Halloween 2012

Noah told me that it would be the worst day ever in his life and he would probably die if Halloween was cancelled. Considering what was going on on the rest of the east coast I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for him when he said. I may have over-lectured him a bit on why it wouldn't be the end of the world if Halloween didn't happen. He wasn't buying it. In fact, I think he completely tuned me out after about ten seconds.

As it turned out our township did postpone trick or treating until Saturday afternoon. I wasn't home when I saw the notice, so I texted our neighbor to see if she had heard. She always seems to know what is going on since she actually talks to the rest of the neighbors, unlike me. 

Apparently our development has a Facebook page and the moms decided to give the township the middle finger and put an end to our kids insanity and let the trick or treating commence as it should.

The smart kids that knew it had been postponed immediately figured out that meant they could go trick or treating twice this year! Curses on the neighbor child that enlightened Noah with that news. No candy at our house for you x 2!*

However, our neighborhood children (and dare I say many "undocumented" neighbor children if the empty vans on the side of the streets meant anything) in all that was sugar and frightening, successfully accomplished their extortion of candy.

I seriously thought the excitement built up inside my two children was going to create a spontaneous combustion before we even started. Fortunately they both survived the forced eating of dinner and the wait until the neighbors started to come outside.
 

 

Blue Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sans shell and a Navy Vampire Seal.

Both boys did great this year with the actual trick or treating. Kiel is a doorbell ringing, trick or treat yelling pro (remind me to tell you about the ding dong dash incident I caught him at a few days ago). Noah was a great big brother and had a super attitude. None of the problems we had the last couple years with the general surly and demanding attitude. Rich and I were able to just hang back and let them do their thing.

Ready to get started

We had a spider theme going on this year. Maybe next year I'll actually get all the stuff I spent the last couple weeks making outside.Noah spent many hours getting the spider webs just right.

Mom, can I eat this? Please?

  I think Kiel's joy was as much in the actual gathering of the candy as it was in the eating of it. He was told he could have three pieces and he was quite fine with that. He hasn't asked for more since then. (I figure that's a good thing considering I have his bag sitting next to me as I write this. I'm pretty sure he didn't actually count how many Snickers were in his bag.)

We carved the pumpkins on Saturday. Kiel is not a fan of pumpkin guts.

Noah thought I was brilliant turning his pink pumpkin into a rat hotel and Kiel's green pumpkin into a multi-mouthed vampire pumpkin.

This was my statement pumpkin. It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted. By Wednesday night part of the left side had collapsed inward, totally removing any possible ability to identify it.

A successful and enjoyable evening was had by all.  :)

*We will not be trick or treating twice. Sadly our front porch will not hold any buckets of candy on Saturday. Mommy is mean. And cheap.

My hiding skills are enviable.

This really isn't about Halloween. 

Or poop. 

OK, maybe it is a little bit about Halloween. 

But just the candy. 

We like candy in the MNT family. We really do. But not a one of us really needs candy. Nope.

So after the big night, we put the candy away and the boys can earn a couple pieces of candy after dinner if they have exhibited good behavior. 

The reality is that after a few nights of this they tend to forget the candy exists. Or, Noah has a few days of bad behavior and he doesn't get any, so the cycle is broken. And the candy stays put away either until Rich eats it or throws it away (after he has eaten all the good stuff). I just eat the Snickers.

Actually, not just put away, but hidden. Because they are kids, and when it comes to candy they can't be trusted. Hell, when it comes to candy, I can't be trusted. I can't be trusted with cake or cookies either, just FYI.

So the night of Halloween I hid it in our bedroom closet. I figured if Noah was going to go on a candy hunt the next morning I would be most likely to hear him if it was in my room. 

It worked, he didn't find it. In fact, it worked so well, that the next night when Rich looked at me and said let's check out the kids Halloween candy, I had to tell him we couldn't get it because I hid it in the bedroom. The bedroom where Kiel still sleeps (shut up!) and was wide awake!

So the next night the boys both earned their two pieces. I managed to uncover the candy without them seeing me, and they chose their little wrapped pieces of chocolate crack, and devoured them.

