Dress it down kiddo

I know we’re several months off for this, but I was thinking the other day about just how dumb Halloween is when you have a kid who is too young to go trick-or-treating. The last two years, people have asked me, “So what is The Girl going as this year?”

For some reason, my response floors them, “Uh, nothing.”

What’s the point really? It’s hard enough getting her to wear a hat, nevermind a mask, a pair of angel wings, or a set of bunny ears. She hates it when we wash her face, so why would we aggravate the task by smearing on hard-to-remove makeup? She’s too young to get the concept of trick-or-treating, and to be honest, we’re trying to keep her away from candy for as long as possible anyway, so why would we bring her around the neighborhood filling a bag with it?

Let’s be honest, parents who dress up their one-year-old up for Halloween are doing it for themselves way more than for their kid. They do it so they can take that one adorable picture which they can show to all the other parents at Mommy and Me and while they chuckle one of those phony my-kid-is-better-than-your-kid chuckles.

“Oh look how sweet. Broderick went as a Hobbit this year.”

Nevermind the fact that Broderick probably screamed for thirty minutes while his mom tried to force him into that costume. Nevermind the fact that he got bored after the first two houses and fell asleep on Dad’s shoulder as he carried him from house to house. Nevermind the fact that if Mister “my parents used my name in a vain attempt to show everybody just how simultaneously creative and trendy they could be” Broderick had actually ever SEEN Lord of the Rings at two years old, he would be waking up with night terrors until he was thirty-seven. I’m sure little Broderick would have been just as happy wearing a bowl on his head all night while dumping Cheerios into his plastic pumpkin. But that doesn’t make for good photography does it?

I’ve never really bought into the whole stupid parent thing of taking your kid somewhere and pretending it’ll be so much fun for them, when really, it’s all about rounding out that photo album that you bought at your last Pretentious Memories scrapbooking party. Do you think there’s a two-year-old on earth who really truly gives a crap about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? At BEST they don’t care. More often they’re full fledged terrified because the giant baby eating rabbit from their dreams has finally manifested in the flesh. As far as I’m concerned, any activity where a parent finds themselves saying, “Honey stop screaming, Mommy’s trying to take your picture,” you might want to rethink your motivation for doing it.

Like taking your kids to Disney World. Oh we all have such a warm place in our heart for Disney World. And as soon as we become parents, we build it up in our minds just how perfect it will be. The kids will get to see Mickey Mouse. They’ll squeal with glee on all the rides. They’ll giggle whenever their ice-cream cone accidentally bumps their nose and mom and dad have to kiss it off.

YEAH RIGHT!

As far as I’m concerned Disney World is a disaster waiting to happen for any family who brings in a kid less than ten years old. After all, you’ve just shelled out enough money to pay for a really high-end television and now you have to get your money’s worth. But of course your kid is too scared to go on ninety percent of the rides. So you wait an hour in line just to ride thirty seconds on the lame flying Dumbo’s only to spend the entire time hovering along the ground because your kid freaks out whenever you press the button to make the elephant go up. Finally, by the end of the ride you’re shouting at your five-year-old, “We waited in line for an hour because you wanted to ride the Dumbo and now we are going up in the air! So stop screaming and wave to Mommy!”

It’s a hundred degrees out. Water costs five dollars per eight-ounce bottle. The line to see Mickey Mouse somehow corresponds exactly to the capacity of a young child’s bladder. And forget about kissing the ice-cream off your kid’s nose. If you’ve ever been to Disney World you’ve seen at least one crying toddler holding an empty waffle cone, standing next to a splattered chocolate scoop, and a red-faced parent screaming into their child’s face, “Look what you did! Didn’t I tell you to hang onto this?!? I did, didn’t I! Well that’s just great! Ten dollars right down the (bleep)ing drain!” It’s truly a special moment when you see somebody inducing childhood neurosis over a chocolate dip.

For your money and relative aggravation you’d be better off shelling out sixty bucks a night at the Musty Fart Motel off Interstate 4 and spending the entire week using the in ground pool. It may have no diving board, no slide, no flotation devices and no pool toys, but you’ll never hear a five-year-old say, “I’m bored,” or “I want to go home.” He’ll spend five hours just jumping off the side into the shallow end over and over again, squealing, “Okay everybody watch!” before each jump. Get him a five-dollar pair of goggles and you’ve just bought him a bonus three hours of entertainment. He’ll put those things on and examine every square inch of that pool and never fuss for a moment. The only thing you have to do is act like you give a crap for six seconds when he wants to show you how long he can hold his breath. It really is the perfect vacation. Seriously, how can anybody get mad at the motel pool? The only tears that are ever shed happen when water goes up somebody’s nose. But thirty seconds later, they’ve already shaken it off and are begging you to watch their cannon ball again.

The Girl is going to be two-and-a-half this Halloween and no, we will not be dressing her up. Maybe we’ll put a dress on her and say, “Look, you’re Maggie,” a girl at daycare who wears dresses every day. For Halloween, we’ll likely do what we do on any other day. Take her to the park, let her swing on the swings, climb the rock wall and slide down the slide, unencumbered by some ridiculously bulky costume that only frustrates her and gets in the way. We’ll go home, have dinner and let her have some chocolate milk before bed—which is as close to candy as I want her having right now.