Explaining October

At the beginning of the month, our neighbor’s oak tree was tpeed, likely because they have a daughter on the high school volleyball team and October seems to be the peak month for teenage pranks. When we came outside Charlotte looked up confused and asked why there was toilet paper in the tree and then added, “Toilet paper is only for wiping your bottom.”

You are not wrong, my dear. And this is what kicked off explaining October.

1). An Autumn Education

Instead of listening to our typical Disney songs in the car, our rides are now exclusively for explaining why houses are sprinkled with pumpkins and 6-foot spiders dangling from driveways. Sometimes I take it one step too far during their autumn education and realize too late that I probably shouldn’t tell a 3-year-old everyone has a skeleton underneath their skin.

2). Strangers with Candy

I am ridiculously excited to watch my daughters finally be old enough to partake in the full trick-or-treat experience--the only time in the year we encourage them to ring doorbells and receive candy from strangers.

3). Emo-free Costumes

If your child is between the ages of 2 and teenager then chances are they have strong opinions about what their Halloween costume will be and planning will begin as early as November 1st. Recently my friend told me her 4-year-old wanted to be Jane Goodall (um adorable) and her 18-month-old was going to be a monkey. Spoiler alert; the kids have moved on—their mom, not so much.

As a parent:       

a. Never get emotionally attached or show any affinity for a particular costume—especially a family costume. If you get too enthusiastic over an idea, your kid will smell it on you, and suddenly Ruth Bader Ginsburg can turn into Queen Elsa faster than you can say, “I dissent”.

b. Wait until the last possible second to purchase the costume as it is going to change at least three dozen times, with the last dozen occurring in the final week.

c. Stay off Pinterest. A white sheet has the ability to make a scary ghost or accidentally get your child suspended.

4). Pumpkin Patch Pleasures

Why buy a pumpkin at the store for $1, when you could spend $28 to dress your entire family in flannel only to lose your child in a maze and ride a tractor going 3mph? Or better yet swim in a pit of corn kernels, sensory dreams, and lost band-aids.

5). Jack-o’-Lantern Joy-Ride to Emergency

My kids are not really old enough yet for the carving of the pumpkin tradition, since they don’t have the dexterity to use sharp knives and aren’t allowed access to candles. But, we still have a week, as well as a low co-pay and a fire insurance clause in our property insurance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love October; from the weather to the smell of apple spice lingering in the air. When your kids are all about the why, as parents, it can be exhausting explaining everything. But it sure is fun convincing them I know why pumpkins are orange and that “Jack” from the jack-o’-lantern requires all Reeses’ as a toll for answering any more of their adorable questions.

Mission Impossible

My daughters have been extra clingy lately and my guess is it’s because they sense something is cooking. I remember people used to ask me if my 1-year-old, Charlotte, was excited about becoming a big sister and I’d feel the need to gently remind them that we’d just mastered identifying facial body parts, so no, the abstract concept of having a sibling was well beyond her grasp. Even now with a 3 and 4-year-old there are only a limited number of ways we can get them physically ready for the change of a new baby. They have their own baby dolls, we’ve read the books, they ask questions like yesterday, while we were waiting in the pharmacy line to pick up antibiotics for an ear infection at Kaiser, Charlotte asked me why the baby will only drink milk “from mommy’s boobies”. Though we are doing our best to prepare ourselves, as we learned the first time, mental preparation is mission impossible—the only real way to learn is to just live it.

I’m enjoying these new conversations with my kids—sharing that the baby will be another girl, despite Charlotte’s constant requests for a “boy sister”, since “brother” is an unfamiliar term in our household. My heart, the muscle that it is, is also being stretched in preparation for loving 3 girls, like I love my 2. For example, I explained that it takes babies a very long time to grow inside their mom’s tummy’s and even though we want to meet her so very much, the safest place for her right now is with me—and I had to sniffle back tears when my youngest said, “that’s my safest place too, Mommy.”

With every week, the baby gets compared to a larger more intimidating piece of fruit or vegetable. Typically, fruit doesn’t seem ominous—funny how that changes when you are forced to imagine expelling it out of your body. Finally, when their little personalities develop and you await like a child on the other end of a loaded bubble wand, wondering what parts of yourself will be revealed in them and pray it’s just the good stuff—then laugh at all the parts that feel like bittersweet karmic retribution.

These tasks before us: expanding our family, making room in our hearts, and even birth seem unbearably hard—until they are staring us in the face and somehow you’re gazing into the familiar and think, of course, it was you there all along, and suddenly it feels impossible that anything ever existed without them.

Slow Down and Savor It

With a 3rd baby on the way, I like to gently push the boundaries of what might be considered difficult, as a practical lesson into what will ultimately be my future. Case in point, I needed to pick up our car from the shop 1.5 miles down the road and so I loaded the girls in the double Bob stroller and decided I’d take our Cocker Spaniel, Macie, along for the run. We made it exactly 30 seconds before Macie got so excited she pooped on someone’s driveway. As I made an unsuccessful attempt to lock the stroller, in order to dodge getting run over, not only did Macie step in it, but I didn’t open the bag all the way and so I came up with a steaming pile of poo in my unprotected bare hand, just as my stroller rolled gracefully down the driveway. If this isn’t the perfect metaphor for trying to do it all as a mother, I am not sure what is.

My list of things I need to do this week makes me want to curl back in bed and sleep until next Tuesday. My youngest, soon-to-be middle daughter is turning 3 and I’m hosting a family brunch on Saturday and then a Bounce House birthday a few towns over on Sunday. My philosophy for kid’s birthdays is that it be some place contained that will safely exhaust every child--everyone goes home with a full tummy just in time for family nap time. Also, if you tell me that you flat out don’t want to come because this would be your 6th kid's party in a month, I absolutely won’t be offended. This won’t be New Orleans on Mardi Gras, let’s make sure we call a spade a spade and recognize that all we can really pray for is that the children have fun and nobody bounces to the point of a bloody nose.   

We spent last weekend out of town at our annual Apple Hill family reunion, which was wonderful but exhausting since my kids don’t sleep when we aren’t at home (or even at home these day— every night we play a lively game of musical beds). We stayed at a cozy Airbnb that was on an actual little farm with goats and chickens. Have you ever been awakened in the morning to the sound of roosters? Yeah, me either, my kids were up well before then, but I can one day hope for such a dreamy fairy tale to come true. I guess I’ll call this #roostergoals.

It seems like life these days is coming at us hard and fast. We get to experience a lot of joyful events, with limited downtown and now the holidays are on the horizon, so the rest of 2018 is likely to be one long food coma— sprinkled with a dozen more kid’s birthday parties and some light, tier-2 tantrums. I’m not going to tell anyone to slow down and savor it all, because when someone stops me while I’m pregnant lifting both my kids into the shopping cart and tells me exactly that, I want to kick them softly in the shins and say, “It may be hard to tell through all the chaos, cringing, and crying; but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing all along.”