish, but not having to wear a box in the rain is one of the best Halloween costumes of all time.” And frankly, he looked adorable as that stuffed wolf, so I got over it pretty quickly. (Not without verbally raping Henry a few more times though. Because the rain was ALL HIS FAULT! Why didn’t he smear himself with his own feces and crump to What Does the Fox Say beneath the Harvest Moon like a REAL FATHER?!)

I really don’t handle this shit well. I act like every little tiny event is my wedding/funeral. And it always ends up being fine! And we have fun! And we laugh! But there is always that hour where I am such a raging control freak bitchnugget asshole that I have no idea why I still have any friends. Or, you know, a Henry and a Chooch.

So I will summarize the rest (thank god, right) by saying that:

• it rained like it motherfucker
• Henry tried to go home
• some lady in a Blazer almost ran us over and then put her window down to tell Chooch he had the cutest costume, and I said, “Thanks…FOR ALMOST RUNNING US OVER”
• Henry and I broke up over an umbrella
• I pointed out all of the things Henry forgot to put on the claw machine and he growled, “THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS I WOULD HAVE DONE IF I HAD MORE TIME.” God, quit your job then, asshole.
• Henry tried to go home
• Chooch had to take off the box before we made it off the first block and went the rest of the night as a “sad stuffed wolf”
• Henry tried to go home
• Janna had a cold
• I called Henry a motherfucker (x 87)
• Henry got to go home

Fuck you and your purple umbrella, asshole.

Sopping wet chaperones.

I don’t even think they noticed it was raining. (Josh had a really cute pirate costume, and it sucked that he had to wear a windbreaker over it. I hate Pittsburgh weather.)

We probably only saw 15-20 other trick-or-treaters in the 60+ minutes we were out there. And most houses just left out a bowl on the honest

Tourette’s was trick-or-treating, too!!

Cast of Claw Characters

“What did you use for the blood?” Henry frowned, rubbing his wet, red fingers together.

“Paint. It was either that or Ketchup,” I said with a shrug, and then when he gave me The Disappointed Father look, I screamed, “OH DON’T EVEN START WITH ME ABOUT THE FAKE BLOOD, YOU SON OF A BITCH.” I mean, good fucking god. Sorry that paint takes so long to dry!

****

Afterward, Henry, Chooch, Janna and I went to Eat n Park for dinner, and miraculously Henry and I quit hating each other long enough to (BRIEFLY) hold hands at the booth. And now Chooch is apparently really into eyeliner. I came home from work last night and he had it on one eye. Henry gave me the “thanks for THAT, Erin” smirk.

All in all, it ended up being fine and we had fun in spite of the rain. I mean, if I had nothing to bitch about, how would I ever remember this night?!

Did your Halloween go off without a hitch? If so, fuck you.

According to the text that Henry just sent me, if Chooch had three wishes, they would be:

1. To have the Backstreet Boys sing at our house. [He recently watched “This Is the End” — JUST THE END, even Chooch can’t handle some (most) of the shit that is said/done in that movie! There’s a scene at the end where Backstreet Boys are singing in Heaven and now he’s obsessed with them, but mostly just that one song, thank god.]

2. To live in Heaven so that he can take cool Instagram pictures.

3. For Christofer Drew to be his dad.

If #1 happens, I hope I’m at work. I don’t even want to think about #2, and #3 would be awkward because it would mean Christofer would have been like 14 at the time of Chooch’s conception.

Though I do dream of being a cougar one day….

OK, I have to finish eating my apple.

Scaremare

It was at an old bank full of Gangsters.  We had to crawl twice. One time we had to crawl    like for 2 minutes. I saw a real snake and Mother didn’t see it. At the end the tour guide said ”this is the time you go in one by one” Daddy had to go first he said “F*** IT I’ll go in alone :(“. at the beginning this Old man in the 1920’s like daddy’s age screaming about the Children behind bars. And we had to sing HAHA EAGOR YOU CANT GET US NANANANA then he broke through the bars like THIS: IIII:)IIII.    This lady in front of us THAT DADDY LIKED THAT TOLD US TO hide her from the ring around the rosey  grandma that told me I stole her cat so she told me to check mommy’s weird purse so I pushed it. I loved the haunted house

THE END

Sewickley Methodist Haunted Church:

