It’s time to separate Trick-O-Treat from Halloween

Two years ago,  I wrote about my well documented desire to move Halloween to a potentially better weather day in October.  I’ve argued that it is time to embrace the practicality of celebrating this holiday on a day other than the last day of October because it is almost always too cold in most parts of the country for an enjoyable celebration.  And any historical or religious associations with Halloween are vestigial at best, at least in this country.

When I was a kid, I recall the majority of Halloweens growing up as being cold, dark and rainy. Think how disappointing it is to a kid being told that you cannot go trick-or-treating because it’s freezing cold outside or raining cats and witches.  Fun fact: the advanced forecast for Halloween 2019 in Chicago is Snow!

And as Susan over at Looking for the Good pointed out that until recently, it was dark out every year because they did the time change before Halloween back then, which might be good for scares but not good for kids who are Trick-O-Treating.

Over the years, there have been petitions to move Halloween to the Last Saturday of the month.  So far none have gained the necessary traction.  People just don’t like extreme change.   So maybe the compromise is to decouple Trick-O-Treating from Halloween proper.

Recently, the Halloween & Costume Association, the group that petitioned to move Halloween to the last Saturday of October, proposed a new holiday: National Trick or Treat Day. It would fall on the last Saturday of October and thereby extend the official Halloween celebration, rather than moving it.

This takes the kid portion of Halloween and moves it to a more parent-friendly timeslot while letting Halloween purists still enjoy the true meaning of the holiday: hooking with people at costume parties!

It definitely will help alleviate some unintended consequences that parents of school-aged children face.  If Halloween falls outside of the weekend, parents still have to go to work the next day.  What if you have an important meeting the next day?  Do you really want to be out on the streets until 9 am begging for candy?   Or trying to get your kid out of bed for school the next day is even harder when they are sugar-drunk.  Teachers don’t appreciate having to deal with students who are recovering from a chocolate bar bender either.

If you think about it, many communities already do this unofficially.  They will have special Trunk-or-Treat events, Family-friendly parades or weekend block parties to substitute for going out on Halloween night.  Look, the traditions we associate with Halloween didn’t arrive all at once or from day one.  They evolved over time.  There is no reason we cannot continue to fine-tune Halloween and make it more modern while still honoring the traditional aspects.   

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You don’t need permission, but inclusion is a good thing

While I have resided on Planet Coupledom for well over a decade, I still speak Single, though not as fluently as I once did.   I still follow some advice Sachems like Carolyn Hax and Dan Savage in my news feed.  Admittedly, I don’t consume their content like I once did, but it is still good to keep up on things since I’m now responsible for bringing two germy projectile-barfing poopsacks to full adulthood.  They are going to have relationship issues and I cannot pretend to be a dad from 1960 who just brings home the bacon and asks the wife to do the heavy lifting where it comes to raising the chill-ins.  I can’t do that, right?  

Which brings me to a post called You Don’t Need His Permission that kinda “bothered” me. Bothered isn’t the right word but English is a fickle lady and I’m not sure how else to describe it.

“And if you don’t believe me that there are still people who think women should get a man’s permission to leave the house, they do still exist and it might be more people than you realize…You can inform your spouse of your plans, but you don’t need his permission.”

I have never met Ash Pariseau in real life but from reading her blog, Dames That Know, my take is she is a solid writer, a smart lady and what I would call a Subject Matter Expert on relationships. Her Twitter profile says she Plays with Fire.  She is also very woke as the kiddies say.

My wife will ask me “honey, is it okay if I go to this work-related event or happy hour with the girls”. But when she says “is it okay” it’s more Conversation Introduction, with a healthy dose of is my sleep-deprived mother of twins self-forgetting anything than actually asking for permission.

Hat tip to This Page is About Words

I cannot think of a reason I wouldn’t say sure, have fun, unless we did have other plans she forgot about or if I had a conflict that I had already scheduled on our non-existent shared calendar.  And since I’m in my I hate people phase of life, I don’t really get together with anyone much these days so there are very few conflicts.  Spoiler Alert: my heart isn’t all dark and cold, I do occasionally meet up with a friend or two in the real world.

So upon further reflection and without putting words in her mouth, I think that Ms. Pariseau is writing about a specific subset of unhealthy relationships with control freaks and how to identify and mitigate them. Notice she didn’t go all woke and write “partner” or “his/her” permission. No-bullshit advice for women. She is definitely staying in her lane.

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A Long overdue goodbye to Summer

Even though I haven’t been motivated to vent my spleen in a while, I’m hammering out this post because we apparently have a new policy at CN where you could lose your blog space if you don’t post periodically or frequently enough or something.

