A COVID Halloween

How long did you trick or treat if you’re in a place that does that sort of thing? What age did you stop dressing up? If you don’t have younger siblings, did it all stop a bit earlier?

I ask, you see, because this is RR’s tenth Halloween. I feel like she only has a couple more before she becomes the weird older kid who shows up solo to get candy. It seems like the kids with younger siblings are able to trick or treat much longer than the ones who go alone or in a group of older kids. And yet, this Halloween, there’s no trick or treating for her.

Maybe most parents are letting their kids out but mine is in physical school and I don’t want her bringing her who knows what germs to every person who opens their door. I also won’t be opening my door because I don’t want to hand out candy to kids in the middle of a pandemic. Last year there was a terrible storm that almost canceled Halloween. If a storm could do it, a pandemic most certainly should.

So we’re taking her to our close friends house, an almost pod, if you will, for a two family Halloween party. We’re a big Halloween family so this both breaks my heart and delights me. I’ve always wanted RR to have a Halloween party. My birthday is the day before my mother’s in November so I always had Halloween parties instead of birthday parties (nice, mom) and I have very fond memories of them.

I don’t have any judgement for the folks handing out candy or going trick or treating. In fact, I’m partly sorry I won’t be home to participate. It makes me sad for the kids that are going that there might be fewer houses. Definitely there will be fewer in our neighborhood where there are signs up recommending the kids participate in a socially distanced parade to show off costumes and get candy.

Also, can we talk about ready-made costumes for pre-teen girls? IT’S A WHOLE OTHER WORLD. There’s are jokes about putting sexy in front of everything for adults – sexy Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, sexy nurses, and so on. This year my kid wanted to go as an angel but guess what? SEXY ANGELS. She went with a “dark angel” whatever that is, which turned down the sexy but still you guys, next year I’m making her costume.

Armpits

Just stop now if you are an Armpit Person. I suppose you can take that any number of different ways. The person who loves a nice ripe subway ride in a New York summer. The person who enjoys a pleasant meander through the scent fields on a particularly amorous afternoon. I’m not judging you. But if you aren’t an Armpit Person, carry on, my friend.

I’d wager my nose is more sensitive than most and while I’ve weathered my fair share of pungent predicaments, I never thought I’d be contending with one in my own home. There is nothing quite like a brand new set of pre-adolescent hormones to create a scent soup that wrinkles the nose and waters the eyes. I understand the trouble with anti-perspirants but is it too much to ask for a deodorant that does its job?

I understand I’m asking it to work extremely hard (and I don’t mean fresh as a daisy no smell ever ruin your daughter’s self esteem hard). I’m just asking it to mildly take the sting out of the air. Dancing tactfully through this landmine while preserving said self-esteem is no walk in the park. It’s level ten parenting. I don’t want her classmates to ridicule her but I also don’t want to give her a complex.

After trying many different kinds of deodorants – remember Armpit People, we agreed you would stop at the top! – we’ve finally found one that maybe most of the time can limit the hormonal eau de daughter. But seriously. If you have or had one of these parental predicaments or even your own battle, what deodorant have you found that does the trick? All suggestions welcome – limit dairy? More showers? And the ever popular wait it out. But save my nose friends. Help!

Anxiety, of Course

Are there people who aren’t coping with a bit of anxiety right now? We already know I am and my child keeps chewing on her fingers. My wife seems impervious to it all though, so I imagine some of you must also be blissfully floating through a pandemic. An exaggeration, of course, but that’s what it feels like for those of us (me) struggling.

RR started virtual school this week. It’s an every other week thing but this is the first time she’s back at it since last spring. I checked in on her this morning and she was raptly watching her teacher lead but her brow was furrowed and she was crouched over the screen. Can she understand? Is her slow processing speed keeping up?

I still have questions about how the school is supporting the children who need extra help. They have added an additional teacher to the classroom but shifted away the support teacher who was working with her in the spring. RR worked so hard on her math and reading over the summer and I hope she is seeing the results. But what about school overall?

It doesn’t always work for me to wait and see and deal with each thing as it comes. That’s so often what I hear therapists recommending. Less planning, less problem solving. I have choice words for how that makes me feel. But in the meantime, I can pick back up on some of the other things they recommend, starting with a short meditation each day. RR is joining in (OOOHMMM, she says) and hopefully it will help us both.

Ten and Back to School

Is here the right place to say I cannot believe it’s September? Yesterday, we did back to school pictures in the pouring rain and dropped her off at school. At one pm. For three hours. This is a weird fall, from start to finish, and we haven’t even really begun.

Yes, we sent her back to school in person. She’ll have class at the school every other week and, on off weeks, work from home. She’s supposed to be working independently and we are supposed to be available for support and technical assistance. But this spring that was definitely NOT the case and I learned more fourth grade math than I was comfortable with. I hope this year is different since both of us have actual jobs that require actual work.

This is like breast-feeding and cloth diapering all over. The are you sending her to school I can’t believe you’re sending her to school did you know she was sending her to school back and forth is exhausting. I feel like I need to make excuses. But she’s in private school but the group is small but the safety measures are better than acceptable. It’s just a throwback to when she was a baby and I was less confident in what I was doing. I felt all this pressure. It’s like an old wound I’ve picked open again and it’s no one’s fault but my own. 

In other news, 10 is a weird, weird time. RR is on the cusp of so much but still has one foot firmly planted in little girl land. She still plays with her stuffed rabbits and reads picture books some nights before bed. But her demeanor is changing, her whole self is changing, and she is decidedly not a little girl anymore. Not really. It’s hard to negotiate as she flows fluidly from one self to the next and back again. Hard for me, anyway. She seems to be doing just fine.

This is the first time I’ve understood why blogs go silent (aside from the decaying art form of it all). Her self is more her own and the things I would have told you about feel forbidden. But here we still are and, here we’ll stay, for awhile anyway, since this is more about me than her most of the time. Here’s to a weird September.