Janna wouldn’t go with us. because she got a new kitten named Ted Nugent it was to dumb to leave it alone. At the beginning there was this fake spider from the HALLOWEEN STORE.  This guy in a red mask said what’s your name I said Riley mommy said Erin and Henry said Henry The guy in the red mask said Erin more like Smelvin  witch doesn’t even make sense BUT IT WAS FUNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYY  BECAUSE I WOULDN’T STOP CALLING HER THAT!!! I got to spin the wheel and it landed on door one of death I’d rather go in door two of terror. The guy that was dressed like a girl was from a TV show called Wheel of Fortune named Vanna White. I never even watched Wheel of Fortune. The janitor which wasn’t really the janitor hung himself on a rope and had really big teeth. I loved the haunted church this year!! last year um I forgot what happened last year. i’ll just say it was good. maybe next time Janna wont be an idiot and will leave her kitten TED NUGENT that’ll teach you a lesson JANNA! LEAVE YOUR CAT IT CANT OPEN WINDOWS OR GRAB THE NOB OF THE DOOR!!!

Cheeseman Fright Farm:

In line I had to go to the bathroom. I went in the boys bathroom but there was this like 10 year old and he was POOPING in the stall and the urinal was too high so I couldn’t use it so I had to use the girls bathroom no one was in there. it was awkward.

Michael Myers was chasing everybody in line. the people in front of us were like ‘oh well crap Michael Myers is in line’

the hayride part well I kept saying hi to all the monsters they said hi back. The chainsaw guys kept putting their chainsaws in the hay right by laura she was so scared ha-ha. Anyway look at her face in the picture. Jason was in a tractor and it came out of nowhere from the hay shooting fire out from the pipes. It made me feel hot. well it did! The fire went right in my face. The haunted house part we got out of the hay tractor I guess that is what you would call it, and we were going in through a hay tunnel I realized I was in front and I was like “no no no” so I turned around and squeezed past laura to be in the middle.  Mommy was scared because I popped out of nowhere and she screamed AAAHHHH.

There was this guy holding a fake snake  but there was a real snake behind him in a tank. He was like “like my cat? wanna pet it?” I was like “oh it’s a cute cat I wanna pet it!” He was like “OK go head!” This girl from a graveyard screamed in my face, popped out of nowhere like a butterfly and I was like “well I can scream louder!” and I screamed, so.

I liked it. I had fun. And that’s when I liked chainsaw guys. Please don’t make me write about the picture with Michael Myers.

As usual, we’re at a crossroads with Chooch’s Halloween costume. He changes his mind constantly and then seemed set on something that would be so easy (and free) to pull off, so we thought we were all set, but then I had to go and be a dummy and accidentally thought of something better so now Henry’s Sunday is going to be super busy. As a child who was forced into boxes (literally) every year for Halloween, I vowed to not be That Mom with my own kid, but Chooch just might end up in a box after all. Unless we can use fabric instead.

Or unless Chooch changes his mind again.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to revisit all of his past costumes, like the ones from when he didn’t have his own ideas yet and we could just buy something from the Halloween store.

HOW FUCKING QUAINT.

———————

2006: Ice Cream Cone. God, those were the days. (Here’s a reprisal of that costume. At least I got my money’s worth.)

2007: Hobo? I guess this was a hobo. This costume cost nothing except for the black makeup stick we bought at the Halloween store.

2008: Frankenstein. Why am I having a hard time remembering this costume? (I do remember that the makeup job sucks because I was still at work when trick-or-treating was starting so dum-dum Henry had to apply it.

Good job, Henry.)

2009: Jason Voorhees. He was OBSESSED with Jason when he was 4.

This was also back in the days when I knew how to use my camera even less than I do now, if you can imagine.

2010: Psycho Clown! I think this was my favorite costume. This was another one that cost nothing because I already had that shit on hand from a photo shoot I made Christina do.

2011: Zombie Justin Bieber. This one kind of flopped, as evidenced by the ZERO people who could tell what he was supposed to be, haha.

Also that year, we went to a Halloween party so Chooch and I dressed up in our PJs and went as a Zombie Sleepover.

And he was a Zombie Dweeb at the Zombie Carnival at Monroeville Mall.

2012: Daryl from the Walking Dead. If you ever need to dress up as someone that no one will ever guess, come to me for ideas. I’m apparently chockful of ’em. (Seriously, that year’s Halloween really stressed me the fuck out.)

