Halloween Revisited

I had no idea the disdain I would in elicit response to my lack of enthusiasm for Halloween. I feel compelled to defend myself so that you all can stop planning the years of therapy you seem to think my daughter will need as a result of her parent's negligence for not ushering Halloween in with a party bigger than the one celebrated in honor of the birth of our Savior.

Am I redeemed by the fact that Daughter has had her Halloween costume for a month now? That I was probably the first person to buy one as soon as the hit the Stuff Mart shelf in response to Daughter's excitement? Am I redeemed by stating that our plan this year was to take Daughter to the mall for indoor trick or treating since we live in the country now and we would have to drive into town anyway and didn't want to run around after dark in the streets with our 4 year old and 22 months old. Am I redeemed in saying that this was our plan despite the expectation to have to take all of Daughter's candy away from her because she wouldn't be able to eat it? That if she really wanted to go trick or treating and this was the only way, we would do it? Am I redeemed in saying that our hesitation in how we expose her to this holiday is further rooted in the horrific experience we unintentionally exposed her to a couple years ago by taking her to a community Halloween party in which not a single bit of candy was offered that didn't have a peanut warning and in which we waited 40 minutes with her to have a turn to jump in the bounce house only for her to turn around just before it was her turn and see the kid behind her wearing a Scream mask that stirred a response from her of panic stricken fear and crying and screaming followed by weeks of nightmares?

Will I invite further judgment on my failure as a mother if I explain that this year, we decided that rather than following our original plan to take Daughter trick or treating at the mall, we will spend the holiday at a church party where she will get to wear her costume but where there probably will not be any costumes that scare her, and that she will get to play fun games and win candy (most of which we will still have to take away from her anyway), but at least she will enjoy the concept of it.

It's a sad day when a person is deemed a failure as a parent for not enthusiastically engaging their young children in a holiday that celebrates death, ghosts, and demons.

Fall Tradition

Dear Daughter's favorite holiday, next to Christmas, is Halloween. I don't know why she has a fascination with this holiday. I, personally, hate it. I'm not excited about all the candy. It's not only unhealthy for your body and your teeth, but with Daughter's peanut allergy, it make it a serious health scare. Nearly EVERY chocolate candy has a peanut warning on it whether or not it is intended to contain peanuts or nuts of any sort, as equipment is shared between candy intended to contain nuts and candy intended not to. Daughter loves chocolate, and it is miserable to sort through her candy and tell her over and over again that she cannot have it.

I also hate the costumes. It creeps me out to see people, even kids, dressed up as ghouls and demons. Daughter has never gone trick or treating because the costumes creeped her out and scared her at a Halloween party we took her to one year. I figured it would only be worse running around outside in the dark. Dear Husband and I have our own Halloween traditions. Before the wee ones came along, we would go out on Halloween so that we didn't have to be home to hand out candy and further the cause of this stupid holiday. Since the kids have been born, we just turn out all the lights and hide inside. We've never had anyone ring the doorbell with the lights out.

Nonetheless, Daughter is entranced with this holiday. A couple weeks ago she found Halloween cake decorations while shopping with me at the Stuff Mart, and she talked and nagged about making Halloween cupcakes until we finally did it. Her expression in this picture is not even a "pose." She just looked this way the whole time we worked on this project!

One activity we do enjoy in October is going to a local pumpkin farm. We enjoy a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. Here is Dear Son scouting for one. Seems kind of funny that there is absolutely no pumpkins to be seen in the picture. There were pumpkins there, though.

Then we take the pumpkins back to one of the tents for Daughter to paint one.








Son got in on the painting fun this year, too. Check out that expression of pure concentration on his face.






Then we take in a magic show put on by one of the entertaining clowns. This year Daughter volunteered herself for one of the acts.





Later Daughter gets her face painted by the same clown.




















And the kids also get balloon animals made by a clown.

Daughter's favorite part every year for the past three years has been the inflatable jumping house. She has to revisit it at least three or four times before we end our visit to the farm.

This year we were remarking that the whole experience has gotten rather expensive with the price of admission increasing generously each year we've gone and many of the activities costing additional money. And of course they always rip you off good with the cost of refreshments. We were thinking that we now have the space at our own small country acreage to plant a pumpkin patch, recruit a few clowns, and charge $7.50 a head to enter.

