Tonight, I took the night off.

Nope, I didn’t get a babysitter.

I didn’t leave Sienna home with her daddy while I went out alone.

I didn’t trick her and put her to bed at 5pm so I could have an evening off.

We went out as a family.  Sienna’s aunt, my sister, invited us out to a Halloween party tonight.

Sienna usually has a strict bedtime of 7pm.  This party didn’t start until 5:30 and it was an hour and 15 minutes away.  On a Sunday night.  So we would normally decline and continue with our usual routine.

But it’s almost Halloween…  perhaps my all-time favorite holiday.

We’ve been working really really hard…

Sienna’s been going through a bunch of FOP flare-ups…

And we moved back east to be near family anyways…

So we went.   We broke out Sienna’s ladybug costume a few days early and we went.

It was awesome.  Good food, good company, lots of little munchkins dressed up in costume and running wild.

Normally we would do everything in our power to keep Sienna sitting safely at a table.  (any bump or bruise could cause irreversible damage with FOP).  We bring crayons, markers, our phones, her kindle fire…  And we either skip dessert or limit her to one choice.  (FOP flare-ups are inflammation and sugar is an inflammatory food so we try to limit it without being total stick-in-the-muds)

Tonight, it was a buffet dinner and Sienna wanted to eat a lot of sweets.  And we let her.  Candy corn on the same plate as her chicken?  Yep.  A marshmallow with her macaroni?  No problem.  The frosting of three cupcakes?  No comment…

And tonight, Sienna wanted to dance.  Sienna’s cousins and all of the other kids were boogie-ing the night away on the dance floor, and Sienna was so excited to join them.  So we let her.  (note that that means I boogied with her within arm’s reach.  It was a hard wood dance floor, after all, but we enjoyed the moment.)

Sienna even invented a new dance move called the ladybug flap.  It’s pretty self explanatory.  You flap your arms to the music and laugh hysterically.

At any moment, one of those wild munchkins could have barreled right into her, but I kept my mom radar up and thankfully she stayed safe.