Don’t feel neglected readers, I haven’t been posting on social media much either.   On Facebook, if I post anything too liberal, my right-wing boyfriends come out of their basements to set me straight.   And if I say anything that doesn’t perfectly align with the lefty talking points, my SJW girlfriends put me in check as well.

It. is. Exhausting.

How was your summer?  Mine was meh.  The weather this summer was, to use the technical term, sucky. For every decent weather day, there were two rainy, humid or hot as hell days. There weren’t as many sit on the front porch and enjoy my coffee (or back deck and wine) moments like last year.  Because the weather wasn’t favorable, it wasn’t always possible to let the kids spend time in the backyard burning off energy.

Heard a crash at 3 am and found this!

We spent a considerable amount of money trying to get this house in shape for if when we finally pull the trigger and decide to move.  We love our house and our neighborhood, especially now that Portage Park is starting to become a little more trendy.  But the house has some warts and with two growing kids, the thought of sharing the largest of 2.5 bathrooms with them doesn’t appeal to Nightingale.  And there’s the school thing.  Our neighborhood school is okay but not great.

On the other hand, would God put a Binny’s and a Culvers around the corner from us if she wanted us to move!  Besides, we don’t know where to move.  We don’t have any ties to any particular suburb here and a better school would mean less home than we have now or a much bigger mortgage.  Nightingale’s family is mostly in Memphis and we wouldn’t fit in there.

Gonna need a little more than duct tape to fix

A big change occurred at the office at the start of summer.  By that I mean I no longer work at an office.   One of the other work groups expanded and needed my seat.  The dude in charge of office seating asked if I really, really, really, really needed a seat in the office.  In spite of him being subtle, I was able to discern that he would rather not try to find me a seat.  So rather than wind up in a broom closet, so now I’m 99.9999% WFH.   I’ve gone into the office a total of three times since Memorial Day.

There are ups and downs of working 100% remote.  When you are at the office but not at your desk, people assume you are somewhere nearby.  In the breakroom, bathroom, meeting room, out having a smoke (even though they know you don’t smoke) or just out to lunch.  Kidding; no one takes lunch in Corporate America.

But when you are home, if you don’t respond within one-tenth of a second to an email or Instant Message, you obviously must be in the backyard sipping margaritas and working on your tan.  How absurd is that?  I drink Manhattans, not margaritas.

On the other hand, it is nice not having an hour plus door-to-door commute.  It’s even nicer when my kids aren’t being douche nuggets and I can get drop them off at daycare and get back with a little time before I clock in so I can sneak in a choir like mowing the lawn.

Let me know how your summer in the comments below and thanks for reading.

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Every Couple needs a Secret Language

Every couple, gay or straight, whether married or in a LTR, needs their own secret language. I’m not talking Lovey-Dovey baby talk but some simple words, phrases and even gestures that seem straightforward to circumstantial eavesdroppers, but have a clandestine meaning to you and your partner.  Think of these as your safe words for non-sexual situations.

You can just feel the passion burning between these two!    (Photo Courtesy of Ryan Lintelman)

One common event every couple goes through is a situation where one of you wants to leave a scene and the other may not or may not be aware. Nightingale and I don’t have this yet because we can still use the ole “gotta go, kids are about to have a meltdown,” but I have come up with what I call the Traffic Light Protocol.

• Green Light
• Yellow Light
• Red Light

Let’s say you are at a party and you are done doing the smiling and making small talk and just want to go home, but it’s not urgent. A Green Light phrase might be “honey, did we remember to take the laundry out of the washer? I don’t want mold to set in on my work clothes.”

In the Green Light phase, you’re telling your mate that they have about 20-30 minutes to make the rounds, talk to anybody they really want to speak with and then get out of there. You are going to turn into a pumpkin soon.

Now let’s imagine a different scenario. Same party but perhaps its even duller and you just are not feeling it. A Yellow Light phrase might be “honey, I’m pretty sure we didn’t take the laundry out of the washer and I don’t want mold to set in on my work clothes.”

This is a way to say okay wrap up with ever smooching and dealing you’re doing, but don’t engage anyone new and let’s get out of here in 15 minutes or less. You are turning into a pumpkin right now.

Now let’s imagine the same party but perhaps something transpires that irks you or someone is there that annoys you, or you’ve already given the Green or Yellow alert. A Red Light phrase might be “honey, our neighbor just texted that our laundry room is flooded.”

This is the 2-minute warning. You are beyond your limit and are going to turn a Rage Beast in 30 seconds or less. Wrap it up. No long good-byes.

One last thing: You must use these sparingly and judiciously. Also, you definitely should not use phrases that will blatantly insult anyone’s intelligence.

