I want my holidays to be filled with family traditions. I spent a lot of time planning and creating Halloween events for my family while working hard to monitor my own expectations. Sometimes I can get a little out of control with my planning and the way I think the event will go in my head.
For example, I enrolled the biscuit in gymnastics at the age of 3. I was hoping to avoid the gender stereotypes. I pictured me cheering him on as he did flips and somersaults. I thought of how he might make friends with one of the other little boys in the class-and maybe we would go to the park and I could watch them play while I sipped Starbucks and chatted with his mother. The reality was the Biscuit was the oldest boy in class full of cute 18 month-2 year old girls in tutus. We went right after his daycare. I spent the entire time sweating as he got up, wiggled, had difficulty following directions, and would run away from the group. The most social interaction I got with the other mothers was pointed glares at my misbehaving boy. Now I’m traumatized and we haven’t done any “specialty programming” since.
Anyhow, right before Halloween, the biscuit ended up with a horrible cough. We took him into the doctor and she recommended that we skip trick or treating. Ummmmm…….what? Does she have kids? I started asking everyone I know, consulting Facebook, even strangers trying to figure out a plan for Halloween day.
I made a parenting decision and decided to take him out bundled up. He seemed to be feeling better and I knew he could have the weekend to sleep and recover. We started with a plan to go to 5 houses which increased to 10 and then 11. The Biscuit offered to draw me a map but then decided against it since he didn’t know everyone’s names in our neighborhood. We got home and counted his candy-he got 50 pieces.
I made a special Halloween meal that he liked this year!
One of the skills that I lack-that I want to teach my son, is self control. So when he asked how many pieces he could eat, I said he could eat as much candy as he wanted-until Monday when the Halloween fairy would come to collect his candy and leave a small gift. I wasn’t kidding about my lack of self control. He spent about a half an hour choosing candies, putting them back, debating himself on which ones he should eat-candies he liked or candies he’d never tried before. He ended up eating 11 candies on Halloween night. That is a lot of candy-especially when eaten at such a fast rate. I decided I would assist him with toothbrushing until the Halloween fairy came. But then he was better. He ate 4 pieces on Saturday and none on Sunday. When he came home today and realized the Halloween fairy had been here he was super excited and ran around the house with his new small lego set I picked up on clearance.
I think I did okay. But I still worry. I worry that I get to stressed out, that I don’t give him enough time, that we should do more activities. This video gives me some comfort. Even when we are doing things wrong, our kids still love us.
A New Perspective For Moms from Elevation Church on Vimeo.
How about you? What things did you do on your Halloween?
That was the most amazing video. I have tears in my eyes and will be sending the link to all my friends who feel they aren’t good enough moms! Thank you for the reminder.