Thursday, November 1, 2007

The Morning After


I must confess: I was in a bit of a quandry this year about Halloween. By October 30th, I had no costumes for the boys, no ideas of fun things to do with them, no carved pumpkins, and no energy. But I had plenty of stress about the whole thing and the fact that there was nothing planned.





After a quick pow-wow with my ever-understanding husband--who also recognizes the importance of my avoiding additional stress right now--we decided to boycott the holiday this year. I sat the boys down on Halloween morning and told them that instead of doing the sugar-high thing this year, we would have a family night, complete with "mummy pizzas" (english muffins with sliced olives for eyes and shredded mozzarella for their "wraps"), spider web cupcakes, and a rented movie with popcorn. Reese clapped his hands. Cole was less than thrilled.




Thus followed a long conversation where I tried desperately to explain the reasoning behind doing something different this year. The end result was that Cole was just so disappointed to not get to dress up and go out somewhere. He suggested a compromise ("option three; not ideal") of he and Reese dressing up in clothes they already had and going trick-or-treating just to the neighbor's houses--meaning they could get a couple of little candies, but not bucket-fulls. They readily agreed to coming home as SOON as Dad said they had enough. I felt this was a fair suggestion, and Justin and I conceded. So our "pared-down" holiday this year included not only the trick-or-treating, but the mummies, and the cupcakes, AND the promised movie ("win/win/win!"). I laughed when I crawled into bed that night----for all of my good intentions, did I just raise the bar for next year?




Here they are in their self-made outfits. Cole dressed up in army attire and Reese put on a black sweatshirt and pants, the cape Justin made him for his birthday last year, a huge brown pirate belt, and grabbed his nerf gun. "What are you?" we asked. "Darth Vader!" was the answer. Of note: the amazing thing is that at one of the houses, an older woman answered the door and said, "Oh, look, it's an army man, and Darth Vader!" The boys didn't think twice about it, but Justin said his jaw about hit the floor!

3 comments:

  1. Kim~

    I'm so impressed, I agree that the costumes however last min. turned out great! So good to hear from you and to know you are in the "blog family"! Your boys are so adorable and so big, and so obviously boys! We're in the land of pink and princesses around here so I laugh when I see "the other side" b/c it truly is different! Boys are great! (of course girls are too). Thanks for the congrats and we'll keep in touch!

    Lynne

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  2. I love the idea of having your KIDS be in charge of creating their own costumes! All moms should do that. Kids need to use their imaginations and moms need less stress. Amen? :) I also love it that Cole felt he could ask you to consider a compromise. Good negotiating skills that will help him in the future no doubt. Great job parenting Justin and Kim! :) Love ya, Kristie

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