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Parents need kidproof appliances, not refrigerators that can stream Game of Thrones

I like technology as much as the next geek, but only to the extent that it either really helps make my life easier, or it is really cool without a high cost of entry.  Alas there are some technologies out there that miss both these markers and will not be seen in our household any time soon.

I’m so gonna take over this house while you are sleeping Inferior Human

I’m sure there is some benefit to having a fridge with a video screen. “Playing music, displaying the weather, showing a calendar, functioning as a digital whiteboard, and putting together a shopping list are all activities that might make sense on a fridge. Some other features, like mirroring your TV or smartphone contents” might be beneficial if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

What parents really need are refrigerators and stoves that are smart enough to prevent little children from fucking with them.  We have a french door fridge and for a long time, moose and squirrel could only open the freezer section.  Now that they are older (two and a half) they can reach the fridge doors quite easily.  They have the dexterity to open the doors but lack the understanding that they can break any of the ridunkulously expensive drawers within.  Don’t bother replacing those because finding the one for your exact model will be a Sisyphean task and will likely cost almost as much as a new fridge.

I want a fridge that will lock. Yes I know you can buy locks but those look ugly and are a PITA to open and close when you want something. How about a simple code or button that locks the fridge so toddler cannot open them? The best that is available today is you can lock the ice maker. BFD!

As for ovens, is it too much to ask for ones that with oven door locked? How about burner knobs that can be disabled and re-enabled when children are around?  I’m really not gonna leave food in my stove the way I do a slow cooker and use my phone app to monitor, preheat and adjust the oven’s temperature.

 

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How to Repurpose a Crib Rail into a Gate

A few years ago, I decided to take a crack at fixing the gate between my deck and the side fence in my yard.   I didn’t understand why the previous owner had a gate there.  Now that I have children, I completely understand the need.  Alas, my attempt in 2014 sucked and I left it open until the rugrats arrived, then i just used a kiddie gate.  But the weather has not been kind to it, and it wasn’t very practical in terms of being able to access the water hose.  So I tried again.

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So far it seems to have done the trick.  The new gate is better looking and more functional than the previous kiddie gate.

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Three bad luck moments that happened at the best time

I refer to this as the Crisis Of the Week, or COW for short. It may not be earth shattering or life threatening, but it generally consumes 80% of your attention. It may not even be an entire week’s length of time. I guess there could be other permutations as well such as:

• COD – Crisis of the Day
• COM – Crisis of the Month
• COY – Crisis of the Year

Lot’s of possibilities.

Then the thing passes. Finals come and go. The deadline arrives and then ends. The breakup occurs. Maybe things were a disaster or maybe they weren’t as bad as they seemed. Whatever happened, the next thing you know, there’s a new new thing on your radar to replace the thing that passed.

Recently my wife and I had three little COWs.  Note: some of these events occurred in the distant past but I only just now got around to publishing this post. 

First COW: my car battery died. My wife was going to pull the car out of the garage into the drive way so we could put spare child car seats in it. But the battery was dead.

Silver lining: we discovered the problem on Sunday of Labor Day weekend instead of Tuesday as I was heading to work.

Second COW: Our not quite 1 year old twins developed hand, foot and mouth disease (I like to say Hoof and Mouth disease for humans). This meant we had to keep them home from daycare — which we still have to pay for!

Silver lining: This happened the Tuesday after Labor Day and we were going out of town the following Friday, which means we only had to scramble for three days instead of a typical week of five.

Third COW: I paid our Home Depot bill twice! This is because I schedule the payment from the Home Depot account and it withdraw from my account, then I also paid it directly from our Joint account.

Silver lining: While $200 is nothing to sneeze at, we will survive being down $200 this month. We will likely buy something else at Home Depot and it will cancel out or eventually HD will send us a check because they are designed to float a balance for all eternity.

The takeaways from this are: 1) it’s never as bad as you think, and 2) while at the time these events occurred, they seemed catastrophic, I can guarantee neither I or my wife even remember how stressful those events were, because they have long since been replaced by other COWs and then more COWs along with a few CODs, COMs and even a COY for good measure.

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Friday Night Ritual: Ordering Pizza

Tonight if all the stars align, I will pick up my kids from daycare, swing around to catch my wife at the El station, circle back to the pizza parlor to pick up an extra large cheese & sausage from Bacci.   More than likely though, my wife will be running late, or even early, and that will throw the timing off a bit.  Worse case is Nightingale has to take a bus from the train station while I keep Boris and Natasha from eating all the Za.

we alternate between frozen Home Run Inn pizza and ordering from nearby local restaurants.

If everyone’s mood is good and Mother Nature co-operates, we get some playtime in the backyard for the kids to burn off any left over energy. Then bath and bedtime.

