Halloween ... and Fifth's Disease?

Yea, yea. So Halloween was like, so yesterday. My how time flies. And the timeliness is even worse because this town designates "Beggars' Night" a day early when Halloween falls on a Friday. Because of football. Yes, it's weird.

Conner was determined to go trick-or-treating, and I was just as determined that he would not justify begging for candy dressed as a thirteen-year-old boy (which is what he is). I told him if he was going to go he needed to earn it and get creative. And no I am not going to help you because I am certain my mama didn't help no teenagers get all dressed up to go hoard a bunch of junk. In fact, I'm pretty certain the last time I went trick-or-treating I was, like, two. Costumes were never my thang.

So Conner comes home from school on Thursday all excited because he and this neighbor friend totally figured out what they would be: they were going to put black trash bags over their bodies (with holes punched out so they didn't pass out from lack of oxygen) and wear black clothing underneath so they would be ... dut-dut-da! -- "THE DARKNESS". (Say that with an eery whisper and wave your spirit fingers.)

Um, okay? At least it was creative. I bowed my head and said a prayer for his soul and sent him on his way.

Unfortunately I did not get a photo of him in all of his get-up because he headed over to his friend's with the trash bags tucked under his arm and had already ripped them off before he came home. Neither one of us deemed a reenactment necessary. But he got what he went out for, as you can see from the load of stash that he "earned".

Yes, Olivia came home with just as much. She went as a "fairy snow princess", not to be confused with the snow princess that she was last year.
Come to find out, she actually didn't want to wear her wings at the last minute. But John and I both thought they were so cute that she wore them to please us. Honest, I didn't know this until after the fact. Isn't she so sweet? (So cute and so sweet?)

And, yes, this is the same costume she wore last year. Because I'm nothing if not frugal right now. And lucky so because The Little Guy? This is how he spent his night of trick-or-treating.

I was at a field trip with Olivia's class when I got a call from their school nurse that the poor little guy had been brought to her after telling his teacher, "My head is not good". And sure enough, he had a fever. When I finally got there to pick him up 20 minutes later he had fallen fast asleep, and the receptionist who took me back to him told me he looked just like a little angel lying there like that. (He didn't have his nose squished into their pillow.)

A fever was his only symptom. It fluctuated all afternoon, then spiked in the evening so I finally gave him some drugs. Shortly thereafter it broke and never returned. And I thought nothing of it -- even took him to a friend's the next day while I attended his IEP meeting at school. Then today, he looks like this:

It totally reminded me of when his older brother had Fifth's Disease back when he was a preschooler, and I decided to wait it out and see what happens before taking him to the doctor tomorrow. If it's Fifth's, the rash will spread to the rest of his body...

Except the thing is? As I am writing this, he is sound asleep; before he went to bed the rash was subsiding and now it is almost gone. So I am at a loss. It really does ring true with Fifth's Disease: having a fever that goes away; then a rash days later with no other symptoms. So perhaps just a mild case? I can't very well take a healthy kid into the doctor tomorrow. And, really, there's nothing they could do anyway; I just wanted to get an official diagnosis to pass along to his teacher in case any other kids exhibit the same symptoms.

I'm just glad I didn't get him a new costume this year. And methinks his brother and sister have plenty of the wealth to go around. I definitely believe in socialism when it comes to candy.