Chapter 23 – 

"I already got 15 likes on facebook!!! - ummm…where are the kids???"

So – this past weekend we took our second trip to our local autumnal mecca of all things hay/corn/pumpkins/etc…or, as I now like to call it, Parents Fall Photo Op 2012.  

There was a pumpkin patch, a hayride, a corn maze, a hay-bale maze, pony rides, and something called a “straw crawl”  -

Here's a picture for your reference... ( for I too am guilty of exactly that which I am about to make fun of)

There’s also giant wooden scenes meant for the sole purpose of photo ops, even those ones with holes where you are supposed to put your face…let the high-jinx begin....  

You can't just get a pumpkin anymore, oh no no no no no, you need to document the adventure in 20 different places along the way.

Okay, so anyone who is "friends" with me on facebook knows that I am guilty of taking and posting an obnoxious number of pictures of my kids.  There are those who post pics of their dinner, those who tell you EVERYTHING they're doing every moment of the day and check in everywhere they go, those who start political arguments or passive aggressively fight with people who have wronged them in some way, there's the movie quoters, the lyric quoters, the play-by-play sports updaters and funny Seinfeld-style observers, and my personal favorite, the pouty lips in their bathroom mirror pics, just to name a very few…
(She does look lovely though, doesn't she?  If I got all dolled up in my best Snookie t-shirt and smushed my face up like that, I think I'd feel the need to document it as well...)

Anyway, so we all know the various facebook-offenders and where we lie in the hierarchy.  I’ve been guilty of some of these offenses (and more) at one time or another, but none more so than the high-volume-of-kid-picture-posting.  I do it all the time.  However, even as I realize and admit this about myself, I recently encountered a ridiculous phenomena that makes me look exceedingly normal by comparison (and I love discovering people who make me feel normal by comparison) –

They are those parents, (and sorry ladies, they were mostly mom’s) who are so completely and totally absorbed and obsessed with taking photos and posting them on facebook, that they are neither experiencing nor enjoying the event they are documenting.  I’ve seen these folks from time to time, but I saw them EN MASSE at the autumnal extravaganza this past weekend.  It was like they were all meeting there for a convention, a picture taking/facebook posting convention.   Now, as I’ve said, these fall-fun places are screaming PHOTO OPPORTUNITY, they really are, but I swear there were some people there who seemed like that’s truly all they cared about.  Fun for the kids was most definitely the secondary concern for these crazy broads.  (again…sorry ladies, I know there are nutty dads out there too, but this particular day, the offending parties I witnessed all happened to be women) –

The most blatant that I observed was a woman who was taking pictures of her kids climbing up what this place called the “straw crawl”.  I spotted a group near us with a couple parents and several kids who all seemed to be there together.  The kids were climbing up the straw crawl while this one lady took picture after picture after picture after picture with her phone.  She would then immediately post each picture on facebook. How do I know this?  Because she kept telling another woman in her group every time she got a “like” or a comment on one of the pictures.  She was talking about the "likes" on her 1^st picture, while she posted her 5^th, then took her 10^th, then posted that, then back to a discussion about the comments on her 3^rd.  Hard to keep up with?  Imagine you’re her!  What a mental workout!  Instead of watching and enjoying her kids having fun and running around in the mazes and crawling on straw, she stared at her phone the entire time.  I mean, the entire time.  From what I could see, the only time she even looked at her kids was through the screen on her phone to capture the next shot.  When she had sufficiently posted, labeled, commented and tagged every shot to her satisfaction, she looked around for her kids only to find that they were no where to be seen.    I’m guessing it was somewhere around shot 15 that they just took off. 

I’m happy to report that all her kids were eventually located.  I know this because unfortunately for me I ended up behind them in the very   l o n g   pony ride line.  Here she was filming little videos of her kids on the ponies, which I can only assume were promptly posted on facebook as well.   But, at least while she was filming their videos, she was forced to actually observe her kids in action, having fun.  And as I said, she was one of MANY.  Camera phones were the one accessory no one was without that afternoon.

Yes, I know, I know…for those of you that are reading this saying, “hello kettle?” remember that I did admit that I too am guilty of this, however I like to at least interact with my kids and enjoy these fun moments in time, one quick picture and then we’re back to having fun…of course the posting and facebooking can happen later ;)

So yes, when I stop to ask myself …. Wait, do I know anyone who’s guilty of taking and posting too many pictures of their kids, I’m faced with this image…

Thanks JD…I almost forgot.  Guilty as charged.

Chapter 22 - Halloween: A Chance to Dress Like A Whore

I was never that big on Halloween, just wasn’t my thing.  I loved it as a kid, but as I got older, I just didn’t get into it. Well actually, there was one Halloween party I went to in college where I dressed like Helen Roper and won a prize…that was fun…

but other than that, I never really dressed up for Halloween in my adult years.  However, now that I have kids, I LOVE Halloween.  I still don’t have any desire to dress up, but I love Halloween for them.  JD is only a year old, so he’s still at the age where I decide what he’s going to be, and he’s too young to complain about having to wear a coat over his costume (that dreadful obstacle that all kids in cold climates must endure), but Lily is SO excited about it and she has been talking about it and figuring out what she’d like to be this year since about mid-July.

