Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Costumes & brownies (and passing the baton)

Oh, the drama of fifth grade boys!! It's all coming back to me now......not the boy part, but the "I'm not going to be your friend anymore if you don't do what I want" drama. Uggh. I had forgotten about all that. Nick was stressing last night about Halloween and who he would be going trick-or-treating with....and somehow I am to blame! I shouldn't be shocked by that, I usually am to blame in some way, but here's the deal. Apparantly, some of his friends don't want him to go trick-or-treating with them because I won't let him dress up as something scary, and they think that I will insist on coming along because I did last year. That is true, but in my defense there were at least two other mom's of Nick's friends who walked with the boys last year as well! So why do I have to take the rap for this?

Anyway, I reminded Nick that I had already told him that he could go without me this year, but he said when he told his friends that, they didn't believe him. Now Nick is feeling left out and I feel bad that it's sort of because of me, but not really?? Uggh. So, wanting to make it "all better" as mommies do, I had the very logical idea of offering to talk to one of his friends and assure them that I would not come along. To which I got the crinkled nose and the "NO MOM! They will so make fun of me if you do that!" So I need to stay out of it (do I hear me??? STAY OUT OF IT)! I know that if I tried to help the situation at all he would be embarassed and horrified. Here's where I have to sit back and let him work it out on his own. Mama bear needs to back down and let him fight his own battles.

But I still have issues with the costume thing and to a point, Halloween in general. I don't necessarily have a problem with the boys participating in trick-or-treating, although I know many Christians do. I know all about the origins of it. But the tradition of dressing up in a costume, going around the neighborhood and getting candy from our neighbors can be innocent fun, can't it? As long as you leave the evil out? That's why I don't allow the boys to dress up like anything evil, including anything that celebrates witchcraft or death. I had a talk with Nick last night about this, and he seems to understand and is compromising by going as a football player who forgot his helmet - which will allow him to show off some cool sports injuries! Yay! Happy mom, happy kid! I think that's much better than his original idea, which was to go as a "bloody geek"............ I know. That's what I said too.

All this reminds me of brownies. Vince has a great story to share about brownies that would pertain very much to this issue. I think I may be able to talk him into posting his story, so here I go.....passing the baton to you, hon! Let me know if you get it ;)

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