My Halloween Spirit

It's official, I'm over the hill. I have become a curmudgeon, and chewed out teenagers on our porch this evening. I hope our house doesn't get tp'd later on...

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Halloween. I think getting dressed up is major fun, and I love seeing all the little kids in our neighborhood all done up. On the other hand, I hate the rampant sexualization of costumes for girls and women. It's gotten so over the top and is so destructive to the development of the female psyche with healthy foundations in something other than being desirable to the opposite sex.

Also, I always thought that "Trick or Treat" meant that in order to avail oneself of candy at each house, one had to either do a trick, say a joke, something. I also appreciate a bit of interaction that isn't just the kid making a beeline for the candy and leaving. At the least, telling what he/she is meant to be is nice.

Tonight, however, took the cake as far as my experience of Halloween as the adult handing out the candy goes: two teens showed up at our door wearing street clothes, made no eye contact and went straight for the candy. Without thinking about it, I pulled the bowl away, and asked, "So, what are you dressed up as?" They looked a bit taken aback, and said, "Uh, people." "Is that the best you can do?" I asked, a bit sarcastically. They said, "Yeah." I said, "OK, but it's Halloween, you know." I gave them each two pieces of candy, told them to have a good night, and shut the door.

It's not like I was enraged or anything, but this weird gimme culture we live in sometimes really ticks me off. No please, no thank you, no even tiny attempt to join in the spirit of the thing. Just gimme the goods and don't be some irritating weird adult who wants us to talk or interact or make any damn effort at all.

grrrrr, argh.

Meantime, Hazel was wearing a pumpkin costume and looked totally adorable. :-)

My little randomizer

It's a truth as old as the hills, so I'm not breaking any new ground here, but having a child (and I'm sure it just gets more intense with more than one child) can really mess with one's personal schedule.

Because I have a strong tendency to procrastinate, I like schedules. Making and following them helps me stay focused on what I need to do, and I feel good when I can check off items in my list each day. Hazel is teaching me the zen of not being too attached to my schedules, though, because no matter what I've planned for the day, what actually happens is largely determined by her needs and wants. Many days, if not most days, I can accept that reality, even with a smile. Hazel is, as babies go, really happy, easy, and fun to be with. And most days she's sufficiently flexible and patient that I can get at least the basics done: in the morning I get the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, the dirty ones in, myself fed and showered and dressed, and in the afternoon I check my email and reply to most of it, etc. Then there are days on which, with gritted teeth, I have to keep telling myself that it will be ok, that I can make it through this moment, that I can practice/cook/sleep/walk/read/talk with friends or with Ted later.

The thing that I need to keep reminding myself is that it's not a question of her needs or mine. It's not black and white like that. I always have choices. Yesterday she spent hours and hours nursing and napping on me. I wound up with a headache at the end of the day, as well as stuck in a state of frustration that I didn't get any of the cooking done I had planned for the day (having returned from an out-of-town trip, there is no food in the house and I keep going out for meals) and barely made it out of the chair in which I was feeding her. However, I realized last night that the headache was a direct result of staying in the chair staring at my laptop screen. If I'm going to spend that much time feeding and holding the baby, I can choose where and how I'm going to do it, and those choices will strongly influence how I experience the day. Simply making choices consciously will improve things, rather than feeling stuck in whatever circumstance Hazel's mood/reactions/needs have created.

The answer is not, I think, to have no plans or to try to pretend that I have no actual wishes for the day. I don't do self-abnegation very well, and when I try to be a martyr to other people's needs I wind up in a black pit of despair, rage, and hate pretty fast. I have no wish to wind up feeling resentment toward my daughter because of an infantile feeling that "I never get what I want!" What I have to do is make a plan for the day with several backups in case of disruption, and then focus on what I can choose in every given moment rather than looking back and focusing on what I was going to be doing if we were still following my planned route for the day.

To that end I went to the kitchen store yesterday (yes, we did get out for one errand) and bought a food processor, a wok, and a second saute pan. Cooking can take an enormous amount of time, especially all the sous chef tasks of chopping, dicing, etc. I had one day of hell where I got stuck in the I-must-do-this place and Hazel cried a lot while I tried to get through all my tasks. Face grim and heart hurting, I realized that I had gotten into a yank and it was helping no one. So I decided that when I cook I need to do so in stages that I can pause at almost any time to take care of the baby. The thing I can do for myself is to shorten the time it takes me to prep, so enter the food processor. Last night while Ted played with the baby I shredded cabbage, chopped kale, and diced onions in no time flat, and am feeling a tiny bit of optimism that I will be able to get at least some of the rest of the cooking done today in swift bursts if Hazel has another don't-put-me-down day.

What-if's are often my downfall - "what if Hazel wakes up and I don't get this entry written", "what if I don't get enough milk pumped this morning," etc. They're my downfall because I'm not content with just asking the questions: I add in a shadowy worst-case answer that I fasten onto emotionally before I've stopped to really think about the question and my options.

So, in an answer also as old as the hills, I need to remain in the moment as much as I can. Right now, I am writing. Later, I will be doing something else. That's all I can know for now.