So, there you have it. The evolution of Chooch. I’ll leave you with a photo of him looking evil on just a regular day. Have a good weekend, boyyyy!

Chooch and I had a full-blown singalong to this song yesterday and it was so good to just not care about anything for a few minutes. Also, Chooch is already way better at singing than me. I am miserably tone-deaf.

Chooch and me during a Saturday session of the STFU Henry club.

In other news, I go back to work tomorrow. :( But I’m happy that I got to squeeze in a sibling hang-out, lunch with my oldest friend Christy (she loves when I describe her that way), hockey games from start to finish, and a ton of haunted houses during my time off.

Chooch and his oldest god mother, Christy. They shared chocolate “mouse” together at Armstrong’s.

And today, Henry is finally back in DIY-action! He’s working on this desk-thingie for the living room. Right now it’s painted gold (duh) and he’s chevron’ing the doors. Earlier, he was researching online for chevron patterns and I said, “Wow, that looks like a hassle.”

“What do you care? You’re not the one who has to do it,” Henry cried like a bitch.

He is REALLY miserable when it comes to home improvement. Especially when glitter is involved.

Chevron’ing, motherfuckers.

We had to go to dreaded Home Depot this afternoon to get more paint, ugh ugh ugh, and some man smiled at me. This prompted Chooch to exclaim that I’d have a better chance at marrying that guy than Henry, and he’s probably not wrong. Chooch’s favorite punch lines are those that involve my perpetual ring-less ring finger, so if I ever did get married, he would probably never tell another joke again. A few weeks ago, he even said to me, “You should just check in with your ex-boyfriends, because I have a feeling Daddy is never going to marry you.” And it’s awesome when he says this shit all somberly and then EXPLODES in laughter. The neener-neener type, which is THE WORST KIND OF LAUGHTER.

Unless it’s me who’s actually laughing. Then it’s the BEST KIND OF LAUGHTER.

Chooch’s self-portrait that he made in art. It was hanging up during last week’s Open House and we almost couldn’t find it because it was the only one that didn’t look like a person.

I’ll return tomorrow with a bunch of words about my favorite haunted houses, since we’re about halfway through the season here. But I’ll warn you, I’m pretty passionate and opinionated on this topic! (I know, what else is new.)

We are outside of castle blood and my face is green for some reason like the green man in a tunnel. are quest  today was to find a scull,st0ne and a scroll I got the scull henry got the death scroll and Mommy got the stone. my favorite room was the science room and there was some crazy person in it. i don’t want to say anything about when i saw Katelyn.

Terror Town was not scary I told mommy to go in the back she was scared. Laura was in the FRONT I was in the middle. My ears were covered the whole time because there was screaming and the lady that opened the door for when we go in told us that there was real ghost haunting the place that’s what scared me  and this guy called me a chicken nugget and then a pig came over and said ohh a child ghh ghh. HI THIS IS ERIN. I guess it’s my turn to write about  my favorite part of Terror Town, which was definitely when the pushy woman in line behind us didn’t get to go in at the same time as us, because we probably would have been giving her and her kids piggy back rides through the whole thing judging by the way they stood so close to our backs when we were in line. I WAS NOT GOING TO LET THEM GET IN FRONT OF US. I HATE LINE JUMPERS!!!!

now it’s back to me at the end of the haunted house there was this guy in a grave yard and he looked like Freddy Kruger

because his shadow had a hat and was crouched down. When it was over I got a lollypop from this guy.

At the haunted trail at haunted hills hayride .com  OH MOMMY REMINDED ME ABOUT GOD FOR BID JANNA MET US THERE AND MOMMY AND LOURA TOLD ME TO HIDE FROM GOD FOR BID JANNA. the picture shows a sad clown in my FACE. personal space, NOT. when we were in line we  were the first ones in line the lady told us to get in a single file line when we were in the hut there was a cut off real head and told us the rules he said use kind words but I put up the middle finger and he saw what I did. But I was like “oh s**t he saw what I did” And the dumbness begins.

there was a grandma actor she said to me eat this rat tail num num num. And she told everyone else to lick grandfather’s heart but the good thing is that it was in a jar. And she said that she liked ERINS PURSE :tip: everyone says that.

I was so mad because I was wearing my new shoes and it was muddy I was pissed. THEY WERE NEW!!!