It was just shy of 90 degrees at this year's visit to the pumpkin farm. As wrong as this is, it's not unusual. I prefer my Fall activities to feel like Fall and not like Summer. Surely the fact that it's been this hot two out of the three past years we've visited the pumpkin patch doesn't suggest that Al Gore is right after all.

Point of Reference

I've been curious lately about what life was like when Daughter was the age Son currently is. So I paged back in this blog to June '05 to see what I was writing about her when she was 22 months of age. Since she was my first child, I didn't fully realize just how precocious she was (and still is). My friends with their own children this age or nieces and nephews this age told me Daughter was a "genius." The workers in the church nursery told me she was the smartest baby they had ever seen. I didn't really know what they were talking about. The only baby I'd ever really known was my girl.

At 22 months, she was correctly labeling all the primary colors as well as orange, pink, brown, black, gold, etc. She could also consistently count to 5 correctly and some of the time count to 10 but tended to get 7 and 9 mixed up. She consistently knew that 11 and then 12 follow 10.

She knew all the major shapes (circle, square, star, triangle) as well as oval, rectangle, and even pentagon!

It was around this time that she began completing her entire wooden alphabet puzzle in a matter of minutes, though she didn't yet say all the letter names and instead referenced them by the phonetic object for which they stood (i.e. the letter "h" was called "hat").

She could sing, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" correctly from beginning to end and excerpts from "Lullaby and Goodnight." And before turning 23 months she was potty trained.

Son is no dummy, to be sure. However, he doesn't get the same intense one on one tutoring that daughter got simply because she was the one and only at that time. At not quite 22 months, he correctly identifies and verbalizes circle, square, star, triangle. He can do about 8 letters consistently correct with this alphabet puzzle. He's just begun to speak in sentences and "near sentences" that are more like two word phrases. He hasn't begun to sing words yet, but sings little melodies of nonsense syllables (thanks to a goofy habit I have when I'm just about the house). He correctly identifies the colors yellow and orange and sometimes gets blue, green, black. He wants nothing to do with the potty except to say, "potty!" when his sister goes and to squat on his stool and pretend to potty. He won't squat on his real potty, though. If I try to place his naked buns on his toddler-sized throne, he stands rigid and screams "Britches! Britches!" until I put his britches back on.

He does have a wicked overhand throw, which is something that Daughter didn't grasp until much later, and he is trying to jump, which looks more like a squat to a quick stand followed by the stomping of his foot. He's been doing this for months.

While he is still very much on track, I feel a bit guilty like I've been neglecting him in relation to the focus Daughter got on a constant one on one basis. She always wanted to learn and chose the activities that centered around cognitive development. I just followed her lead. Son has too many distractions. There are far more toys between the two of them than there were in the house when Daughter was his age. Now I have two to chase around, and my attention requires division. I haven't failed, I know that. Daughter is a prodigy of sorts, and it's not fair to compare--not that it would be fair if she wasn't a prodigy of sorts. And I understand that girls tend to be much more verbally advanced while boys tend to excel more in the motor development at this age. Nevertheless, I have to battle the little voice in my head that says I am not nurturing his cognitive development enough...especially after reviewing the reference point that started this whole guilt trip, though a guilt trip was not at all intended.

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I got to hold Dear Son tonight until he fell asleep. I got to feel the weight of his body against my chest and feel his sleepy baby sighs. I got to feel his little toddler-sized muscles relaxing and twitching and hear his tiny breaths grow deeper. I got to smell his baby smell and feel his fuzzy hair against my cheek. His contentment to simply be held was warm and comforting for me. I couldn't help imagining a day when his tiny little body is no longer tiny, but tall and solid and larger than my own, and so I held him a little closer and a little longer tonight and focused on being thankful for such moments as these. His "little" body is now big enough that it is quite difficult to lift him, while sleeping, over the crib rail. His feet dangle low and bump against it. And he is heavy enough now that it is quite difficult to lay him gingerly against his mattress. Instead, it's a bit clumsy and awkward. Nonetheless, I cherish the moments that will soon evaporate into distant memories.

Shall We Go For Three?

You may remember the first trip to the Food Mart that I described about a month ago. You may remember the second trip to the Food Mart that I described shortly after that. Once again, I tried to outsmart the two members of my household who are under the age of five. I strategically packed one Snacktrap of Teddy Grahams and one SnackTrap of Goldfish for the weekly outing to the Food Mart. Oooooo, did I feel cunning. I quickly envisioned all the possibilities that would come to pass and how smooth and in control I would be in any case. When Son spied the Teddy Grahams placed on the shelf that is at perfect two-year-old line of sight at the Food Mart, I would whip out the SnackTrap already filled with the coveted treats. When we rounded the next corner and his eyes landed on a randomly placed shelf of Goldfish crackers on an end cap, I would save the day with the other pre-planned cup filled with the same. I had outsmarted them this time, I was sure.

