Consider yourself warned!
A guide for those who think they want children.
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Happy Halloween! This is the one day a year where parents allow their kids to get dressed up as their favorite superheroes, cartoon characters, and monsters and roam the neighborhood, begging for candy from strangers. I’ve had my share of taking my own little princess, Spiderman, and Power Rangers around the neighborhood. I used to raid their stash when I got home. I considered it payment for my time. Don’t judge, I’m sure other parents do it too. But, the reality was that I loved taking them out trick or treating. It was easy to get caught up in the excitement of little kids running from house to house and from store to store. It was also interesting to see how creative some of these parents got when making costumes for their kids. Some of them were elaborate. However, most parents were like me and dressed their kids in the good ole Party City costumes.
When my son was around 10, he started to get to old for Halloween. Part of him wanted to go trick or treating, the other part of him thought he was too old. Eventually, his desire for candy won. He didn’t have a costume, so he just wore jeans, a jacket, a heavy braided chain his grandfather gave him, and his father’s Kangol hat. I told him to roll with it. Finally, someone asked him who he was. Of course, he didn’t have an answer. I told him to tell everyone that he was Run from Run DMC. He later told me that when he told people he was Run, they gave him extra candy. Someone asked him if he knew any of their songs. He did (I used to play them), but he didn’t let them know. He wasn’t about to turn into a rapper. He knew his limits. As much as I love watching the kids run around in their costumes, I have to admit, I don’t buy candy and rush home from work to give it out. I know. Its sad. I just don’t want to risk having all this extra candy sitting around the house. I’m trying to watch my weight. I know I can bring the extra candy to work, but every year we have tons and tons of leftover candy. I don’t need to add to the pot. Besides, kids come out earlier now and I’m not home from work when most of them come around. This year will be different. My daughter wants to give out candy. Usually, she’s out with her friends on Halloween. But this year, she wants to give out candy. And, she wants me to do it with her. So, I guess I’ll be leaving work on time today (no happy hour for me) and rushing home. If you’re in Brooklyn, come on by! So, now you know, and you can … Consider Yourself Warned! What’s your favorite part of Halloween?
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My daughter runs cross-country. She HATES cross-country. Well, maybe hate is too strong of a word for it. She is not a fan of cross-country. But SassyGirlTye, if your daughter isn’t a fan of cross country, why is she on the team? Well, that’s a good question. While my daughter doesn’t like running cross country, she LOVES running track. Her track coach is also the cross-country coach. He told her that he wanted her to run cross country, so my daughter runs cross country. This is her third year on the team, so she knows what to expect. She knows that practice will involve long distance running. She knows that there will be days where she will be doing a lot of strength training. And, she know that there will be days when she is going to be sore. Knowing all of that, she is a trouper and goes out there and runs.
The funny thing is that I run too. I am currently in training for the New York Marathon. I’ve ran a few half marathons and a number of races. However, this will be my first marathon. So, as I listen to my daughter’s tales of woes and aches and pains, I just laugh. When she has a race, this girl comes home exhausted! After one of her races, I reminded her that she only ran 2.5 miles. That’s a warmup for us! In all fairness though, when I run, I’m not trying to beat everyone else to the finish line. I’m just trying to finish. Sometimes, I ask my daughter if she wants to come out and run with me. She usually tells me no, but every now and again, she will come out and run. A few years ago, my daughter decided to run the Turkey Trot with me and a few of my friends. It was a 5 mile run, on Thanksgiving, in the park. We had to be there early in the morning. My daughter is not an early morning person. She’s more of a “I’ll wait until early in the afternoon to roll out of bed” person. But this day, she got up and ran with us. On the way to the race, I told her, “Love, our mantra is your race, your pace. I know you will run faster than me, so you don’t have to wait for me. You run your pace. Once you finish, get one of the bagels they give out and wait for me.” My daughter wouldn’t hear it. We were going to run together, she said. We were going to be a team, she said. This was our bonding time together, she said. Well, let me tell you. The race horn went off, and my daughter was gone. After about 5 minutes, I couldn’t even see her anymore. Once my daughter started running, she