Bats in the belfry (sort of…)

Every year, our Halloween decorations go up later and later. Yesterday I
finally got off my duff and hung the tin bats in our light tower. This,
coupled with a few black-cutout Halloween vignettes and the kids
pumpkin-themed artwork (from their kindergarten/preschool years) is about
all we’re doing for decorations this year (aside from the soon to be
purchased and decorated pumpkins, of course).

Is this happening to anyone else as your kids get older? In the past, I
was much more Martha Stewart-y in my approach to one of our boys’ favorite
holidays. We celebrated almost the entire month. Cookie decorating
parties, pumpkin carving, visits to the pumpkin patch and festooning the
inside surfaces of our house with spiders, pumpkins, ghouls and such. How
did I find the time to do all that with little ones? Probably because
there was no such thing as ‘homework’ back then and our afternoons were
relatively structure-free. Not so much anymore, unfortunately. The sad
state of our school system today means 20-30 minutes of homework PER
SUBJECT per day. Doesn’t leave us much time to enjoy the freedom of
unstructured time.

But I am fighting back by carving out fun wherever possible! While I was
hanging the tin bats and other decorations, the boys were silently
stalking me as ‘assassins’, trying to get me with Nerf darts before I
spotted them. It was an interesting way to decorate the house to say the
least. But they had fun and that’s all that matters!

Hope you’re enjoying the beginning of the holiday season!

kathy

[Photo by Kathryn Besser]