We wandered the store, me in no big hurry and suffering no anxiety over which route to choose through the store to avoid any specific kiddie approved munchables. The only two my kids had indulged in for the past months were the two with which I had come prepared. At the moment, Son was happy with his "fishies." And that's when it all fell apart. I turned my back for a split second and that is when Son started squealing with delight. The first thought that zipped through my mind is what he could have possibly gotten his chubby fingers on, as he was still sitting in the cart. I turned to see Daughter proudly holding high in the air a box of animal crackers. She was doing a little happy dance not unlike the one Son does in the same circumstance. Son was squealing like a freshly stuck little piggy with his arms outstretched and his fingers wiggling with the itch to dive into the box.

Animal crackers. The kids have not been interested in animal crackers for about as long as I can remember. Of course, upon returning home, the box took its place on the shelf next to two stale boxes of Teddy Grahams. *sigh* They plot these things together; it's a conspiracy and I am sure of it. It's a game they have established just to see how many ways they can rattle me.

Son's Sentiments

Thanks to everyone who dropped me a validating comment or email or other communication in response to my previous post. I appreciate the support and disclosures of having "been there." Motherhood is a roller coaster. Some of the time you are chugging to get to the top of that hill all the while feeling that anxiety in the pit of your stomach that comes with knowing you are on the brink of plunging back down to the bottom. Then you are whipped around a bunch of curves at breakneck speed before you can see what's coming, only to find yourself chugging up the hill again. It's a wild ride full of thrills, you can't prepare for it, and it's never boring. It's anxiety provoking, stress instilling, and unpredictable. And once you start the ride, you can't get off until you either reach the end of the rail or plunge to your death in the midst of it. Some days it's a difficult decision: whether to ride it out or just jump.

Now, back to the monkey business.

He's talking. Really really talking. Sentences are beginning to spew from his little lips. About three weeks ago it began with an excited greeting at the end of a long day, "Mommy home!" followed by running into my arms and wrapping all his appendages around my body. It's a great way to end a long day at work. He also says, "Daddy home!" of course, but we already know he worships the ground Daddy walks on and Mommy is an okay second, so let me glory in my glories here.

Other sentences include "More choklit!" which is really not about chocolate at all, but about the dried and sweetened dates I recently bought that he calls chocolate. Of course this is generalizing to "More (you fill in the blank with endless options)." "Mommy, hold yas!" is another one, accompanied by arms held up in the expectant pose.

Vocabulary, in general, is bursting with communications such as "Happened?" which of course means, "What happened?" "Why?" which he has been asking about pretty much everything for weeks or maybe even months. Of course, this originated with his just-turned-four-year-old sister. "Aha!" is also a recent one that he got from his sister. It is used in the context of finding some neat random "treasure" lying around the house, as if he just found the single one thing that he's been searching his whole little life to find.

And Daughter? Well Daughter is 24 lessons into the Kindergarten math curriculum we just started roughly four weeks ago. She is complaining to me that this stuff is for younger kids as it is too easy for her. She is also starting to read. Am I bragging? Yeah, I guess. But only because she comes up with this stuff on her own. I don't push her, I let her lead, and I nurture her in the directions she goes. And she won't be allowed to start Kindergarten in the local public school until she's six because she misses the age cutoff deadline by three days. Not that I expect the public school system to challenge her much regardless.

So cut me some slack; it's been awhile since I bragged on my kids. If you're not doting family, you can roll your eyes and yawn.

Momentary Lapse

A couple evenings ago I had a moment that felt like the first signs of an emergence from a coma I've been in for over four years. I wanted to scream to the world that there is still a person alive somewhere in the depths of my soul that is identified by characteristics other than those related to having birthed two human beings from my loins. I wanted to scream it to the world, but mostly I wanted to scream it to myself. The coma, though, was so. very. thick. It was like gasping for a breath of air while flailing in the deep water to keep from drowning. And then going under. I wanted to feel again like I felt when it was only me. I wanted a taste again of how it felt to be free and random and have it be all about me. I wanted to burst through the surface of the water gasping for air and then find my way ashore.

