Two things have made me feel old and crotchedy this week, even though I have only just turned 31.

The first thing to set of my radar is all this sudden talk of candy buy back programs.  In the past several days I have gotten three separate emails from stores offering us 25% off a toy or a special treat if we take our candy into them during the week following Halloween.  Many mom bloggers have also mentioned the whole candy buy-back thing.

I’m sorry, but WHAT?!!!???

In my day we trick or treated, brought home our candy, and spread it out to admire and gloat over.  The next school day we took in the stuff we didn’t like and traded furiously to acquire stuff we DID like.  We then went on a sugar binge that lasted until the tryptophan in the Thanksgiving Turkey finally put us to sleep, and all the adults around us (with the possible exception of our dentists) seem to agree with us that this was the normal progression.  Although I have been far too old to trick or treat for years (SAD), I still believe that this is the God Given Right of every child in the US (and anywhere else that celebrates Halloween with trick or treating).

Now, I realize that the 80’s were this CRAZY decade where parents let, nay ENCOURAGED children to eat junk food like McNuggets (invented in the 80’s, baby!) and sugary breakfast cereals handed out toys in the box and fruit roll ups and other sugary snacks advertised right there on the television.  Oh, and Cookie Monster?  NEVER would have touched fruit with a 10 foot pole…even a 10 foot pole made of cookies.

Today we’re all worried about childhood obesity blah blah blah…but seriously people?  It’s Hallo-fucking-ween!!!  Let them eat their candy.  Save the hummus and the pita bread and the soy nut butter for November 2nd, kay?

Item number two on my Halloween grinch list…my apartment building.  I live in a “luxury” apartment building.  This means no one has a mat outside their door, the hallways all look like a Stepford hotel, and there’s zero personality in the building.  It also happens to mean living on a busy street where we can walk to public transit and tons of restaurants, and we have underground assigned parking and don’t have to shovel out our cars through a hellish New England winter-YAY.  I wasn’t shocked, although I was irritated to hear that we wouldn’t be allowing the ruffians who don’t live here into the building to trick or treat because that’s precisely the sort of NIMBY-ism I see all the time here (NIMBY-not in my back yard).  But then I was also told that children who live in the building also were not allowed to trick or treat.  There is also no building sponsored party or any sort of consolation prize.  Guess we’ll have to go out and trick or treat with the plebians, where we belong.

I made a point of telling the building manager that this is the sort of subtle snub that our property has engaged in time and time again that has made it clear that children are tolerated, not welcomed.  Which is a shame as there are plenty of lovely people in the building who have been nothing but sweet to my daughter, including in the office.  But they just can’t be bothered to make kids welcome, even as their parents pay a monthly rent double my friend in Florida’s mortgage.

These are small things in the grand scheme of things…it’s not like we were going to do real trick or treating with E this year anyways.  We figured 3-4 doors and that was it.  Just enough to take some pictures, have some fun, and then come home to hand out candy…the latter which we apparently won’t be doing now.  More than likely we were also planning on a different apartment for next year…underground parking is all well and good but I loathe the wall to wall carpeting and we could easily save up to 500+ a month in rent by moving someplace cheaper.

What really bothers me is how parents seem to be intent in robbing children of the fun of childhood.  They worry about the food the children are eating and some schools have eliminated band candy and bake sales…some going so far as to ban the beloved cupcake.  Parents worry about safety to the point of hovering over their children well into the college plus years creating young adults who have no independence or problem solving skills.  Parents worry about bumps and bruises and keep their kids in the stroller until age 4 or older in the mall (while my not quite 1 year old has walked on the last two trips…we have the stroller, but she’s not in it).  Parents structure time until kids have no time alone to just play or be bored…for that matter if kids are bored parents feel pressured to find something for them to do (my response will always be if you’re bored I can find something for you to do…housework!…I’m pretty sure they’ll find something else to do on their own).