Chooch, totally ‘noiding out in line for the hayride.

Chooch and I went to Haunted Hills Hayride Saturday night with Janna and Laura so that Henry could bake like a good boy in peace and quiet. Janna picked Chooch and me up and then, as rain crashed down in torrents, informed us that her tires are really bad and the last time it rained like that was when she wrecked the passenger side of her car. I’m here to tell you that this was way more frightening than the actual hayride.

But first, we went to dinner at King’s because we wanted to see if we could outlast the rain, and also because Chooch and I knew that Henry wasn’t going to feed us since he practically orphans us every time he’s in Martha Stewart mode. Anyway, Chooch and Janna both had to go to the bathroom at the same time, but then Chooch came running back to our booth, almost crying with laughter.

“I ditched her!” he wheezed. “I ditched Janna in the bathroom!” So of course, Laura and I start cracking up too because it’s fun  to disrespect Janna and oh my god is this kid mine or what?! Chooch was trying to hide behind this wall-thing and even the waitress was laughing about it because giving Janna a hard time is pretty much universally accepted.

So all of this time is passing and we started to imagine Janna sitting outside the mens room, waiting for Chooch, probably panicking and wondering if he was kidnapped by the claw machine or maybe had accidentally climbed into one of the ovens in the kitchen. Maybe she was frantically scrolling through my Facebook photos, looking for one of Chooch to submit to the milk carton printers that didn’t involve an animal mask or ice cream eclipsing his face.

But then I started to consider that SHE had ditched US. The ULTIMATE ditch, too, because not only would we have to pay for her stupid dinner, but we’d have to call Henry to pick us too since she was our taxi driver for the night. Anyway, turns out Janna wasn’t waiting for him after all. SO WHY WAS SHE TAKING SO LONG, OH GOD THE POSSIBILITIES.

When she came back to the table, she was trying to play it off like she didn’t care we were all bent in half with laughter. “I didn’t expect him to wait for me!” she cried defensively. Oh, how I love to laugh at Janna! And so does Chooch, clearly. He also likes ordering food he won’t eat and then stealing food off Janna’s plate.

Chooch took this picture for his Instagram.

The hayride was just OK, and Chooch, for as scared as he was in line, never stopped casually talking the entire time. He even said he’s not scared of chainsaw guys anymore since I told him that the chainsaws don’t have chains on them, which is hilarious because even though I know this is a fact, I am STILL FUCKING TERRIFIED OF CHAINSAW GUYS.

I was angry because the best part of this attraction is the haunted trail, but it was closed for the night because of the stupid rain. (Which has stopped by the time we left King’s, but I wasn’t about to complain that the trail was closed because I stupidly wore white TOMS. What the fuck is wrong with me?)

My favorite part of the hayride was when Janna got yelled at repeatedly by the parking lot attendant for not following his explicit instructions.

After saying goodbye to Laura (no one cried because we knew we would be seeing her again the next day at the pie party), Janna decided it would be fun to go home an alternate route so that she could take Chooch through (fake) Green Man’s Tunnel in Dravosburg. (Everyone knows the real one is in South Park.) I mean, the road is actually pretty scary even if it’s NOT THE REAL GREEN MAN’S TUNNEL, JANNA. It’s all pot-holed and surrounded by creepy forest and then the tunnel is all foreboding and desolate and you just know runaways get raped there constantly. There was a car in front of us for awhile, but then we lost it when Janna decided to STOP THE CAR IN  THE MIDDLE OF THE TUNNEL WHILE TELLING CHOOCH THE WRONG GREEN MAN STORY AND THEN SHE TURNED OFF HER HEADLIGHTS AND CHOOCH AND I WENT BALLISTIC.

I might have been screaming louder than Chooch but so sorry that I didn’t want to die that night OK?! And oh shit, did Janna flip Chooch’s psycho switch. He was all, “What were you thinking?! Why would you do that to us!?” and I was all, “GO FASTER SO WE CAN CATCH UP WITH THAT CAR I DON’T WANT TO BE ON THIS ROAD ALONE ANYMORE OMFG WE’RE GOING TO PERISH.”

