My oldest daughter couldn’t be more excited about tonight’s festivities. It’s her first Halloween out from under Mom and Dad’s thumb (though she’ll still be with other parents). Tonight she’s out with her friends, and I am truly happy for her. Thank God I know she has good friends!
While she’ll be out, we’ll still have the younger three to take trick-or-treating. Whether we go around the block or to visit the grandparents, we’re still not sure, but it will be low key for certain. The less candy in the house, the better off we all are.
Truth be told, this weekend I have marked in my calendar as “GARAGE WEEKEND.” We have to get a handle on things . . . or at least a path through it all. With the holidays creeping ever closer and much pottery to be made, the garage needs to transform into a clay studio rather quickly. And, we just need to organize, put things where they go, make work areas usable, create storage. Simple stuff, really; it’s the time you have to take to do it. It also isn’t a one woman job, but getting my husband and myself in the same place at the same time while we’re both awake is as tricky as ever.
When we’re supposed to be knee deep in the garage on Saturday, it turns out the kids have choir practice until eleven or so, a children’s author will be at the library at eleven, there’s a concert we want to support (and is free) at the botanical garden at two, and we have to eat sometime without ordering out (gotta tighten the budget belt). Sunday is family birthday celebration all afternoon after church, after which we go back to church for the choir performance for which I’ve been shuttling kids to rehearsal these past couple of weeks on my precious weekends — as if my time is mine.
Therein lies a Truth in parenthood. We make sacrifices every day. We wade through the garage for years because it’s more important to have clean dishes and laundry than a proper place for the bikes . . . or is it? We make choices on what we will sacrifice. Some days we make good ones, but most days we just make choices, knowing we will live with the consequences.
Perhaps that’s why we (okay, I) get so aggravated with the kids when they choose to do what they want to do even though I know the consequences won’t be good. (i.e. any given child doesn’t want to clean his/her room and put away clothes today, and I know that in three days, it will be exponentially worse.) We make our choices, pick our battles, and go through the motions of every day. Hopefully it can be more of a dance, even if some days it feels more like a factory.
It would be nice if I felt more like a ballerina than a robot on Halloween. Right now I feel like I could pass as a maid — and not the sexy sort!
