So our party went with a swing. Plenty of kids, about three times too much food. I've already breakfasted on rice crispie treats. And more. And I'm making strawberry cupcakes for a friend's birthday tonight.

Amusingly, ironically, moronically? Olivia over did it last night, and woke up with agonising stomach pains. She was screaming, and woke Bodhi, who joined in the screaming. I gave her a remedy and the screaming stopped, but she was still insisting they were getting worse. She looked like she was settling back down but was still insistent that she was in agony. I'd recently used up the bottle of Calpol I bought for her as a teething baby, so I couldn't recourse to that. Ugh. Because she's been complaining of stomach pain for the last long time, I figured maybe we should go to the doctor. Against my better judgement. I wanted to sit, and wait and see what the remedy did, repeat the dose, but she wasn't co operative. She got teary and insisted she was ok after I got her dressed, but that was just doctor fear. Getting into the car she said her heart was beating so hard - it turns out she heard me tell my MIL (who came to look after Bodhi) that I was dropping her down to the doctor, and she thought I said dropping her off. I didn't realise til we were half way there, and she asked me would she have to stay long. Oh, the heartbreak of children's unspoken fears. The little tentative questions. I remember being at the zoo when my brother was small. He saw a beautiful blue and yellow feather in a little fenced off grassy bit. My father told him to jump in and get it. He stopped half way over the little railing, and looked up, asking 'there's nothing dangerous in here, is there?' as if we were sending him in with tigers. But he was almost in before he checked, despite his worries. It kills me. The uncertainty, the unassertiveness of learning your way round the world. And the worst thing is, that they don't know how fallible we adults are.

Though in this case, I was stupid, I should have sat it out. Seventy euro to be told I could give her some Calpol. Still, it wasn't appendicitis, I suppose it was worth ascertaining that. But groan. And as I didn't want to get into the remedy thing, I had this cheerful child without any evident pain in the surgery, the yawning doctor no doubt thinking I have Munchausen's Syndrome or something.

So of course Bodhi was up half the night. Especially after Olivia finally vomited the over indulgence all over her bed, and I had to get up and change everything, with Bodhi tagging round after me, wailing.

Still, I got half an hour or so of sitting happy with my cheese puffs and Stargate, letting the success of the day wash around me and relaxing.

We went trick or treating afterwards, Bodhi saw fireworks and said Ohhhhhh to them, and we went to the neighbours and Olivia did her 'Five Little Pumpkins' poem, with actions, at every door step - beautifully. Someone gave Bodhi a mini Moro and he held it clutched in his fist, triumphant, all the way home and beyond.