To begin with, we can't quite figure out the purpose of a holiday that's sole purpose is to scare kids. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but there's enough out there in our day to day lives to scare the begeezus out of us all. We spend a significant amount of time protecting our boys from such things. Now, I admit- our boys are particularly sensitive. Their overexcitabilities have blessed and/or cursed them with a painfully enormous sense of empathy that prevents us from sharing with them even the most mundane of children's shows and movies. But sensitivities aside, they are four years old. Four year olds have wildly creative imaginations and if you know even the littlest bit about preschoolers and young children, its that their imaginations can lead to ridiculous and irrational fears. Except to them- these fears are real. Fears of the dark. Fears of monsters under the bed. Fears of fires. Fears of death. And if you have preschoolers or young children, you know that such fears will wake up your entire household in the middle of the night in the form of a screaming, crying, frightened little child who is terrified to go back to sleep and will be damned if anyone in the house is going to go back to sleep either. So please tell me again why we fuel this fire with Halloween? Is there one redeeming purpose in exposing our vulnerable little ones to frightening masks and costumes of monsters and villains and people who jump out from the darkness with the sole intention of scaring them to death?
Which leads me to our next gripe about Halloween... why celebrate a time that encourages us to expose our preschoolers to bad guys? A few weeks ago I had to pick up something non-Halloween related at Party City. While in line, I was murdered- multiple times- by a four or five year old Jason complete with mask and bloody sword. The little tike was ecstatic about the costume he was about to purchase. I know this because he repeatedly yelled, "I'm Jason! I'm killing you! BAM! You're dead!!!" The mom laughed the whole time. Really? Cause that's frickin' awesome. I'm glad to know we're breeding serial killers who are barely old enough not to wet themselves all day long. And while many kids costumes aren't as in your face as this little guy, stop and think about what we are really teaching our kids by letting them dress up as Bat Man and Spider Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Super Hero's aren't toddler-friendly guys! While their intentions may be good, they are all some sort of violent and exist solely to stomp out evil. And evil isn't something our four year olds are capable of processing right now.
But the candy! Oh the candy! Of all the things my mother passed down to me through her DNA, her sweet tooth was the most prominent. I love chocolate more than anyone, but candy in general makes me queasy. Our boys get very little candy. We don't even allow them to have a sucker after they get shots at the doctors office. I know, awful right? They are allowed a mini Peppermint Patty every now and then at Grandma's house, and we did recently allow them to taste Tootsie Rolls. But other than that, any sweets they are allowed are homemade baked goods. Because we don't allow our boys to have food-dye. Allergy issues aside (we strongly believe that blue food dye was the culprit in Caleb's head to toe hive reaction that landed us in urgent care a few months ago), food dyes disgust me. Did you know that dozens of food dyes have been banned here in the US for their toxic and carcinogenic effects on lab animals? And while seven of these colors remain legal here in the US, did you know that all seven are banned in Europe for the same reasons? I'm a researcher by nature. I'm always leery of reports of scientific studies until I can examine the actual study myself. But I'll share this... While the research is still somewhat controversial- though becoming stronger and stronger each day- take a moment to understand that food and candy are a multi-billion dollar industry here in the US and these gigantic multi-billion dollar companies are doing everything in their power (of which they have enormous amounts) to squelch each new study that comes out showing links to food dyes and health problems from ADHD to cancer. Banning the use of artificial food dyes will severely cut into their profits. Yup. It's not at all about your health or my health or God forbid the health of our children. It's about money. And if you think that politics and profits don't play a huge role- the biggest role actually- in the outcomes of research and how it is presented, you're just fooling yourself. But I digress. My point is- there are also no redeeming qualities in candy. So why do we encourage our preschool age children to hoard bags and bags full? In our house, they can't eat 95% of it and it just isn't fair for them to collect it then tell them they can't have it. We'd rather just avoid the whole inevitable meltdown.
So Jon and I haven't been sure of what to do for Halloween. We really just want to avoid it all together. Except that Jon's colleagues have been pestering him for weeks just dying to know what creation he'll come up with for the boys' costumes this year, because let's face it- he's kind of a costume genius. And then we were invited by my grandparents- the boys' great grandparents- to a small Halloween celebration at their retirement village. We didn't accept the invitation because we wanted the chance to celebrate Halloween, but because it meant a lot to my grandparents, and my mom, that we go. So we agreed to throw together some last minute costumes and go have a good time. We didn't want to spend a lot of time or money on the costumes simply out of personal principal, but never the less, the boys ended up being a huge hit! Normally Jon gets most of the credit- and he does get credit for assembling the whole ensemble, but this time I'm taking credit for the entire idea :) I'm just glad the boys were super excited about it because gosh darn it, these may be the best costumes we've ever made! It took 24 hours (10 of which saw Jon at work) and less than $15 total.
From the entire Paddock Family- we hope you have a colorless, monsterless Happy Halloween!
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