The bag ended up sitting on the dining room table until the next day. I noticed it about 30 minutes before Noah came home from school, so I went to hide it again, but thought "this time, I'm going to be smart, I won't hide it in the bedroom, I'll hide it so we can still get to it."

I looked around the dining room and saw the perfect place. The cupboard at the bottom of our china cabinet. The boys never go in there.

So I opened the door to the cabinet. And guess what I found? 

Yup, last years Halloween candy!

So much wasted chocolate. 

It makes us all a little sad.

Maybe I should have gone as Plato

I'll spare all y'all from another poop post tonight. Just know that everything is moving along as we had hoped. *snicker*

I intended on writing about this a couple days ago, but some shit got in my way. Literally. *snort*

Anyway...I wanted to comment a bit on Halloween.

Overall, it was fun. 

Kiel was adorable and sweet. And so excited! And as always, my sunshine. It didn't hurt that later in the evening he told me I was the best mommy in the whole world.

Noah made a great ninja. He has the whole routine down pat and would prefer we just left him alone to do his thing and stop slowing him down. There were no melt downs, which is a huge improvement from past years. There were a couple close calls, but we managed to tip toe around them. 

(Dayum but are we good at tip toeing around things with Noah to try and avert the melt downs.)

So it was all good you are thinking, what's the point of this post then?

Well you see, I have a problem. I have this compulsion. I believe the official name for it is "politeness." 

(My momma raised me to be polite, and damn it my children will be too.)

Except sometimes Noah isn't. Like on Halloween. When his focus is to get from house to house as quickly as possible while grabbing as much candy as he can get away with.

And that pisses Mommy off. Because damn if the neighbors are going to think she has raised little brats. Even if she is 1 for 2.

See, I had a hard time just letting Noah do his thing and accepting and understanding that Halloween is total fucking sensory overload for a kid like him. (Hell, probably for most kids.) Or that the sensory overload, combined with everything else that challenges Noah, may just make it difficult for him to slow down, make eye contact, and say "thank you" with unquestionable sincerity.

Especially when Mom is hovering a few feet away insisting that he make eye contact and say thank you. And telling him he is rude when he asks for more than one piece of candy. And insisting that an unsupervised bowl of candy on someones front porch is not an invitation to grab handfuls because no one is there to say he can't. Because I am saying he can't, and yes I do count, even if it isn't my porch, or my candy.

As I thought about it afterwards I mentioned my frustration to a wise friend of mine. Her response, which I have paraphrased a bit because it was four days ago and I can't freaking remember what I had for dinner last night so remembering exact words are beyond me, was something along the lines of "well duh, Halloween makes most kids a little crazy, just what made you think Noah was going to behave better than he does in the best of circumstances"

To which I went "huh." And mentally reminded myself that occasionally I am a real dumb ass when it comes to parenting Noah. (And don't waste your breath (or typing) saying I'm not. Because I am. It comes with the job. As parents we all screw up along the way. The important thing is we learn from it and try to do better the next time.)

So I've been thinking about it and wondering why I couldn't just let it go. In general he is a polite kid. We work on getting him to make eye contact, and I do have to remind him more often than I do Kiel, but considering how his brain is wired, I think he does OK. And Halloween is probably not the best occasion to use as a learning tool.

So why couldn't I just let him have his fun and stop pushing him?  

You know why? If I'm absolutely and completely honest, it is because I was embarrassed.  I was worried that the neighbors would assume I am a shitty parent because my son was asking for more than one piece of candy and mumbling thank you as he quickly turned away to run to the next house..

And that is fucking crazy on my part. Really, it is. 

Why do I care what they think? The truth is that I hardly know any of my neighbors. For a number of reasons, which I'm sure I've gone in to somewhere on this blog, I only know a couple by name, and a few more by sight. Why do I think they even give me or Noah a second thought? Or if they did think that, who cares? I never talk to them anyway. And if they think that then they don't know Noah or me, and again, who cares.

I worry far too much about what others think of Noah, and then assume that it is reflected back on me. 

This is my problem. It is NOT Noah's problem. He has enough of his own to work on. This is mine. 

Keep reminding me of that, OK?

Halloween may not have been a good time to teach Noah, but I think I may have learned something about myself.

