I'm resurrecting Hillary's Costume thread in hopes that everyone will add pics of their munchkins! We're going trick-or-treating in about 40 minutes, so I'll be adding some shots to the thread tonight. In the meantime, check out the adorable Miles and Eli after the jump! -Erika

As I've mentioned, here in the Lovely Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, many municipalities hold Trick or Treat night on the Thursday, Friday or even Sunday night before the 31st.  A few do hold it on the 31st, but our town keeps to the Friday night tradition.

I am so grateful. Not only do I have two beautiful children, but they are healthy and happy.

My very supportive husband's catscan came up empty. Whew! If the pain in his lower abdomen persists, he will have to see a specialist. But as far as we know, it is not cancer.

As for my sister, she is feeling much better that she started running errands on her own yesterday. That takes the pressure off me who has been blending her food -- she can't swallow -- and shuttling her everywhere. Yes, all is starting to look up on my end. Now, if only my adorable baby would sleep...

From the mommy blogosphere: I have been following the homeschooling woes of Ella at most/least blog. Even though she is against “the idea of schools,” she has decided to place her son Harry in a local public school after reaching “rock-bottom personally.” Ella is taking care of a baby at home and is pregnant with her fourth child.

A very big thank you to everyone who emailed me after I reached such a low point last week. Many of you were surprised that Harry has gone back to school and were worried that I had rushed into the decision…

I sort of want to go into all the details of why I decided to return Harry to school. The first year of homeschooling is always difficult, but actually it had gone pretty well and Harry’s progress was wonderful. But I have reached rock-bottom personally after weeks of terrible sickness, Harry was refusing to do school work, I was feeling that the unschooling methods I had to use over the summer were not teaching him enough and perhaps worst of all, Ben who is a feisty, sometimes adorable, but mostly difficult twenty-one month old was being so demanding that Harry and I simply couldn’t really concentrate while he was around. Not Ben’s fault of course because all one year olds need a lot of attention but Harry’s education was suffering. Add to that the prospect of the new baby’s arrival next Spring and the fact that I will have even less time and it all felt like too much.

Reading this made my head spin and I was appalled at the people who e-mailed this poor woman to question her decision. Only in this country would we expect a woman to feed, clothe and educate her four children by herself. Insane.

On moms going insane: MomsRising.org is collecting “scary stories” about what it is like to raise children with inadequate resources. (Read expensive healthcare and childcare or lack of time with our children to pay for it all.) I felt for the women -- at least 10 of them -- who wrote in:

Hi all, yesterday my 2 year old son was sick when we woke up, so I took him to the doctors in the morning at 8 am. I left a message for my boss explaining the situation and telling her I'd be in a little late. When I came in later she became very upset and said, "I run a business here not a daycare!" I was shocked, not only because she could talk to me like that, but because when she hired me she knew my situation with a small child and she was a single mother to boy who is now a grown man. She must have forgotten what it's like to be a working mother, that's scary!

I am sure every generation says motherhood is easier for their own progeny. But don’t you sometimes get the feeling that the pressures and stakes have never been higher?

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

Even if you're not a parent, you know that sugar makes kids hyper. Right? Well, maybe not. According to this article in the LA Times, it's a matter of debate among nutrition researchers.

Experts disagree about whether the sugar high and sugar crash truly exist. Many say the evidence contradicts such stories. "There is no scientific basis to the idea that sugar and/or candy has any major effect on children's behavior, particularly if they eat OK," says Dian Dooley, professor of human nutrition, food and animal sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Others think sugar has plenty of skeletons in its closet. "The bottom line is that the ingestion of too much high-glycemic carbohydrate causes a rapid rise and then fall of blood sugar," says Dr. David Ludwig, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston. "This triggers a series of metabolic and hormonal changes that can affect appetite and behavior for hours to come."

No one doubts that sugar, which turns into glucose in the body, is one of our two main sources of energy (along with fat). So it seems to make sense that if your child eats 30 pieces of candy on Halloween night, he's going to be bouncing off the walls. (And right on into the bathroom.)

But sugar in the body isn't exactly like gasoline in a car, the more you give it the faster it goes. The body has a system to regulate glucose such that blood sugar levels remain stable. This all works through the pancreas, which releases insulin when sugar levels are high and the hormone glucagon when sugar levels dip too low. It's a finely tuned system that doesn't always work right. Diabetics don't produce enough insulin, for example. And even in a healthy person, it can take a little time to restore the system to balance once it's gotten off kilter, the article says.