I was driving somewhere. Alone. No offspring in the car controlling the music that came out of the speakers. I turned it up to something only an adult could enjoy. I turned it up loud. I opened the sun roof and felt the warm air in my hair and on my face. I drove a little too fast. I considered just driving anywhere but nowhere. The brief illusion of freedom beckoned me, and I could almost remember a day when driving alone with the sun roof open and the music too loud was routine. Normal. I could almost remember. Almost. But not quite. I missed feeling well acquainted with myself--with the parts of me that are only me. I felt confused about who I am now. Not sorry. Not regretful. Only confused.

Something about motherhood depletes a person. Many people talk of what they gain from motherhood...the warm snugglies, the wonder and awe, the inherent and rich rewards that are many. I've talked of these things, too. I've talked of them often and much more frequently than I've talked of most other things. The benefits of motherhood are all true. But true also is the taboo truth of admitting to getting lost in the process, the weariness of being unselfish, of giving, of giving, of giving. True also is the exhaustion of meeting everyone else's needs before one's own, and the frustration and defeat of being too tired once everyone else's needs are met to follow through with meeting one's own, the longing to escape, the guilt. Good mommies don't feel these things. At least if they do, they don't say them.

Once I've fought hard enough to gain a glimpse that is the tiniest memoir of "me," I am exhausted again. Numb. The drone of life continues outside me as I return to the zombie-like state that has become motherhood.

Life Interrupted

"It's stressful being four!" Dear Daughter announced today on one of her outings with Dear Husband. Indeed. Being the parent of a stressful four year old is frequently no picnic either! I think this is payback for the fact that the two's really weren't at all terrible for us. It also explains why I've called my husband at work on at least two occasions recently and begged him to hurry home ASAP following his workday, and why when he arrived I was found curled up in a fetal position in the corner mumbling unintelligibly and appearing unaware of anything around me. Of course, Dear Son, while cuter than a bug's ear, is at a stage now that I remember being stressful when his big sis was there, too. So I get it double duty.

Amazing that in spite of the stress, I find myself waxing melancholic about the kids growing up. Last night I pulled a safety plug from an electrical outlet so that I could plug in the vacuum cleaner, and I had this overwhelming ache in my gut when I thought of how a day would come when I would no longer need to plug electrical outlets as Dear Son will outgrow his fascination with attempting to plug random objects into them.

Tonight I had my second private jacuzzi bath since moving into our new home. Usually I have to share my bath with two naked, wiggly monkeys. There I was soaking in the jets, enjoying the cranberry orange scented candle light, listening to an ocean CD while gazing at a picture poster of Heceta Head lighthouse. I felt a little home sick for a place that wasn't ever my native home. I closed my eyes, lost in the memory of my first date with Dear Husband. We sat on an ocean cliff in front of Heceta Head lighthouse and watched the sunset. Way better than dinner and a movie any night. I suddenly felt like I wasn't alone in the room, and I opened my eyes to see my four year old daughter grinning down at me, followed by her begging to allow her to join me in the jacuzzi. I convinced her to let me have my own bath time for awhile and she could have hers a bit later. I settled back into my daydreams only to have the bathroom door slowly open again and found myself greeted by my fuzzy haired, towheaded cherub of a 21-month-old son, who toddled up to the edge of the tub and started yanking at his clothes and chanting, "Bath! Bath!" Somehow I convinced him to also leave his weary mommy alone for awhile longer, and he toddled back out the door, closing it carefully behind him. I sighed with the mixed emotion of coveting those long-lost carefree childless days, years even, of wandering along the rugged Oregon coastline-just my husband and I-while simultaneously thinking that there is nothing better in this world than parenting my spirited four-year-old and adventurous 21-month-old despite the dramatic way it has altered our lives.

And with that, I'll boast a few photos of the stress-inducing darlings.

As you can see, "Princess Four-Year-Old" continues to sport her birthday crown two months later. It goes on her head at sun up and doesn't come back off until her head hits her bedtime pillow. People ask her daily if it's her birthday.

I must share a picture of Dear Son sporting his strong overhand throw. He already throws better than I do, and he loves to throw a ball and chase it and throw it again.






















And where DID he get that towhead blond hair anyway? Husband and I both sport a head full of near black.


One last photo I couldn't resist taking today. Husband was getting a little extra help changing the oil in the family mobile.