Cutest Halloween Moments

I've always enjoyed answering the door to the kids on Halloween night but this year was even more fun since I was answering with a baby in my arms. Kids are so cute. They just say what pops into their heads. The youngest trick or treaters come early in the night. They started at 5:30 pm. I had several people say "Cute baby" and "cute skeleton." One of my favourite comments was from one little girl (a princess) who said "I like your baby!" as though Michelle was an accessory like a purse or a pair of shoes. I replied "Thanks. I like her too!" Maybe she did look like an accessory perched on my arm. I was dressed in black too and carrying a black cat head full of chocolate bars to give out. I was pleased that Michelle was so good throughout the night but then I didn't put her down the whole time. I finally wound up singing her to sleep with the lullabye from Rosemary's Baby "La la la la la la la la la la la la..." which is admittedly creepy but I was in the holiday spirit!

Another adorable comment came from a little boy who asked "Is that a real baby?" I laughed and said "No. She's just a baby for Halloween. She's a grown-up the rest of the time!" He cocked his head and asked "Really?" It was too adorable. I had to set him straight. "No no. I'm just being silly!" How did he actually think an adult could shrink down to the size of an infant for one night? Then again, children believe that Santa can fly all over the world in one night and put gifts under billions of trees. It's amazing what young children will accept as true. I guess I'll have to be careful about kidding around while Michelle is young! I don't want to mess with her head.

Michelle in her skeleton sleeper was a hit with the kids and the parents. A few mothers admired her and congratulated me. One father who was walking with his kids said "Beautiful baby! How old is she? 3 weeks?" "3 months" I answered. I guess she looks young for her age. At first I thought she was such a big baby. (Let's face it 9 lbs 4 ounces at birth is big!) but now that she's three months she just seems a normal size (though she is 12 lbs 4 ounces and wearing 3-6 and 6 month old clothes). People say she's a "petite" baby.

 

Speaking of petite it looks like I won't be any time soon. Not only can I not seem to psych myself up to start the 30 Day Shred but now I have a bunch of bite sized chocolate bars tempting me. I went out and got extra Halloween candy so that I wouldn't run out and now I have leftovers. I thought it would be cute if Michelle held some candy for a picture. Don't worry I wouldn't actually give her Smarties! Even when she starts solid foods I won't be giving her chocolate for a while. The Smarties made a good rattle. They're one of my favourites. I should have only bought candy that I don't like so that there would be no temptation. Oh well. At least we're heading into winter so I can hide the mommy tummy under layers. I'll try to start working out before the Summer at least. That seems a lifetime away at this point but then I know how quickly the time goes. This year has flown by. 

 

Now that Halloween is over, Christmas is just around the corner. My first Christmas with baby! I'm so excited. It will be even more special when she's old enough to appreciate it. I'm not sure how to handle the whole "Santa" thing. My mother never let us believe in Santa. She said she didn't feel it's right to lie. We knew that Christmas was the day Jesus was born in a manger and frankly, that's a better story. Later on I thought it wasn't fair of her to deprive us of the whole Saint Nick fantasy but then Christmas was still exciting. We got a lot of gifts. We just knew that they were all from Mom. I still enjoyed Christmas specials about Santa. I knew that there was a real person named Saint Nicholas who at one point went around giving gifts to people. But the jolly old man in the red suit with the flying reindeer bit did seem a little far-fetched, even to my young mind. I remember once being in a grocery store bakery when I was a kid and seeing a cake with a Santa head on it. The woman behind the counter (who was a little confused herself) said "That's a cake for Santa's birthday!" "Christmas is Jesus' birthday" I corrected her. I was a precocious little thing. I also came from a Catholic mother who read the entire Bible while pregnant with me. So, I'm torn. Part of me wants to carry out the whole Santa Claus ruse like everyone else, wrapping up gifts labeled from Santa and putting out milk and cookies but another part of me doesn't feel it is right to lie. Either way I want her to have happy, magical Christmases.