In order to find to-the-minute Halloween costumes for the kids, I searched online. They weren't sure what they wanted to be, so we all sat behind the computer to look. Cristian finally decided on The New Goblin from Spiderman 3. But in searching kid costumes, I found that there were hardly ANY that were appropriate for girls.

When did Halloween for girls become synonomous with turning every character "slutty"??

What do you think of this Cheerless Leader? How about this Temperamental Alice?

I guess I'm not the only one that noticed this, as this morning I read this article from Newsweek entitled Eye Candy. The article goes on to say that little girls are wearing costumes that look as if they're designed by Victoria's Secret.

And while complaints about "slutty" kids' costumes may seem like a yearly parents' lament, the industry has been ramping up the sex appeal to ever younger groups of girls. It's not just 10- and 12-year-olds who have gone Halloween trampy. Now 6- and 7-year-old models are featured in catalogs wearing child-sized versions of skimpy costumes that used to be reserved for adult boudoirs. If you think we're exaggerating, note that they're actually selling something called a "Child's Chamber Maid Costume." And, many of the tween girls in the photographs are wearing more make-up than Christina Aguilera on awards night. More disturbing may be their expressions--they look as if they've been told to give the camera their best "sexy" gaze.

How disturbing.

The article goes on to say the following:

Dr. Sharon Lamb, also on the APA task force, has recently coauthored a book, "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketing Schemes," which includes a chapter devoted solely to sexy Halloween costumes. Lamb points out that most Web sites selling kids Halloween costumes divide merchandise along gender lines, and typically offer more choices for boys than girls (boys get to be doctors, police officers as well as gory monsters and "Star Wars" characters). Of the 22 girl costumes featured on one Web site Lamb looked at, 15 were cheerleaders, divas and rock stars. "That really limits girls' imaginations," says Lamb, who surveyed 600 young girls for the book, many of whom admitted to dressing up as something sexy for Halloween in order to get attention.

So it's really up to us to help our daughters expand their imaginations so they know they can be more than an object of sexual desire.

Thank God Karina decided on making her own costume. She's going to be Wednesday, from the Addams Family

Hi, ladies. In reading the costume thread, it looked like there are a couple of us that are sewers - or learning to sew. Seems like Halloween is the one reliable time of the year where everyone who either has the skills, once had the skills, or feels like they should have the skills get into the sewing action.

I thought I'd post this diary for those of us who are working on projects and either want to brag, commiserate or ask questions about projects. I know there are a couple of quilters in the MT community, so we should have some real pros! If enough of us are interested, perhaps this can be a semi-regular diary. I know I'm happy talking on and on about my hobbies!

Soooo, tell us a bit about your sewing experience, what you're working on and what's making you want to take your machine and throw it out the nearest plate glass window!!!

At Halloween there's a lot to be afraid of...ghosts, ghouls, candy-induced cavities. But as kids across the country don ghost, skeleton and princess costumes, millions of families face a very scary reality – that even when they work hard to support their kids, they may not be able to afford to send them to the dentist or get them the shots they need or pay for a life-saving surgery.  This reality got even scarier when, earlier this month, President Bush vetoed funding that would give insurance to 10 million kids who are in this very situation.

What is even more frightening is that the President would rather spend billions of our tax dollars to support a war in Iraq and give contracts to private companies like Blackwater USA – companies that have terrorized the Iraqi people and damaged our international reputation.

This Halloween, we need the treats to go to the millions of uninsured kids in our country, not to line the pockets of political cronies who brutally take Iraqi civilian lives. Congress can decide to choose children's health or Blackwater wealth; let them know what decision you want them to make here.

No one's posted on this yet that I can see, but we are down to the wire fellow parents! Only a week left! In the past my oldest child has picked very unique costumes - three years ago he was a sprinkle donut and the following year a blade of grass (and he always referred to it that way - never "a piece of grass" or just "grass"). Boy did that one throw our neighbors for a loop. I had cut out a piece of foam core in a shape that looked vaguely ecclesiastical and one neighbor asked if he was Saint Patrick. Someone else wanted to know if he was Gumby (who, if memory serves, is actually blue).

This year I'm going to have Johnny Appleseed (the big one) and a triceratops (the little one). Our costumes are always homemade and tend toward the simplistic and abstract rather than the ornate and literal. My philosophy is, "If you think you look like a dinosaur, than you do."