Some of the best things about being a kid were things most kids today will never be allowed to do…  I remember the joy of being allowed to go see a movie by myself at age 11 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie because my mom refused to see it and I badgered her until she just dropped me at the theater and let me see it alone).  I remember wandering through woods on my own.  I remember walking to the store by myself for the first time (a walk of a good 1/2 mile).  Walking and Biking to school alone or with friends starting around age 8.  Being a latch-key kid for a few hours.  Sitting in the car and reading instead of going into the grocery store with my mom when I was around 7/8/9  (for the record, Free Range Kids recounts Child Protective Services has been called over this recently).  Bingeing on candy Halloween night and the weeks that followed.  Watching more than X number of hours of tv per day.

Candy buy-back programs and buildings that refuse to let residents trick or treat????  That’s a trick

Relaxing and just letting your kids eat the damn candy?  What a treat!

For the past 6 months or so I’ve been volunteering at Planned Parenthood.  I am strongly pro-choice and I’ve wanted to be involved with them for years.

I’ve made the choice to not continue to do so, and it’s been one of the hardest decisions of my life.  Not continuing to volunteer has made me feel like a failure, like I’m less dedicated to the cause, like I’m letting the right win.

As if I’m not who I thought I was.

Maybe I’m not.

I had been doing mundane stuff; filling and such.  But I had started training to work a counseling line, which would include talking to women about the various abortion procedures offered by Planned Parenthood.  I have always known what these procedures entailed.  But talking them through now viscerally reminds me of the d&c I had…which was not an elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy but an abortion following the fetal demise of a desperately wanted child.  And while I thought I was ready to work that hotline and answer those questions, it turns out that I have not dealt with my grief to the point where standing up for Elanor’s and my own reproductive rights can outweigh the emotional pain of reliving that loss over and over.

I want to be strong enough to do it.  But I’m not yet.

My best friend pointed out that it’s better for me to have realized this now rather than when I was on the phone with some poor lost girl looking for help that I was too broken to provide.

I believe in their mission.  The women who work there are amazing.  I admire them in their commitment, their ability to shrug off the protesters day after day, their passion for what they do.  I would have felt honored to count myself among their number, and someday when I am stronger and more whole I hope to.

For now, I will choose not to volunteer there anymore, and look for other ways to help the cause.  With my pen, with my wallet, and in small ways that I can do from my home.  But for now, I will not volunteer until I have dealt with my grief and can offer them a whole person.

 

I touched on this lightly (and fairly hysterically) before when in the midst of travel hell.  Low blood sugar, a cranky baby, and a challenging environment do not lead to good blogging.

We have traveled extensively with Elanor.  Several long road trips and two trips to the western states from the East Coast here in the US.  The UK was our first time abroad, and our longest trip to date at 19 days.

We were in Edinburgh for 12 of those days, and I found in incredibly difficult.  The Scots are a lovely people and I want to say that people went out of their way to talk to Elanor, and (by extension) me.  But as a destination, it is not a great option for families with small kids.

Things I wish I had known before we went

—Kids under 4 are not allowed on highland tour expeditions.  Period.  Even if you offer to bring a car seat.  Even if you offer to bring a car seat and pay for a full adult fare.  Even if you offer to do both of those AND sign a waiver releasing the company of all liability.  I should know…I tried.  FAIL.

–Conversely, most tour busses (the big red ones specifically) have a space for a wheelchair bound person OR one unfolded stroller on the ground floor of each bus.  The issues with these is that it’s often hard to find one with a real live tour guide, so often you need to use the headphones, which presents multiple issues when with a small child.

–The licensing laws.  Now if you’re one of those families where everyone eats before 5 (like my family was growing up) you won’t run into the sort of problems we did.  However, should you want to eat after 5 with small kids (up to age 17), good luck.  We found that there were two options…very expensive restaurants had paid for the expensive license OR McDonalds or a fast-food equivalent (most of which also close early).  This was a HUGE pain in our asses.  Scotland has a huge problem with alcoholism and so as a measure to not expose kids to the drinking culture, they’ve made licenses VERY expensive.  Only one of our 5 star hotel’s restaurants had coughed up for it, and most restaurants didn’t.  There was no comprehensive guide, and there were no signage laws (although the GM of the hotel told me this was changing) so the only way to find out if we could eat somewhere was to go and try to walk through the front door and get yelled at.  This was not pleasant.