 

My scariest Halloween moment was when I misplaced my nipple! I use a rubber nipple shield for breastfeeding and it is a life-saver. I couldn't get by without it. In the commotion of Halloween, back and forth to the door (luckily I managed to squeeze a feeding in between answering the door to trick or treaters) I had lost it. I was in a panic. I have an emergency back-up one still in the package but I wanted to keep that as a souvenir and I'm not even sure where it is for that matter. I started looking frantically. What if I couldn't find it before her next feeding? I couldn't do the bare nipple thing. The last time I did that was when I first brought her home from the hospital and she chewed me to bits! (Literally. I was bruised and bleeding!) I usually have the shield sitting on a tissue after feeding, waiting to be washed. I checked by the sink. It was nowhere to be found. I was afraid I'd accidentally thrown it away. Then I suddenly saw it stuck to the oven! I guess the oven wanted to be a breast for Halloween! After feeding Michelle I had rushed to the kitchen to pick up the candy and answer the door and I guess I dropped it at that point. I was so relieved to find it. 

 

Michelle fell asleep in my arms and stayed asleep even when the last of the stragglers were at the door trick or treating at close to 8 pm. "I hope I didn't trick or treat too loud for the baby!" said one boy after realizing there was a sleeping skeleton in my arms. But he hadn't. She seemed quite content with all the commotion of the evening. The doorbell, the knocking, the strangers. I enjoyed my first Halloween with Michelle and I was pleased that it was all wrapped up in time for me to watch Survivor! I'm a reality TV junkie. It's my guilty pleasure. That and sugar. Those Smarties are beckoning me...

 

 



My baby ghoul!

Of course she's too young to go out for Halloween this year but it's still fun to dress her up. I couldn't resist this cute little skeleton sleeper. I'll still dress her up on Halloween night. She can come to the door with me when the kids come trick or treating.

My sister suggested I could take Michelle out but it would be silly. She's too young to understand it at all and obviously the candy would be for me, not her! It would be pretty awkward knocking on doors saying "Trick or treat...Yes she's only 3 months old and breastfeeding, not on solids, but please give me some junk food to stuff my face!" I don't need that kind of temptation anyway. I'm having a hard enough time restraining myself from eating the box of chocolate bars I bought to give out on Halloween as it is! Also taking her out would mean I wouldn't be home to answer the door for the kids. I figure next year when I take her out I'll just go really early and still be back in time to answer the door for most of the kids. I'm trying to remember what time they usually start. I think it's sometime after 6 pm. The little ones with their parents are usually the first out. The bigger kids and teens come later but I think it's usually all wrapped up by 8 or 9 pm. I'll have to pay more attention. I hope I don't run out of candy. (It's taking a lot of self-control for me not to eat it all myself!)

Halloween is a tricky holiday for a single parent. Usually if you had a partner, you'd split the duties. One goes out to walk the child around trick or treating and the other stays home to get the door for the neighbourhood goblins. I never want to be one of those people with the lights out and no candy on Halloween. I know I hated that as a kid when I'd go to a door and no one would be home. It was such a buzzkill when you were racing from porch to porch and then one of them was a dud. How dare people miss Halloween!

My mother never liked Halloween. My sister was surprised that Mom never got a picture of us on Halloween. With all the pictures she had of us, why wouldn't she take one of us in our costumes?! I guess she was just trying to forget the day altogether. But what is cuter than a kid dressed up for Halloween?! I always loved it as a kid and as a young adult, especially in my goth days. Back then (in my 20s) every day was Halloween (just like the "Ministry" song...) I used to go nightclubbing four nights a week downtown back in the day. With my pale skin and dressed in funeral black I looked like a vampire most of the time. On Halloween, I just kicked it up a notch with black wigs, fake blood, etc. I was usually a vampire or a ghoul of some sort. More recently I was a devil a couple of times.