Seeing as this is her first Halloween in the suburbs, I am most excited about the trick or treating.  With all due respect to our beloved New York City, trick-or-treating there is one thing I definitely will NOT miss.  I’m sure there are parents and kids out there that love what the city has to offer for Halloween, so I mean no disrespect to your fun and your traditions, but I HATED it.  Since you can’t really get into other people’s apartment buildings, your options are to knock on doors in your own building (and no one answers…not in our building anyway), or what most of the kids in our neighborhood on the Upper East Side did was go to local bars, restaurants and stores.  This is exactly as awkward as you might imagine, because not all local bars, restaurants and stores participate in trick-or-treating.  Basically you have to wander in, costumed-child in tow, stand there awkwardly until someone working there acknowledges you and either tells you yes, we are participating in trick-or-treating, or no, we are not.  This routine made my skin crawl.  Walking in, I felt like some kind of beggar, on edge and ready for the possible rejection of them looking at us like we are complete fools for coming into a clothing store, sushi restaurant or sports bar expecting them to give us candy.  So, I made Tony go in first and ask.  I just couldn’t handle the rejection, and it was certainly no fun for Lily to go into a place only to find out we’re not getting anything.  Some of the stores (God Bless Them!) would put out a sign that said, “Trick or Treaters Welcome”, which was the greatest thing ever…but, not enough of them did that,  the rest left you guessing.  So, Tony would go in, check with the hostess, bartender, guy-behind-the-counter, whatever…and then give us the thumbs up or down.  For the record, most of the bars and restaurants we went into participated.  About ½ of the stores did.  Delis, bakeries, drug stores, etc....most of them had something to give the kids.  (Big thumbs up to our favorite bakery Orwashers, who gave out big chocolate bat cookies….that were SO GOOD)

YAY ORWASHER'S!

 So, when we walked past an adorable kids bookstore, I said to Tony, “You don’t have to check, I’m sure they’re doing trick-or-treating”  and we walked in.  Lily walked her little Sleeping Beauty self up to the guy working there, held up her little plastic pumpkin and said “Trick or Treat!” and the guy behind the counter (we’ll call him “A-Hole”) …A-Hole looks at me and says, “I don’t have anything for her”, and he did not say it in a nice way, he said it  like…why are you coming into a store expecting free things for you kid.  I guess A-Hole didn’t know that it was Halloween and that he works in a KIDS book store – I mean...you're open, on Halloween...aren't most of your clientele little kids?  If you do have any customers coming into the bookstore that night they will most likely be CHILDREN, and since it’s Halloween won't most CHILDREN be in costumes and quite possibly trick-or-treating??? I mean, the bar next door to you is giving out candy to kids and you're not?? What a jerk – I was so mad, and it wasn’t just because he wasn’t prepared to give out candy, he just had such a bad attitude about it.  I’m sure he spent the night rejecting kid after kid and hopefully he eventually ran to Duane Reade for a stupid bag of candy to give out.  Anyway, so ….clearly I will not miss that upper east side trick-or-treating this year.  That said, there are lots of parades and activities and fun things for kids to do in New York City on Halloween, we just didn’t really do any of them.  Instead we made the bad choice to trick-or-treat in the various businesses on the UES, and I hated every minute of it.  SO…now that we are in the suburbs, I’m so excited to take the kids trick-or-treating door to door, without the anxiety that we will be turned down!

So….next thing we had to do was figure out costumes.  While JD is still young enough for me to decide, he’s going to be a tiger.  The suit looks ridiculously cute on him, and it will keep him very warm, so done and done….easy breezy.

As for Liliana….Coming off her 2011 tour as Sleeping Beauty, Lily has decided that this year, she will be Rapunzel.  (We’ll probably just work our way through the Disney Princess catalog year by year).  So, Rapunzel it is, purple dress, long blonde braid, purple plastic pumpkin covered in stickers check check check... Now, as I’ve said, I have not been that big on Halloween for many years, so it’s been awhile since I’ve made my way through the costume aisle of any store and until now, I’ve never looked up Halloween costumes online.  And looking at Halloween costumes in store and online, I’ve noticed a few truly scary things. 

It is not new that some “ladies” like to dress like hookers on Halloween.  That’s been going on forever, and I’m certainly not the first person to notice it or find it hilarious.  Though I’ve often wondered what that’s all about.  I suppose there are some girls out there that deep down really want to dress like a whore, but they know that’s not really all that cool, so Halloween is their one chance during the year to dress slutty in public, and it’s sort of socially acceptable.   So, okay…whatever their reasons are, it’s not for me to judge, but what I have noticed recently as I’ve been looking at Halloween costumes for the first time in years is WHY are the slutty costumes now available in popular childrens characters?? I mean we’re all familiar with  your typical slutty nurse, dirty gypsy or the classic French maid, but Slutty Strawberry Shortcake?  (also, on sale apparently)

Slutty Snow White?

And my personal favorite…slutty one-eyed purple monster?
What is this thing??

 Just WHO is it that you’re trying to attract?? If you are at a Halloween party or a bar, and you’re dressed like Slutty Angry Birds, Slutty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (which seriously cracks me up) or Slutty SpongeBob and that attracts a certain type of guy…is that really a guy you’re interested in, Slutty Raphael?

The guy whose attention you got because you are masquerading as the whore version of Minnie Mouse?

Then again...it's Halloween, and it's all in good fun, and I'm starting to feel like everything I just wrote makes me sound grumpy and old.   So, go for it girls, dress like whores and have fun doing it.  However, parents beware...when your little girl tells you she wants to be Princess Lea, and you're picturing this...

it won't be too long before she really means this...