-Eating, other issues before 5.  When traveling alone with an infant who isn’t walking, most eateries on the lower level  or upper levels are unattainable.  I desperately wanted Indian food.  I couldn’t find one at street level, and folding the buggy up and carrying baby, buggy, diaper bag and all was not an option, especially once I tried that in a castle and broke the damn stroller so that it WOULDN’T fold up.  Also, most restaurants did not have high chairs that in any way contained the kids…they were older, beat up and often missing straps.  The high end places were the exception, as you would expect.  But then we were paying the equivalent of over 100 for a two person meal, so there’s that…

-There’s just not much to do in Edinburgh with kids.  There aren’t any kids museums or much of anything for them.  Towards the end I found Molly’s…a soft-play indoor playground at a shopping Mall (Ocean Terminal, I think it was called…the royal yacht is there) and Elanor thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I also heard of a children’s petting zoo that we didn’t make it to, but that’s about it.  It’s just not a city with a lot of playgrounds or thought given to kids.  This doesn’t make it a bad place, it just makes it a difficult place to bring a young child.

Would I say NEVER EVER go there?  No…it would have been more fun with a 5 year old, particularly when we were there-Fringe Fest.  There were lots of kids events, but it was made clear to us when we tried to show up at a few of them that the under 2 set was NOT welcome.

There are also some cheats we found to get around the challenges…

–We did a lot of room service, and it wasn’t bad.  We also did a lot of stocking up at a local grocery store and making food that didn’t need to be cooked.

–I rented a car and a car seat and drove up to Loch Ness myself.  In the end, this was far more fun than a tour group as I got to choose the route, stop whenever I felt the scenery merited a photo and Elanor was a peach, sleeping most of the time as she usually does on long car rides.

–We found a book meant for people who live in Edinburgh called Edinburgh with Under 5’s which does list some family friendly restaurants…it’s a bit heavy on the chains, but it was still a useful tool to find things to do.

Overall, I don’t find Edinburgh to be a great place to take your kids, but with some ingenuity it can still be a fun place.  Easier to manage with a second adult or a walking child.

My Elanor, at the Museum of Science here in Boston about a week ago…

Today I’m re-posting (with permission!) an excellent post by NJ Face Painter.  Find the original post here, although I read it on the WickedFaire community on Live Journal…

When is face paint not face paint?

When it’s craft paint!

When is it dangerous even if it’s not craft paint? When it’s not FDA-compliant or used improperly!

There’s a good article in Monday’s USA Today, that you can read here. It explains the allergic reactions – red rashes, etc. – that can result from using craft paint or face paint that’s not the good stuff.

Face paint, after all, is not all created equal. That stuff you get at most Halloween stores is usually from China. Remember all those issues we had a while back with products from China? The pet food? The paint used on children’s toys? Yeah, same country, similar issues.

The products I use are all labeled as makeup, not paint. So that’s a start. If you’re looking for face paints, look for makeup. Something to note: Face paint (as other cosmetics) are not FDA-approved. Under the law, the FDA does not approve cosmetics. What they approve is the pigments used in the cosmetics. This makes the makeup FDA-compliant, if one is being accurate. If someone tells you that the face paint he or she is using is FDA-approved, s/he’s wrong.

Now, I’m going to assume that anyone reading this is bright enough to never, never, never use craft paint on his face or the face of his child. That means no acrylics, no temperas, no watercolors, no markers, no Sharpies. Non-toxic doesn’t cut it. As a good friend of mine in Minnesota likes to say, habanero peppers are non-toxic, but you wouldn’t want to rub them all over your face!

So… what about those Halloween kits you see at the stores this time of year?

They’re… potentially OK. But pay attention.

If you buy a great-looking kit to do your son up as Darth Maul, and there’s an awesome photo of just such a face on the packaging – read the entire package before you buy. If the label or packaging says to avoid the eye area with certain colors (like red or black, which is very common), listen to the packaging, no matter what the photo shows. The packaging and labeling trump the photography every time. Take it seriously.

