I am not a Halloween person at all….I’ve never liked dressing up, was never motivated to go the parties (sorry Mal and Travis), and even the candy didn’t excite me all that much. Since our kiddos entered our life, we have been getting into the spirit a little bit more but now I am much more excited about the community building that a holiday like Halloween can bring about. Here a few examples from our Halloween weekend this year that excited me more than the fun-size bags of Skittles or Reeses melting in my mouth.Celebrating Halloween in public schools has all but gone away by now. I decided to still put together a community event that focused on tolerance and anti-bullying. Our 5th graders hosted a “Spookley the Square Pumpkin” storybook trail for all of our younger students where they listened to the story, participated in activities just like the “jack-o-lympics”, and added their own “unique” pumpkins to our big pumpkin patch poster. The youngers loved it AND my 5th graders did an amazing job spreading on messages of kindness and tolerance to future classes. I hope we get to continue this tradition in the coming years.
As my volleyball team heads into their district tournament, we have to make sure we are keeping proper perspective about the serious-ness of this pressure filled time. Each player partnered up to enter our costume contest at practice on Saturday/Halloween. What a fun and easy way for them to get out of their comfort zones (well some were right smack middle of their comfort zone with crazy outfits and all eyes on them….I’ll let you guess which one this is) and create a fun, teambuilding event that they will remember years into the future.One is not meant to do this parenting gig alone, behind closed doors, and questioning every step they take. As we are going on 20 months with our Wonders, I am so grateful for so many people that have supported and partnered with us through our journey. We got to celebrate our 2nd Halloween with our beloved Stori and Tausha (with their two little foster WonderBOYS) and roam around our neighborhood collecting candy. There is something so comforting about being able to parent your children through tantrums and attitudes and social worker visits and to have people in your life that just GET IT. No judgment, no needed compliments, just acknowledgement of the hard and passing on of patience. This trick or treating trip was also a great opportunity for us to meet our neighbors as Scott and I are not very good at socializing and getting out enough to meet everyone.

After the kiddos were  zombified from their sugar intake asleep, we even snuck out to our neighboors’ driveway bonfire to get to know them even more and plan some future get togethers for us and for our children. We laughed and bonded over the weird traditions of Halloween and compared and contrasted our stories of coming to our neighborhood. It was a fun night and weekend had by all and maybe this little silly holiday could be growing on me a bit more each passing year…..