This year was the first time my family celebrated Halloween with my 3-year-old. The past two years, she was just too young to enjoy it. She went back and forth about 10 times with her outfit choice (just like her mother), but finally, we landed on Flo the Floogal (a new cartoon on Sprout). Unfortunately, because the cartoon is so new, there were no ‘out-of-the-box’ Floogal costumes to be found. I tried my best to piece one together, but my efforts were pointless. Instead, I just bought a Toy Story Buzz Lightyear outfit and helmet and told her to let people know she was a Floogal. Surprisingly, she agreed and was happy. So every place we went; dance recital, gymnastics, etc, I could hear her say — “no I’m a Floogle, my name is Flo.” sometimes the kids understood, sometimes they didn’t, but she didn’t care. She was having fun!
Fast forward to last night — Halloween. We got together with some longtime friends and our girls went trick-o-treatin together. For one hour, two little girls, a silly shark, and Buzz Lightyear/Flo the Floogal rang doorbells and got candy. Shrikes of excitement came out every time they found a new house to attack. Of course, they didn’t want to stop until they filled their pumpkin baskets with candy to the very top. We began our walk back home. The girls walked a bit ahead and I was chatting with other mom. Suddenly, we came upon this spooky house. I have to say that was putting it lightly, it was beyond spooky. Dead electric bodies everywhere moving around, people tied up with rope to trees, scary music, and blood. It actually looked like a massacre. The girls saw it first and started screaming and crying.
Mistake #1
I was stuck for the next 10 minutes explaining how the massacre is not real, just fake machines, even though it did look pretty real. Ugh. Ok, next. Finally, we were headed home to now eat some candy, Um, Great, good old candy. I just hate that word so much. I mean it would be one thing if our candy was made of a real, natural ingredient like, let’s say — pure cane sugar. That would be fine. But of course, our candy is loaded up with preservatives, dyes, and harmful chemicals.
Still not sure why Americans don’t care about this??? Can anyone shed some light here?
So not only do I have to worry about my three-year-old eating sugar; but junky, addictive, crappy, mood altering, cancer causing sugar. Wow, this holiday is getting even better! Being the cool mom, I lifted my shitty candy ban for one night and let her indulge in a few items with her friends as I looked away.
Mistake #2
We eventually ventured home and sat down for a late dinner. I gave my daughter some soup, turned around to get some for myself and I heard a loud BANG! What was that!? My daughter, usually a wonderful kid, turned the entire bowl of soup upside down on her table and pushed her table across the floor. Like she was possessed. I’ll spare you all the details but some evil words came out of her mouth which caused an immediate bath and bedtime. 10 mins later, she was fast asleep. Thank goodness, I thought. She’ll sleep off this shitty candy and spooky stuff and we can start tomorrow, a new day!
Fast asleep around 11pm, I heard my daughter screaming. I ran into her room just to find her eyes shut and locked in a deep sleep. She was having nightmares. For the first time ever. She is usually such a peaceful sleeper. I woke up again about 1pm, but this time to a little body standing over my bed asking if she could sleep with us. Again, unusual. “Ok, I said,” she hopped into bed with us. But she did not sleep for the entire night. Not one wink. Hopped-up on shitty candy and spooked from the house. She was a mess. A complete mess. My husband decided to move to the basement so that at least one of us could get some sleep. No sleep for me. No sleep for her.
I realized in the morning — this was the shitty-est holiday ever. I hate it.
Not gonna lie — I did get a small glimmer of pride, finally feeling like the last 3 years of keeping my child away from all the crappy candy and food (not without enduring ridicule) has paid off brilliantly. Who wants a life like this every day, I’m sure you don’t. Sadly, it makes me wonder what role our poison food is playing in all the sickness (ADD, ADHD, etc) that’s plaguing our children. My child turned into a completely different child in 1 hour. For the love of God. Scary shit dude. As you can see, Halloween has nothing to offer Moms but a big bag of horrible tricks. Oh, and of course I ended up eating a few pieces of shitty candy myself. Damn it all! I’m glad I have 364 days until next year.