If the makeup smells funny, ditch it. Do not try to use it, since it could be infected with bacteria or simply old and past its shelf life.

Your best bet? Hire a professional. Even if it’s not me (there, now you know I’m not biased). Ask him or her what’s being used. If you hear Snazaroo, Grimas, Paradise, Mehron, Fantasy WorldWide, or several other brands (do your research if you hear something unfamiliar), you’re OK. If it’s craft products, run.

Run like the wind. Run like they’re trying to give you the Swine Flu.

And the same goes for face painters who won’t tell you what they use. If they won’t tell you, it’s because they have something to hide.

I asked

out of curiousity…what’s a safe age to start using face pain for halloween?

She replied

I’ve actually painted very young children, if I’ve go the permission of the parent and the agreement of the kid. If a baby starts crying or pushing me away, I stop. Some surprise me, though; I’ve had tiny kids sit better than my 40-something year old friends!

If you’re going to paint someone very young, use only Snazaroo. You can hire someone who uses it (it’s the mainstay of my kit), or you can get a small kit at www.snazaroo.us. If that won’t get to you fast enough, it’s carried in some of the Michaels craft stores and some party, Halloween, and art stores. ColArt distributes to those stores, so you can probably get in touch with ColArt to find distribution near you.

Snazaroo is not only FDA-compliant, but also child toy safety rated. It’s the safest face paint with the smallest incidence of allergic reaction. It’s also the easiest to remove (a key factor when a kid doesn’t like face-washing!), and the least prone to staining.

I wanted to spread her good (and timely) advice further, hence the re-post here.  And if you live in NJ–be sure to check her out–I’ve seen her work at Wicked Faire and she’s awesome!

Two months worth, apparently.

Elanor’s stroke automatically qualified her to receive three years of Early Intervention.  Part of that requires an full evaluation of her skill set every six months so that we can write an IFSP (?–if she were a public school student, it would be an IEP) that outlines her goals for the next six months in various areas-gross motor, fine motor, speech, etc.  Today we saw the occupational therapist who did Elanor’s fine motor evaluation.  Our goal is to finish her various evaluations and rewrite the IFSP around her first birthday in a few weeks.

Elanor’s fine motor skills tested at +2 months from her age group, placing her somewhere around 13 months in terms of fine motor skills!!!

Ravi was home when the physical therapist came by and did her part of the evaluation.  The report I got back said that Elanor is missing some of the 8-11 month balance skills (although it’s hard to tell since they require being on the hands and knees, and Elanor is all about the walking) but is really far ahead on other skills (see walking) so she also averaged out around 12/13 months.  Our PT is more concerned that Elanor’s feet are turning as she walks…we need to start forcing her to wear her real sneakers (sigh…that’s a battle of epic proportions) and if it doesn’t correct in a few more months we may need to talk about inserts.

Overall though, I’m super excited.  It’s a good way to start off a week that I’m optimistic will include being cleared to move onto dairy products.

However, I am also a bit trepidatious that it will include a referral to see the feeding team—Elanor has stopped gaining weight and has fallen completely off the charts.  She isn’t even on her own little curve anymore and I’m worried about what this will mean–a serious solution would be a g-tube, but I’m hoping it wouldn’t come to something like that.

One of the most perplexing things she does is chew food and then dribble it out instead of swallowing it.  A decent chunk does make it down, but she also doesn’t swallow a lot.  It’s frustrating to have a child so small that at almost a year of age she is still quite comfortably fitting into 3-6 month clothing and even some 0-3 stuff.

Back to the positive though…my girl has skill to spare!  Go Ella!

The BBC has defended a decision to change the ending of nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty.

A version used on the CBeebies channel was altered so rather than “couldn’t put Humpty together again” all the King’s horses “made Humpty happy again”.

Labour MP Tom Harris told the Independent on Sunday: “For goodness sake. Obviously children will find it far too violent, distressing and horrific that Humpty should not be put back together again.