So other Mothertalkers - what kinds of costumes are happening at your homes? And how do you handle the onslaught of candy? Given that my oldest just ate so many sweets during a weekend visit at my sister's house it made him throw up, I think I'll be monitoring his intake pretty closely.

Just the person I want to hear from (not!): A spokeswoman for the National Confectioners Association -- this would also be the dentists’ association arch nemesis -- just released a list of the top 10 “U.S. Candy Destinations,” based on consumer polls. I am obsessed with chocolate and have my own Halloween stash apart from my children -- so I was salivating.

These sweet gems, according to CandyUSA.org, are the following:

1.) Hershey, Pa. -- Yes, that Hershey. It is home to Hershey’s Chocolate World and apparently even has a chocolate treatment at the Spa At The Hotel Hershey. Both Hersheypark and Hershey’s Chocolate World are hosting trick-or-treaters the last two weekends in October.

2.) New York, N.Y. -- It is home to M&M’s World, the 16-story Hershey’s Time Square store, Jacques Torres Chocolate café and Dylan’s Candy Bar. Of course, since it is the big city, you can find candy on every street corner!

3.) Orlando, Fla. -- Downtown Disney includes a myriad of whimsical candy, ice-cream and soda shops and a replica of San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.

4.) San Francisco, Calif. -- The city boasts the real Ghirardelli Square. Also, it is home to the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory, the Jelly Belly factory and touts the world’s largest Pez dispenser. (Yes, it really works!)

5.) Chicago, Ill. -- Home to more than 100 candy manufacturers, Chi-town offers a taste for every trick-or-treater, including the five famous Ethel’s Chocolate Lounges and the free treats handed out at the The Chicago Chocolate Tour.

6.) Los Angeles, Calif. -- There is Disneyland’s Candy Palace as well as the nearby Godiva Chocolatier, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and See’s Candies factory. (Godiva...mmm. Enter Homer Simpson's voice here.)

When I was childless and carefree, Halloween didn't require much thought. Maybe I'd have some candy in case some kids stopped by, and I'd get a pumpkin, but there was no pressure.

And it stayed that way ... until my daughter hit school age. Now she knows all about Halloween, when it is, and what we do about it.

Guess what, Moms - it's only two weeks to Halloween. If we're doing something, now's the time.

Recently, CookieMag.com had an online poll, which showed 45 percent of its readers were more concerned about sugar overload than the safety of their children’s Halloween candy. Eighteen percent of the respondents admitted to tossing out their children’s candy after trick-or-treating.

This made me think of my mother who would closely examine our candy with the tip of a steak knife and throw out all unwrapped candy -- the latter I still do. I smiled as I thought of the silly urban myths my parents believed: razor blades in apples and needles in candy.

Well it turns out that it’s -- true. I looked it up on urban legend debunker Snopes.com:

Unlike Halloween poisonings, many cases of tampered trick-or-treat loot involving the insertion of pins, needles, or razor blades have been documented.

To my mind, these cases constitute a different class of tampering than poisoning for a couple of reasons. First, the expected level of harm is severely reduced: poison is an attempt to kill; a pin in an apple is an attempt to frighten or injure. Professor Joel Best reported that he’s been able to track about eighty cases of sharp objects in food incidents since 1959, and almost all were hoaxes. Only about ten culminated in even minor injury, and in the worst case, a woman required a few stitches. Compared to “eat something and die,” a couple of stitches barely registers on the scale.

Second, the motivation for “pins and needles” tampering is different. As I said before, poison is an attempt to kill, but hiding a needle in an apple is almost always a prank, not a serious attempt to cause harm. (In those instances where such an insertion could be traced back to a specific person, it was almost always some kid intent on freaking out either his little brother or his parents or getting the community in an uproar as his version of a cute Halloween “trick.”) Pranking (especially when it’s a scary or slightly mean one) is part of Halloween, and the various kids or young adults who’ve tampered with the treats most likely never fully considered the potential consequences of the joke prior to embarking on it. (When presented with a matchless opportunity to throw a scare into a pesky kid brother, who stops to think that Junior might get hurt?)

An incident that broke with this expected pattern occurred in Minneapolis in 2000, when 49-year-old James Joseph Smith was charged with one count of adulterating a substance with intent to cause death, harm or illness after it was determined he’d put needles in Snickers bars and handed them out to children on Halloween. A 14-year-old boy was pricked by a needle hidden in a bar he’d bitten into, but no one required medical attention.

Smith’s actions don’t sound like a childish prank to me. Scary.