Janna dropped us off around 11 and Chooch left her with some vitriolic parting words before stomping into the house and screaming to Henry about the Green Man and how Janna almost had us killed (that last part might have been my own scream, nevermind).  And of course Mr. Watches Asian Horror Like It Ain’t No Thang was conveniently too scared to sleep in his room BECAUSE THE WALLS ARE GREEN OMG, so I let him fall asleep on the couch while I watched TV (sike, I was playing Simpsons: Tapped Out) and Henry pouted upstairs because I yelled at him for not having enough things baked. But first, Chooch used my phone to text Janna:

I guess that’s what he gets for ditching Janna at the King’s bathroom!

Before I went to bed, I took Chooch’s phone out of his hand and saw that the last thing he was doing before falling asleep was Googling “cats.”

I teased him about this in the morning and he said, “Well, I wanted to look at something that wouldn’t give me nightmares!” Then he proceeded to immediately Google “Green Man.” And at the pie party later that day, he interrogated almost everyone on their knowledge of the Green Man and kept acting shocked anytime someone would say, “Yes, I know of the Green Man” and Janna would have to explain the concept of an urban legend all over again.

Now he wants to be the Green Man for Halloween and I had to listen to him ramble on and on and on about this morning on the way to school: WHY DOES HE ONLY HAVE ONE EYE?! WHAT KIND OF CANDY DOES HE LIKE?! WHAT DID HE GET STRUCK BY AGAIN? I’M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE AT SCHOOL ABOUT HIMMMMMM! GREEN MAN GREEN MAN GREEN MAN GREEN MAN!

Thanks, Janna!

MOMMY IS THE BEST she took me to see Nevershoutnever! I saw a balloon I wanted to touch it but people were hitting it with there speed boost hands. THE RED JUMPSUIT SUCKS!!! HINT:SO DOES HENRY!?!??!?

My favorite song was CheaterCheaterBestFriendEater. The Red Jumpsuit sang 13 songs I said Erin kill me and I also said AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT. When NeverShoutNever was on Erin told me to tell the security that Christofer Drew Ingle was my brother and he left his BubbleGum in the car.  Mommy said write about the nevershoutnever “trouble” and how I almost cried even though I didn’t. me and Mommy saw this guys ass crack it was funny but we saw that guy again and mommy didn’t see this but he did a round off. Me and mommy kept making fun of daddys man boobs and he didn’t know.

This is Erin. Chooch said it’s my turn to write one sentence. So….my favorite song of the night was “On the Brightside” and Chooch just said, “Oh god, I knew you were going to write ‘On the Brightside’.” Well, then don’t ask!!! Back to Chooch.

By the way when the red jumpsuit was playing there was this guy that looked like Justin Bieber. The band before that was Maps And Atlases it was the best band ever but not as good as nevershoutnever. I loved my surprise it was awesome.

THE END
*****

Chooch displays his awesome cinematography skills:

Cheatercheaterbestfriendeater:

Me: “Jonny Craig played here last night and I didn’t go on purpose.”

Chooch: “That’s good. You shouldn’t.”

Even still, I’m obsessed with his new solo album, OMG.

Ugh, I’d still let him put a ring on my finger, though.

Meanwhile, Chooch is in the middle of a quarrel with Henry and he just yelled, “I WISH CHRISTOFER DREW WAS MY DAD! HE WOULD TEACH ME MUSIC!!” (That would be pretty awkward for me if Chooch’s dad was Christofer Drew considering he’s only like…22 I think? So he’d have been some unmentionable age at the time of Chooch’s conception OMG vomit.)

Prior to Chooch’s outburst, Henry was only used to having someone scream, “I WISH [insert scene guy’s name] WAS MY BOYFRIEND AND NOT YOU”! Chooch is adding a whole new layer to Henry’s complex.

Christ. The names that get dropped in this house are so fucked up.

Little Christofer Drew

Well, you guys. Saturday night had the potential to go down as the biggest fail since I tried to make cookies out of bread. We arrived at the Saint Vincent campus in Latrobe around 6:00. Henry made us wait in the car while he asked two college girls where the Carey Center was because we didn’t want Chooch to hear. “Look, Daddy’s talking to GIRLS!” Chooch squealed, and we laughed about that during the entire walk to the Carey Center, which I guess is their basketball court thingie. Chooch kept asking, “Is this a college? What are we doing here?” so for awhile I was like, “We’re enrolling you early, Doogie Howser.” There was a small gathering of kids outside of the building, waiting for doors to open, so I figured that was as good a time as any to reveal his surprise.

So I gave him his ticket and he just stared at it.