This is one of many example of the way my daughter’s childhood is being sanitized before my very eyes.  Other examples include changing the lyrics to various songs in our Mommy and Me class because other moms have objected to “violent lyrics” (Little Bunny Foo Foo–the Bunny “bops” the field mice on the head) to the doctor telling the monkeys “no more jumping on the bed” instead of the “that’s what you get for jumping on the bed” that I heard as a child.  This doesn’t even begin to touch upon the Disneyfied versions of fairy tales where the Little Mermaid marries the prince instead of committing suicide and becoming sea foam or where Cinderella’s stepsisters aren’t punished for their behavoir instead of having their eyes plucked out.

Fairy tales and nursery rhymes are meant to be cautionary tales.  They are meant to warn us of the dangers in the world; that not every one is kind, that bad people are punished, good people are rewarded and that sometimes shit happens.

There is no benefit in santizing them.  Children are fairly bloodthirsty creatures…they like watching bad people get what’s coming to them.  My third graders LOVED Coraline by Neil Gaiman, which I found terrifying and creepy.  Making Ms Muffet make friends with the spider takes all the color and interest out of a nursery rhyme.  Who cares?  Making stories boring doesn’t make children want to read them.

I for one won’t be handing Elanor sanitized stories…she’ll be getting the fairy books (Red Fairy, Blue Fairy, etc) with the original bloody fairy tales.  I devoured them, as did most people I know who have read them.  Sure, she’ll get the Disney versions, because they have their place in society (and are too pervasive to ignore) but that’s what the good old Venn Diagram was invented for.  Personally, I can’t wait until she’s old enough to have the same reaction I did the first time I saw The Lion King…”wait, that’s HAMLET!!!” (a really crappy Hamlet, if not a bad cartoon with catchy songs).

Let’s give kids credit for being able to handle far more than we’re giving them credit for…and let Humpty Dumpty have the natural end of an egg that has met pavement….

This is a topic with more than a little controversy attached to it.

On one side you have the parents who, like I, post pictures and videos of their children, often identifying them by name and not doing anything to lock  down the info.  We do not perceive this as risky, inappropriate or dangerous.

On the other side are the parents who are very concerned about strangers being able to identify their child by name and pictures.  There are certainly enough people telling them they should be scared-Facebook has an application that tells you how many sex offenders live in your zip code, and the media makes a huge deal out of the “risks” associated with publicly posting images of your children online.  Now, that app doesn’t tell you how many of the “sex offenders” are actual pedophiles as opposed to say an 18 year old senior in high school who sent a picture of penis to a 15 year old friend, or someone who had to register because they were busted soliciting sex from an adult prostitute.  Hell–until a year ago in MA, I could have been arrested and forced to register as a level 1 sex offender for publicly breastfeeding as it was not exempted from indecent exposure laws here.

A third side is that it’s the child’s image and they didn’t have a say in putting it online.  Do you want their future employers capable of finding a picture of them at the aquarium when they were 3?

I think it’s the second argument that bothers me most because it’s part of that larger culture of fear surrounding parenting that I just find exhausting.  I do think that there are a lot of things worth being afraid of, but assuming that every stranger (and let’s face it, the argument is really that it’s every strange MALE)  has disturbing or sexual intentions towards her would rob Elanor of meeting a lot of cool people.  Everyone is a stranger initially, and most people have good intentions.  Teaching kids to be afraid of everyone (or every male) only creates timid children.  The best skills I ever learned were how to talk to strangers wisely, and how to evaluate a person.  You can’t develop instincts about people unless you actually meet them.

Here’s one thing I’ve learned about people…they’re lazy.  You really think there’s someone who has that kind of time an energy to find your facebook profile (assuming you haven’t friends locked it) or youtube channel just to watch your 8 month old drool out applesauce.  While I find my child that interesting, I doubt anyone else does.

So when I encounter someone who has those beliefs (hide teh pictures…teh interwebs are full of pedophiles just seekin out ma baybeeeeez), I’ll respect them (as in I won’t post pictures of Elanor with their kid), but privately I roll my eyes.

