But before I go any further, I must say:
To my wonderful friends who believe I have CRAZY MAD pumpkin carving skills. Alas, I did NOT carve that pumpkin (or pumkind, as I seem bound and determined to type it. ARGHE!) I just shameless swiped it off Google Images because I thought it was a nice way to greet the holiday. Super J...now he could have carved something like that, given the necessary time without distraction, but me? No. But my ego thanks you for thinking that I could have. Seriously. And trust me, if we were ever to carve something that spectacular? I'd SO be announcing it. :) lol. But now you know that, no, we didn't carve that pumpkin.How was YOUR Halloween? Ours was mixed. Here's why.
Super J agreed to be our Trick or Treat parent AND to take the older girls to a Halloween party, and I'm going to just say that he had a fairly nice, albeit busy, evening of following our candy collecting girls around. Miss A and Miss E had a fabulous evening. Let's just get that out of the way.
However, prior to that...We just needed to get through dinner. I should have known trouble would ensue.
On the menu? Hamburger Helper. Cheeseburger Macaroni, to be exact. We knew Miss A'd grouse a bit because, let's be honest, she's a vegetarian at heart, but we knew we could threaten her into eating it if she wanted ANY candy/party goodies later on. Miss E...she's a meat-etarian, so she's on board regardless (as long as there are no vegetables to go with it). Miss O? She's eaten it before and she loves Mac and Cheese, so we figured no problem. Miss Q? Yeah...not even 3 months old yet, so she's not eating it in the traditional sense for many many hours. Hooray! A hot meal before the festivities. So what happened?
Miss O decided to BRING IT ON!
Yes. It was the Halloween Dinner Smackdown! In one corner, we have 2 year old Miss O, who if she wins will wear a butterfly Princess costume with Halloween shirt underneath and go to a party and then trick or treating without ingesting ONE SINGLE NOODLE OF DINNER. In the other corner, Mom, who has decided that today, tonight, will be a GREAT time to lay down the law. Because there's no reason for Miss O NOT to eat this particular dinner. Except she DOESN'T WANT TO. And that's not a good enough reason.
1.5 HOURS LATER!!!!!!
Seriously.
And, of course, a couple of poor parenting choices later, Miss O had finally eaten a bite of chicken dinosaur and so she could get off the chair and go trick or treating (her window of opportunity for the Party was officially CLOSED long before). All three of us, Miss O, Miss Q, and Miss L, had shed tears and were, honestly, a bit exhausted.
Oh, and let's not forget the trick or treaters that were coming at a pretty good clip throughout the entire drama.
It's almost funny, looking back on it. I held my ground...she ended up eating something, though it wasn't the noodle though I'd like to say it was...and it almost was, because I hid the noodle in some cut up chicken dinosaur and she had it in her mouth and was chewing until I uttered the cursed, "You know, you are eating some noodle with that dinosaur," and so then she spit it out (I know! I know!!!) and then I tried to force a noodle into her mouth and then we both had to regain our composure. After that, since even the dinosaurs were now deemed tainted food, getting her to eat one, on her own, was good enough for me. I mean, seriously, she's two yrs old. And the goal was to have her eat SOMETHING. So. There. (Don't judge. I feel guilty enough as it is, and no 2 yr old or 38 yr old was harmed in this event, though I told Super J later that it had that same, raw emotional feel to it that you get when you've just had a fight with your spouse).
So. Could things have gone differently. Probably. But it is what it is, and it definitely could have been worse. I just wish it hadn't been so tiring.
Overall, though, once everyone had the opportunity to go out and about, I did finally get to watch my show (in minute increments, it felt like) and it all worked out. And we have candy. So, yeah, it could have been worse. :)
2 comments:
It's absolutely amazing how kids (and spouses, so I'm told) know exactly what buttons to push. Seriously!
Ya. That's happened at our house lots of times. I've even made the very same "you know you're also eating..." mistake. I always kick myself afterward. We just went for pizza last night...not much arguing about eating before trick-or-treating that way. Somehow, though, A.J. has subsisted on not much more than cereal and crackers for 7 years now. Oh, well. Someday they'll eat well, right?
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