“Is this my surprise?” he asked, not even TRYING to mask his disappointment. (He was being a total jerkface to me a few weeks ago so I snapped and told him that I had a surprise for him but I was going to give it to an orphan instead. So he knew something was cooking.) I said yes, and he was like, “I want a new surprise.”

“You don’t want to see Never Shout Never?!” I asked, trying not to scream because I have a “cool mom” façade to uphold and there were too many kids around.

“Yeah, but I want something from Amazon,” Chooch sighed. WHAT THE FUCK. Henry was in the will call line (he waited until three days ago to buy his ticket) so I texted him and it went something like I DON’T WANT TO BE A MOM ANYMORE THIS SUCKS LET’S JUST GO HOME WHAT A FUCKING SPOILED BRAT HE IS.

Henry turned around in his line and just laughed at me. “It’ll be fine,” he texted back.

And you know what? It really was fine. It was better than fine. It was a fucking fantastic night and Chooch and I really bonded! We had a ton of inside jokes that would make us double over in laughter (Man Boobs and bubblegum) and Henry would laugh too but then he would say, “Haha, what?” and we would just say, “You wouldn’t understand.” And then he would frown and bristle his mustache and we would laugh harder.

The venue was perfect for a seven-year-old. It was literally a college gym, so there were bleachers adjacent to the stage, and the view was unobstructed. Before the show started, Chooch acted like he owned the place, catching the eye of various blond college girls and then shrugging it off like it was no big thing. And then someone near the front of the stage started batting around a red balloon, and everyone acted like they had never batted around a balloon before, while the rest of us acted like we had never watched anyone bat around a balloon before, and somehow it became wildly entertaining. Especially when someone accidentally made the balloon waft out of reach on the stage, and there was a frantic outcry. They kept trying to get various roadies to grab it for them, but their cries were unheard. Finally, someone on stage noticed and returned the balloon to the crowd amid ear drum-perforating cheers.

Chooch then decided he wanted is own balloon to bat around on the bleachers and wanted Henry to take him to find one. Grumpy Henry grumped, “No! There aren’t any balloons out there! THOSE KIDS BROUGHT THAT ONE!” Because he didn’t want to irritate his hemorrhoids by standing up and walking, I guess. But then two, um, “white balloons” appeared in the mix and Chooch lost his mind. “SERIOUSLY?! WHERE ARE THEY GETTING THESE BALLOONS!?” he cried. But luckily, the lights went out soon after and the show commenced before anyone needed to make up an explanation for the “pocket balloons.”

Maps & Atlases opened, and all three of us really liked them. Unfortunately, the slovenly middle-aged couple behind us who kept kicking us in the back did not like them and were very vocal about it. After the Podunk wife complained for the fifth time about how “boring” the band was, her hick husband drawled, “Well shit, they ain’t Iron Maiden” which made her cachinnate a mouthful of phlegm and poor English onto the back of my head. Turns out they were there were Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who I can’t remember being so terrible, but they were pretty terrible and provided the only lowlight of the night.

During Maps & Atlases set, Henry nudged me and pointed to the side of the stage, where Christofer Drew was watching the band. I in turn nudged Chooch and that kid fucking FLIPPED HIS SHIT. He sat there and straight stared at him until Christofer eventually walked back behind the stage.

“I want one of their albums,” Chooch shouted to me, gesturing over his shoulder to Maps & Atlases. What a wonderful thing to hear from a kid!

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus came on next. I know of them, I remember when they had that One Real Big Hit a handful of years ago, but I have never really paid attention to them. And that Saturday night, I was assured that I hadn’t been missing much. I’m sure to a lot of people, this is a great band. And that’s fine. They seemed like they knew what they were doing up there, but it wasn’t my thang, you guys. It was boring and loud for the sake of being loud. It was cheesy guitar solos. It was Southern rock with boring vocals. It was a guitarist that looked like Taylor Lautner (Henry’s observation, and I laughed that he knew Taylor Lautner’s name) even though Chooch kept arguing that he looked like Justin Bieber.

Chooch was anti-Red Jumpsuit from the get go.

“Ain’t no one got time for that!” he screamed into my ear. And, “Oh, the horror! Kill me now!”

But the jerk-slobs behind us were stoked, that’s for sure!

