Celebrating Our Halloween

I love this town I’m in. I don’t want to start a fight, but I am coming from places where celebrations were out of schools and psychologists said costumes confused little children.

Now I live where you trick or treat on the town green and the elementary schools have Halloween parades. It is never protested, and no one forbids their child to participate that I know of. I’ll leave it at that. My kids wore their costumes at Daddy’s work party, gymnastics, the school parade, the town green, and then trick or treating. I really got my money’s worth out of those things this year. The only exception being my darling daughter deciding that she had been Cinderella one too many times and that to the town celebration she would be a ballerina. Of course she decided this at the last minute and the tutu in question was dirty and unraveling. Oh well…. 

Last year I wrote about how I attempted creativity with costumes and my three angels wouldn’t buy into it. This year it was much easier. The baby wore the outfit his brother wore when he was his age, no argument. I had forgotten how nice it was when you could just put them in something and they couldn’t protest. Kenneth was Spiderman, but lost the mask. I tore this house up looking for it, and in doing so I found a ton of stuff I had been missing, including a Very Hungry Caterpillar onsie that Frances wore and a library DVD. I was about to convince him to go as “Peter Parker” when a friend told me he could borrow her son’s mask from last year. Hallelujah! And Frances was Cinderella, as already posted once before.

Autisable has some wonderful blog posts up on their site with Halloween tips and tricks, and I’m not going to repeat anything, but I did decide that for the first time I would carve Jack-o-lanterns. I have never carved pumpkins before. EVER. I did buy the Mr. Potato Head (love him!) Jack-o-lantern parts once at Target and we always put those on a pumpkin, before anyone thinks my children have been doing without. I couldn’t stand the idea of the glop and the mess and the seeds and cutting with a knife. Those of you who know me well, can you imagine? But this year, I was going to go for it and carve pumpkins with my older children.

I also found out about pumpkin stencils, where you can trace your carvings on the pumpkin. How cool is that? We printed out a Yo Gabba Gabba Foufa and a Spiderman to carve on our pumpkins. The plan was to do this in the garage so we could make a mess. I had knives, paper, garbage bags, and bowls for the seeds. I also had two little helpers that had been dressed in their costumes since six a.m. We got the stem carved out and we looked inside. Man that is nasty looking. We started singing, “Pumpkins guts, pumpkin guts, yucky pumpkin guts” (The tune is jingle bells). It took a good forty-five minutes, but I got two pumpkins scooped out. I wonder if you can buy a pumpkin already hollowed out and then you can go home and carve the face. I would pay for it.

Next came the decorating. I taped the Foufa stencil to the pumpkin and attempted to carve it, but it kept ripping apart. I took it off and tried to free hand it. By the time I had done the flower on top of her head, the flower took up the whole pumpkin and the kids were looking around the garage for something else to do. Then I decided that less was more. And that while I have never attempted to be super mommy before, why should I start with uber jack-o-lanterns? To make jack-o-lanterns, all you have to do is cut out triangles. I can cut out a triangle. I cut out three triangles and then some weird looking mouths. The kids loved them. We carried them to the front porch and then they clapped for me and their jack-o-lanterns. Ta-Da! Next year it’s back to potato head parts.

I ended it with toasting pumpkin seeds they wouldn’t touch, but I thought they were yummy. Now we are filled with sugar, get an extra hour of sleep, and the dress up box is a little fuller. It was nice to celebrate Halloween and see my daughter in a parade and say the words “Trick or Treat” without running away. Next up is the Thanksgiving Play, yikes.

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Page Pelphrey

The Mommy Quack

I have three children: an autistic daughter and two very active little boys. Very rarely does autism affect a little girl, and I have yet to read a blog that matches my life and routine. I was a working mom until last year, when I began to work from home. I can't seem to do anything the way another SAHM would do it. I try to change a diaper and I hear a crash in the living room. I try to read a bedtime story and they want to know why the peddler didn't wake up when the monkeys stole his caps. I clean the bathroom in time for my semi-potty trained son to need it again. I somehow manage to make it to preschool, therapy, and the library with all three children but forget to buy milk. I love to write about my life, but I am a big Quack of a SAHM.