Kid Stuff: My Name is PJ, and I Am a Candyholic

As a small child, my parents found it notable that, generally speaking, I did not eat my Halloween candy.  I sorted it into categories (rectangular things, things with sticks) and then I resorted it into different categories (orange things, brown things).  And I kept statistics as to how many of each item I received.  (Okay, clearly we can blame that last part on the fact that my dad was a mathematician.  In fact, if memory serves, I was born the same night that he took the final for his Masters degree in statistics.  So, there you go.)

Once I was done cataloging it, it got chunked into a cabinet in my room, where it stayed until my mom retrieved it and tossed it (or ate it - guess it depended on how early she staged her raid).

The bigger kid takes after me.  He is interested in how much candy he gets, and what types, and he nibbles on it a little bit at a time.  His goal this year, he told me, was to stretch it out until Christmas.  Then his math teacher announced that his supply of "attaboy" candy (the stuff he hands out when kids do stuff right) was running low, and anyone who wanted to donate their candy to the cause would get a homework pass.  (Math teacher's a smart guy - confiscate it, ration it out a little bit at a time, and keep disruptive blood sugar spikes to a minimum.  Oh, and save yourself some bucks, too.  While cutting down on classroom absences relating to dental appointments.  Genius.)

C heard "homework pass," and that candy was out of our home like a shot.

PJ approaches Halloween candy differently.  Basically, he inhales it.  If we let him, he would eat it all in one sitting.

But we don't let him eat it all in one sitting.  So, as of last night, there was still a little bit left.  Looking into his bag, you couldn't really tell how much, because he has an unfortunate tendency to throw the wrappers back into the bag.  But there was some actual candy still in there.

So this is how my Thursday began:  5 o' clock AM, and the kids are up, first giggling, and then screaming at each other.  Because, apparently, PJ demanded that C help him find his candy bag, and C declined. 

Dad, not so politely, advised them that THE REST OF THE WORLD WAS TRYING TO SLEEP, so could they please go back to sleep so that Mom and Dad could attempt to get in a few more minutes of shuteye?

It takes me awhile to go back to sleep, and as is so often the case I finally drifted back to dreamland just a few minutes before my alarm went off.  So I hit snooze.  And then I hit snooze again.  And then, it appears, I just turned the alarm clock.  I went into full-on REM sleep.  I had a dream about my college roommate and her family.  In the dream, we ran into them on vacation.  Wacky hijinks ensued.  At some point during the dream, I remember thinking, "Wow, this seems like a long dream for seven minutes."

It wasn't seven minutes.  When I woke up and looked at the clock, it was ten minutes until it was time to depart for school.

Jumped BOLT UPRIGHT out of bed, went into the boys' room, discovered said boys awake and oblivious as to what time it was - no one had their school uniforms on, and OMG, THE PILE OF CANDY WRAPPERS!  PJ had found his stash.  I sorted through the bag, confiscated the few pieces that he managed to miss and gave them to Big Bro to help the Homework Pass Cause (although I was mad at Big Bro, too - almost twelve years old, and we can't look at a clock?).

I testily advised Little Bro that next year's Halloween was cancelled until further notice.  Little Bro disappeared around the corner, returning a few minutes later with THIS:

You have to read it with the proper inflection (and punctuation):  "NO TRICK OR TREATING NEXT YEAR FOR HALLOWEEN?!?  WHY did you say I cud [could] not go trick or treating dering [during] 2012, MOM???"

We have a budding Unabomber on our hands - every day, a new manifesto.

I blame the candy.