After playing entirely too long, Red Jumpsuit finally left the stage and we all exhaled in relief. They totally threw off the vibe of the night, and Chooch was acting downright offended by them. He kept forgetting “Apparatus” and started calling them Red Jumpsuit Pfffffft, spraying me with spit every time.

But then Never Shout Never came on and my lord, I knew Chooch had a big-ass mouth, but I never thought a scream so 1989 NKOTB GIRLY could come barreling out of it like it did at the moment. That kid was going NUTS. He inadvertently punched me in the face a few times while overzealously waving his arms in the air.

The second song they played was “Trouble,” which is Chooch’s all-time favorite. He sang along to every word and his eyes were GLISTENING WITH TEARS. I thought maybe I was seeing things, but Henry and I discussed this on the ride home while Chooch was sleeping in the backseat, and Henry confirmed that he witnessed Chooch crying several times throughout the night. HE IS MY SON FOR REAL, YOU GUYS! I officially don’t care how much everyone thinks he looks like just Henry and 0% like me! He has all of my emotions!

God help us all.

I feel like a real douchebag. I used to make fun of Never Shout Never when Christofer Drew hit the scene six years ago (when he was only 16!). I thought he was so stupid-looking, like this weird emo-hippie hybrid who could pass as the second-coming of Jimmy from H.R. Pufnstuf.

And I never really gave his music a chance because it was too “happy-sounding” and we all know how doom n’ gloom I am. I skipped over him every time he was at Warped Tour, I was disgusted when I saw his parts in the Warped Tour documentary that came out last year because he was so negative about the scene. But somehow, one of his songs (“What Is Love?”) made it onto a mixed CD I made for one of our road trips last spring. I don’t know if I had the track on the computer from a compilation or what, but I put it on this CD (yes, I still make mixed CDs in this day and age OMG) and while it didn’t nauseate me, someone in the backseat REALLY latched on to it. I didn’t think it was really going to amount to much, but when I found out that NSN was playing Warped Tour this time around, Chooch said, “Thank god.”

But then he didn’t even really care! We stood near that stage for maybe a song or two, and then Chooch was ready to move on. But a few weeks later, he and I walked down to the Exchange because I wanted to buy the new Hands Like Houses and sometimes they get new releases there. They didn’t, and the girl who was working kept trying to look in the electronica section when I told her it was post-hardcore; way to know your stuff, dumbass. But they had a Never Shout Never EP there, and Chooch said he wanted it. It was $5 so I was like, “Whatever,” figuring that he would listen to it once and it would get thrown to the wayside in favor of Minecraft videos on his phone. But he played the FUCK out of that EP, and then I bought him the “What Is Love?” album and he played the FUCK out of that, memorized all the words almost immediately, proceeded to watch 259451259745 NSN videos on YouTube, and then found Christopher Drew on Instagram.

I can’t stress enough how important I believe music is. Yeah, I get: everyone thinks forcing young children to play some form of organized team sport is like THE FOUNDATION for a healthy childhood, but to me, music is just as important. Chooch is a really emotional kid, some of those emotions seem really advanced to me—this isn’t me bragging. This is me being legitimately concerned that my kid is suddenly not going to have an outlet for those emotions because some days he reminds me of Erin Rachelle Kelly at Fifteen. But seeing how connected he’s become to music is somewhat of a relief to me. I mean, this isn’t like a kid hearing an LMFAO song on the radio and singing along. This is a kid devouring everything he can find about an artist, poring over lyrics, asking me what certain parts of the songs mean. Music heals, you guys.

I thought Chooch’s NSN-mania was cute, and I was thankful that it wasn’t something really terrible like Fresh Beat Band or Katy Perry, but I still didn’t really get the appeal. After Saturday night, I think I can officially say that my mind has been effectively changed. That kid is a fucking PERFORMER. His banter with his bassist and drummer, and the crowd, was entertaining and not at all annoying. You know how sometimes it’s like, “OK STFU AND SING, YOU MOTHERFUCKER? I DIDN’T PAY TO HEAR YOU TALK?!” It wasn’t like that. The between-song hijinks were just as entertaining as the actual music and I even caught Henry smiling. HENRY—SMILING! I wish it wasn’t so dark in there so I could have photographed that, as well as captured video of Chooch going nuts.