If wifey and I have any energy, we’ll watch some TV and plan the weekend shopping: either a Costco Run or a Peapod delivery.  I’m not sure if this is the weekend we attempt to interact with other humans or just stay home.

It doesn’t seem too long ago that my routine was completely so different.  I would likely be training for some marathon which meant Saturday was a Long Run day (double digit mileage).  So a good night’s sleep was paramount to having a good run.  Unfortunately, I was also always working on Project End Singledom with various degrees of success.  That meant giving in to the temptation to go out with friends in hopes of meeting someone.  I wish I could have back most of those wasted Friday Nights.  I might just have had a better marathon training experience and maybe even qualified for Boston.

Those days seem a lifetime ago and I don’t miss them.  Oh and hey, as our kids get older, here is what we have to look forward to.  Of course I’ll take all of that to the alternative.

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An Open Letter to Two Different Set of Friends

Dear Childless/Childfree Friend:

I want to hang out with you, I really do.  I miss the getting together after work and going to a social event where it was like $30 all you can drink.  While I don’t miss the chasing after skirts Playing the Field, I wouldn’t mind being your wing-man again.  Though honestly, the thought of staying out just to stay out isn’t something I can do any longer, even if I wanted to.

But in case you haven’t heard, I have children now that depend on me.  Who thought that was a good idea is beyond me but that’s how the system works.  I really want to raise them to be socially-conscious world citizens with beautiful manners and high self-esteem.  So in order to meet up with you, I need this thing called a Hall Pass.  It’s actually not hard to get, I just need minimum advanced notice.  And if we do agree to met at 6pm on Thursday and you have to cancel, just remember it isn’t easy for me to just go out the next night.

So please don’t give up on me, please keep inviting me out and bear with me while I struggle to get things into the new normal.  And if you end up on this same station later in life, I promise to be a valuable resource.

 

 

Dear Friend Whose Children are now Older:

I’m glad you are finally able to get out and do things again.  I  want to join you and hang out.  But here’s the thing.  I’m at a station in life now that you were at not too long ago in the past.  Remember all those times you couldn’t join me for an impromptu beer after work?  I realize now how much I was being squeezed in back then on weekends while you saved the more precious blocks of time for your children.

We had to plan Guys Night Out six weeks in advance.  And all those 11th hour cancellations because your kid suddenly got sick.  That’s my life right now.  And I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to remember what it was like at this stage of the Child Care Train.  In fact, I need the inside scoop and you’re the one who can provide it – the good, the bad and the ugly.  There is some good, right?

So please don’t give up on me, please keep inviting me out and bear with me while I struggle to get things into the new normal.

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2-Year-Old Toddler Saves Twin From Fallen Dresser, afterwards ArmChair Parents chime in

Update 01/05/2017:  There are some who believe this video was faked.  I’m not sure why anyone would do such a thing, the benefit would have to outweigh the Parent Shaming they endured, or they completely miscalculated the rewards and/or response. 

 

Has everyone seen the video of the 2 year old who lifted a dresser off his twin brother?  I was first alerted to it by former ChicagoNow blogger Jenny Milkowski who posted the video on her FB Page.

Even before I watched the video, I knew what to expect:

Judgemental Comments from Know-It-All members of the That-Could-Never-Happen-to-Me clan.

• “Where were the parents?”
• “How could they not hear anything?”
• “I would never leave my kids unsupervised”

It doesn’t help that many of the news outlets covering the story don’t relay all the available facts.  Not that anyone would read them before spouting off an opinion.  Most people just watch the video and fire off their two cents without reading any of the pesky facts.

The story is that the kids (Bowdy and Brock Shoff) woke up and were playing in their room while their parents were sleeping.  This is very common with twins or kids who share a room at this age.  They have each other and can do more without the watchful eyes of parents.

Apparently when the parents woke up and checked on their kids, they found them playing in the room but the dresser was tipped over.  They reviewed their nanny cam and discovered what had happened.

The Shoffs were “initially hesitant to share the video but decided the issue of bolting furniture was too important to ignore.”  They also imply a higher power was involved with helping Browdy move the dresser off his brother Brock.

I’m not saying the Shoffs are candidates for Parents of the Year.  They know they fucked up and that is one reason they shared the video:  To hopefully convince other parents who don’t think that dresser or TV Stand is any danger, to think again.

It’s practically impossible to watch your kids 24/7 and attempting to do can be more harmful then not doing so.  If you have small children (or even just one) you are likely always in a sleep deficit.

Here’s something that is much more helpful than McJudgey comments that do not add anything to the discussion…a Childproofing Checklist from the International Association for Child Safety

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