I'm not quite as scary as I used to be! I prefer dance music to alternative now. I own clothing that isn't black. My favourite colours are turquoise and fuschia. I don't really watch horror movies anymore (I prefer comedies.) I paint happy pictures (instead of morbid self-portraits) and write happy songs (instead of dark, depressing poems). I guess I've softened over the years. My days of partying, downtown clubbing, dancing until the wee hours are over. (Though I still do love to dance, now it's with a 12 lb baby in my arms!) I got to enjoy the single life longer than most I suppose. A lot of people "settle down" and have kids in their 20s or 30s. I had another couple of decades to dance all night, stay out late, sleep in. Mind you even in my wildest days I was pretty conservative and always the proverbial good girl. I didn't drink or smoke, never did drugs, never got into trouble. I guess the most reckless thing I did was fall for the wrong men. That's all behind me now. I suppose I could say that I fell for the right man eventually (ironically the most wrong of them all), the one I was meant to meet, because he's the one who gave me my sweet Michelle. He just wasn't meant to stick around. Though he was her biological father, he was unfit to be a Dad.

Mike didn't know his own father. I speculated at one point that it might be Satan. He grinned at that. We watched "Rosemary's Baby" while I was pregnant (probably not the best idea. I wanted to watch movies about pregnancy and he wanted to watch a thriller so that was our compromise!) Mike didn't mind being called a devil. His nickname for me was "Angel." We certainly were opposites. Mike was very drawn to the dark side. He was a goth though he didn't see it that way. He was a horror movie fanatic and was fascinated by all things macabre. I still can't believe that his dungeon of an office filled with skulls, scorpions and swords is now Michelle's nursery! What a transformation. (Of course it had been a guest bedroom/collectibles room filled with dolls before Mike moved in and claimed it as his space.) I actually contributed some artwork to Mike's office when he was setting it up: Some scary black and white self-portraits from my gothic days. He liked them. I had been in a dark place in my 20s. Maybe that was part of what drew me to Mike. I understood some of that sadness and anger and angst. Though his darkness was far blacker than mine ever was. The life he had had made him a pretty messed up boy. Maybe he wasn't evil. Just weak, damaged, broken. There was something beautiful in him, in spite of everything. Behind the tough act. A vulnerability in his stunning blue eyes. Sometimes when I look at Michelle I can't help but see him in her. I try not to see it. Most people say she looks like me. I  hope there is more of me than him in her. I'm pretty sure there is. She definitely takes after my family because there are photos of my nephew as a baby that are IDENTICAL to her. I also see similarities with my own baby photos, my nieces and my brothers.

Michelle is my little devil. And my angel. My sister gave me this little devil costume months ago. At the time I thought it looked huge for her. I didn't think Michelle would fit into it by Halloween but she's grown so much that it's just perfect.

I look forward to future Halloweens with my little girl (ghoul!) Dressing her up and taking her out trick or treating. Visiting a pumpkin patch (total photo op!) Carving pumpkins together. I'll get to relive my childhood again through her. She will keep me young, bringing back the sense of fun and magic at holidays and every day.

She came into my life at the perfect time. I've been pretty immature most of my life. I was a late bloomer. People always guessed my age to be much younger than I was. (I still got asked for I.D. sometimes at bars and casinos!) Partly because I inherited my Mom's anti-aging gene and partly because I still felt and acted like a kid. I never felt like a grown-up. The reason I didn't plan to have kids was that I didn't feel responsible or mature enough. I wouldn't have been ready for it before now. Although I guess it's the act of having kids itself which forces you to grow up. You have to rise to the challenge. You have to be responsible and committed because you don't have a choice. Of course that doesn't mean you have to lose your sense of fun. When I dated men who had children I felt like more of a friend to them than a Mom. I hope I can be a friend as well as a Mom to my little Michelle. I want to be a "cool" Mom. Someone she'd want to hang out with. Of course I will lay down the law as well. I have a little of my mother's overprotective streak in me. I hope I can find the balance between being overly strict and too lenient.

On Devil's Night Michelle will officially be 3 months old. I still can't believe it. The last year and the last few months especially have been such a rollercoaster. Michelle has transformed my life and my self in so many ways. She was worth waiting for. I'm happier than I've ever been. She is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Even when she's a little devil!