They played for about 90 minutes, so we didn’t get out of there until around 11:30. Chooch started losing steam around 10:30; I put my arm around him (look at me, being a mom!!), but every time he’d start to fall asleep on my shoulder, they would play a song that he loved, so he snap his head up and start singing and clapping. Before one song, Christofer started to talk about how he used to smoke a lot of cigarettes. Chooch cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled to me, “‘Coffee and Cigarettes’! I know that’s what he’s going to sing next!” (Except that Chooch calls them “cigarats.”) And then when the band played the first few notes, Chooch smirked and yelled, “See? ‘Coffee and Cigarats’. I knew it!” And when he played “Can’t Stand It,” kids started breaking away from the crowd to dance with each other. And I gotta say, it was a refreshing change from the circle pits and walls of death that are prevalent at the shows I normally attend.

And now I kind of think that Christofer Drew is adorable. I guess I always assumed he was trying too hard, what with the warpaint he used to wear on his face and the wolf hat-wearing and the acting like he just stepped out of Henry’s wardrobe circa 1972. But this is who he is, for real. A walking, talking, no-shoe-wearing Woodstock representative in this scary 21st Century Land who just wants everyone to love each other. I get it now, Christofer Drew. I get it. I’m a fan. And I’m happy that I get to share this with Chooch now before he becomes a surly teenager who doesn’t want his lame mom to like the same music as him.

When we got back to the car, I turned to Chooch and asked, “So, now do you think this was a good surprise?

And in this earnest, sincere voice, he shook his head and quietly answered yes. He then proceeded to excitedly talk a mile a minute about the show before passing out for the hour drive home to Pittsburgh. Totally worth it. But I’m still not posting the video of when I gave Chooch his ticket because it pisses me off so bad! Even though Henry tried to explain to me that a concert ticket doesn’t mean the same thing to a 7-year-old as it would to a teenager, and I guess I understand that. Thankfully, the actual concert was another story!

I have a feeling someone is going to be asking for a ukulele for Christmas.

That time Chooch proved that everyone has a bad angle right before we fed him to the camels in Virginia and then ate at a Friendly’s with some old, regal, forearm-shroud-wearin’ coot.

(Oops, it’s still Thursday. Throwback Thursday Because I Can’t Sleep, k bye.

)

One more week until I can finally give Chooch his secret tickets to the Never Shout Never show! I’m getting all excited about it, and I never even really had much of an opinion of Never Shout Never before, but Christopher Drew has really grown on me thanks to Chooch’s constant need to listen to their CDs in the car. I usually gravitate more toward sad, depressing lyrics, but he is so freaking positive, basically a 21st century hippie, and that’s OK. It’s good that Chooch has someone like that to look up to, I guess.

(I mean, if you ignore the fact that he’s a pothead.

I guess it could be worse, though.

It could be Jonny Craig,)

This is the song that started Chooch’s obsession, all because he likes how Christopher sings “question.” And below is a video of Chooch singing the beginning of “Love is Our Weapon,” among other Chooch-things. Seriously, who stands like that while watching videos on their phone?!

Hopefully, when he realizes what’s going on this Saturday, he won’t look like this. DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW HARD IT HAS BEEN FOR ME TO KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT ABOUT THIS OMG!?

Feeling all nostalgic and going through old Flickr photos. I miss the baby era! This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Chooch talked nonstop from the moment I picked him up from school at 2:50 until, oh, right now. NOT THAT I DON’T ENJOY HIS MELODIOUS CHILD-VOICE. But Jesus, that boy is always on.

Anyway, here are 4 old pictures from 2006.

Cure pin swag. ;) Today, he had a Dance Gavin Dance pin on the collar of his shirt, so not much has changed.

OMG brothers!

Randomly, I googled for upcoming Never Shout Never shows the other night at work and two results came up: one for somewhere in South America, and one, surprisingly, in Latrobe which is only about an hour away from Pittsburgh.

And it’s a Saturday night!

It was a no-brainer. I bought tickets for Chooch immediately because he has been singing this shit in his SLEEP lately. He even commented on one of Christopher Drew’s Instagram pictures that as soon as he gets in the car, he puts on NSN CDs.

I bought him a NSN tshirt and he wore it for three days straight until I finally wrestled it off him and threw it in the laundry basket.

I don’t even think I was this obsessed over a band yet at that age!

So the plan is to not tell him about this until we get there on September 28th, which might just be the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep.

He’s going to shit himself. And I can’t wait to Instavid it.