I don't think it is going to be easy to change. It is after all fairly deeply engrained in me, which is a topic for another post at another time. But, I think acknowledgement is a step forward.

Baby steps, right?

Halloween through the eyes of an (almost) three year old.

I don't think Kiel could have been any cuter than he was this Halloween! That first year they get what trick or treating is all about is awesome.

You've got scary bats!

Cats that want to go with you.

  Cool pumpkins.

A pirate for a big brother

 that can show you the ropes.

 Door bells to ring.

 Neighbors to say "trick or treat" to.

And candy to take.

 And while your big brother is making more rounds with Daddy,

 you can check out the goods.

Because candy is SWEET! Just like me.

One last Halloween story

We were encouraged to go to karate class in costume on Saturday. We were promised a "valuable" prize for the best costume.

Being new and all I didn't want to be a party pooper and be the only one to show up without a costume.

So I thought and thought, and looked at all kinds of Halloween costume sites on line and found the perfect costume.  A costume that I could make myself and was the perfect combination of easy, cheap, required you to think a bit to "get it", was definitely on the verge of geeky, and was also one that I could still work out in.

And off I went to class with sponges safety pinned to my t-shirt.

Anyone know what I was? That didn't read it on Twitter?

Well, no one at karate could figure it out either.

And yes, I was the ONLY one there in costume.

I was also the only woman there in a class of about ten advanced belts that take their work out pretty seriously.

If you are picturing a short, round woman dressed in black except for the colorful sponges attached to her and the yellow belt tied around her ample middle, you have it pictured correctly.

Despite my embarrassment I made them guess what I was. I even gave some very good hints ("it's a play on words," "some might say it's a reflection of my character," "it has to do with what sponges do"). And still, no one figured it out, although there were some good guesses ("a suck up!", "your mind is like a sponge sucking up knowledge," "a dish washer") and some not so flattering ("Sponge Bob," "your body is like a sponge" from the you must not be married if you would say something like that to a woman dumbass biggest guy in the room, which is the only reason I let him get away with it, because like dude, I know karate!).

So if YOU didn't get it yet....

I was....

wait for it....

wait for it....

SELF-ABSORBED

I know, I crack myself up too.

The obligatory picture post from Halloween '09

We set the stage.

 And freed the bats.

 

 Carved some pumpkins.

 And lit the candles.

Wore the costumes.

Or not.

(Despite the adorable dragon costume I have for him.)

We scored some candy.

(Although it took a few houses to convince the non dragon that he was supposed to keep the candy and not give it to the next house we visited. Very adorable. As was him signing "thank you" to everyone!)

We ate the candy.

And boy was it good!

And then we all crashed in a sugar high!

Show and Tell - of the Halloween variety

Wow, I never realized just how busy Halloween was until I had a kid in elementary school!

First stop of the day was to take Kiel the Turtle to his daycare Halloween parade at 10am. I'm not quite sure what I had my camera set at, because none of the pictures look in focus. I did get some decent videos of him though.

Here's my little turtle who hated his turtle hat.

Here is Kiel with his favorite caregiver Marci.


And at 1:30 pm we hit Noah's parade. He's smack dab in the middle in his Iron Man costume.

(In between Kiel's parade and Noah's parade, Kiel and I had lunch with Daddy at the hospital.)

Then we got ready for trick or treating at home. My boys trick or treat in style!

Kiel thought the wagon was the best part of the night.

Here's my pumpkin display. I left the candy out on the honor system so I could go out trick or treating with my boys. Surprisingly we came back and there was still candy left in the bowl.

I had some great comments on my political pumpkins, although there were some people who couldn't tell the one pumpkin was Obama. I think the pumpkin shriveled a bit since I carved it on Wednesday, as it didn't look as clear to me either.

One little girl (about 7 or 8) was overheard saying she wasn't going to take candy from our house because we were voting for Obama. I thought that was pretty funny.

I was pleasantly surprised though to see that most of the older kids who stopped by when I was around got my statement and thought it was pretty cool. It was pretty neat to hear the discussions that some of them had as they were leaving.

All in all, Halloween 2008 was a success. No major meltdowns, no upset stomachs and every one got to bed at a fairly reasonable hour. But boy are Rich and I glad it is over for another year!