Today around 2pm our time, Lady was put to sleep.  The vet came to our home and gave her some valium and something else to sedate her and remove her from any pain.  Then he placed her in her blanket in my arms and gave her the shot of phenobarbital (and something else) that stopped her lungs and heart.  She died peacefully in my arms before he was even done with the shot…there was no heartbeat at all when he started checking for it post-shot.  It was death with dignity for a cat who was holding on to life with nothing more than willpower, and losing the battle a little more every day.

Elanor was out with my mom for the day.  When they got back, we went right out without bringing her up to the apartment.  We headed out to Borders to buy a book the vet had recommended.  His opinion was that we shouldn’t expect Elanor to be completely unaffected by Lady’s loss, especially when they had a close bond, and the book was one of his pieces of advice.

It just about broke my heart when we finally got home and Elanor immediately began looking for Lady.  We had to explain to her that Lady was gone…to which she said “bye-bye”…and I just about broke down.  I cried several times during the story “The 10th Good Thing about Barney” which I’ll review here another day.  It’s so hard because I do know that Elanor loves Lady and isn’t going to understand.

Rest in peace Lady…you will be missed by all of us.

I had an odd experience today of being the old woman in the room and the only one with a baby today.

I was at a volunteer training class with 8 other women.  At least 4 were undergrads, one from my alma mater.  Several were older, but still in their (guessing here) 20’s.  Two others were married.  No one else had a baby.  There was more than one awkward moment because of it…I was 8 minutes late because my sitter was caught in traffic (and I had to stop to go through a drive through–without food I would have passed out), and I had to ask for an exception to the no cell phone policy as I need to be available if something happened.

We were talking about what sexuality was, and the group leader asked if reproduction was part of sexuality.  The other girls sat there contemplating this question, so I had to speak out as the only woman in the room who had actually shoved a kid out of her vagina to make the point that YES reproduction is part of sexuality.  There’s the sex you have because you think you might be ovulating (says the woman who used Ovulation Predictor Kits) and there’s the struggle to regain sexuality post baby, and there’s learning to have sex while the baby sleeps in the crib next to you (or not)…having a kid changes your sexuality profoundly.

There are so many ways in which I don’t feel distinctly different from who I was in college.  I’m still somewhat idealistic.  I like many of the same authors.  I even like some of the same tv shows (although few are still on the air).  Many of my friends are the same.  But it’s being confronted with an honest to god student who is in that “normal” undergrad age range that really puts the mirror to my face and shows me how far away from all of that I really am.

I am a million miles from living in a dorm, sharing a room, sharing a communal bathroom (hell, I get pissy when my husband uses “my” bathroom just to pee).  I have no interest in going to the Alanis Morrisette concert the night before my French midterm is due, or re-dying my hair black because I’m going through a goth phase and I don’t want to look like a poseur on goth night at the local club as I smoke clove cigarette (*headdesk*).  I would never sit in a training and ask with absolute sincerity if I can start a conversation with “what pronoun do you prefer” because I can tell the difference between the right environment for that question and the wrong one.

And I have a child.  For whatever reason, the being married doesn’t seem as foreign.  Plenty of people have significant others in college and plenty live with them.  And while I could go off on my gay marriage rant about the over 1000 benefits marriage confers, on a day to day basis it doesn’t really feel all that different from the year we lived together prior to being married.  The having a kid?  That makes me different.

Having a baby changes you in a profound way that has been expounded upon by others at length.  But the thing it does the most is it changes your priorities.  The baby is #1.  I would never worry about my husband needing to get ahold of me on the 1 in 6,000 chance that he’s been in a car accident.  But the slim chance that something medical happens with Elanor or even that she becomes so hysterical that the sitter can’t calm her (she has cried for an hour plus at my in-laws and they don’t call…it upsets me greatly)…I NEED to be able to pick up the phone.  I can’t do ANYTHING without considering how Elanor fits into the logistics.  I can’t attend a training without arranging for a sitter, waiting for them to show up and then driving to the training myself.  I can’t have a vet come and put our cat to sleep without figuring out who will be watching Elanor (my mom) so that she will be out of the picture during what will be a traumatic event for my husband and I.

This morning I don’t think I would have said I was very different from who I was something like 10 year ago…after being the only mom in the room?  I’ll admit that I bear very little resemblance to her.