never looked back! Not once. I was a slower runner then and I was taking my time. It wasn’t one of the qualifying races for the marathon, so I really didn’t care when I finished. As a matter of fact, neither did my friends. At one point, we all caught up with each other and decided to walk and catch up on things since we hadn’t seen each other in a while. While we were walking, my phone rang. It was my daughter. She had finished running. I told her that we were on our way. Eventually, she got impatient and called again. At that point, we decided that we may as well just run it in. We also laughed and joked that this would probably be the last time my daughter ran with us. But it wasn't . That same year, one of my friends wanted to run the Cherry Tree 10 Miler and Relay. In that event, you have the choice of either running the full 10 miles as a solo runner, or as a part of a 3 person relay team. My friend wanted to do it as a relay team, but we needed another runner. Guess who we asked? Let me put this in perspective for you. This relay is in February. Outside. In the park. New York is cold in February. And, we had to be in the park before my daughter’s noon roll out of bed time. But, my girl is a trouper! She surprised me and ran with us. Every now and again, she still comes out and runs with us. In fact, she is running the Turkey Trot with us again this year. I enjoy running with my daughter. If you want to have some real bonding time with your child, find something that you both enjoy doing and do it together. You will both have happy memories to reflect on years from now. So, now you know and … You can Consider Yourself Warned! If you have kids, what things do you like to do together? I don’t know what’s going on, but lately we have been seeing a lot of bugs. A few weeks ago, ants decided that they wanted to move in with us. Now, I'm not talking about one or two ants. I'm talking a whole freaking tribe! And they weren't the little ants either. They were the big black ones. Now, these ants are big enough that if you really wanted to kill them, all you have to do is either step on it or swat it with a newspaper. Easy, right? Well, not for my daughter. Whenever she would see an ant, she wouldn’t kill it. She said that she didn’t like the sound it made when she stepped on it. So instead, she would come and get me to kill it for her. I was her personal exterminator.
Eventually, I bought a can of raid and sprayed the perimeter of the kitchen, dining room, and living room. Thank God it was lavender scented because I over sprayed. I sprayed so much Raid that I had to open the windows to air out the house. It worked though. The ants were gone in a matter of days. I guess the scout ant went back to their colony and advised his fellow ants that this house was off limits. The only problem was that now I had little dead ants everywhere and I hate sweeping! Well, that wasn't the only problem. Any other bug that decided to check out my house as a potential home would turn up dead. Honestly, I never knew so many bugs in Brooklyn. My boss reminded me that the bugs were displaced due to all the construction going on in my neighborhood. They needed somewhere to go. I can understand that, but they didn’t have to come over here! So, once the ants left, the flies came for a visit! Amazingly, my daughter had no problem killing flies. Apparently, they annoyed her more than the ants. She would go after the files like she had personal vendetta against them. It was funny to watch. She would get one of my magazines, roll it up, and start swinging in the air. I didn’t know if she was killing flies or playing tennis. Either way, she celebrated every time she killed one. Oh, and we can’t forget the water bugs. IHATE water bugs. They come in all shapes and sizes. They scare both me and my daughter because they show up when we’re not expecting them, and they are so big. I hate killing them. You know, when you step on an ant, it makes a nice smallcrunch sound. Not water bugs. They make a loudcrunch sound. Yuck! My daughter will not go near them. In fact, when she sees one, she won’t even go back downstairs unless I'm with her. To be honest, I'm not too keen on going down there either, but since I'm the parent, and my son is now away in college, and neither my daughter or I have boyfriends, I have no choice but to go downstairs and kill it myself. The one good thing about water bugs is that for the most part, they will eventually die on their own. The bad part is that they usually decide to do it in the middle of the floor, in the living room or in the kitchen. For the life of me, I don't understand why they just won't go outside and die. Why must they die inside? No one wants to see a dead water bug laying on the floor. If one is on the floor when my daughter gets home from school, she just leaves it there. Then, when she hears me come home from work, she will stand at the top of the staircase and yell, "Mommy, I don't want to alarm you (of course that ALWAYS alarms me), but there's a dead bug on the floor." No matter how many times I tell her that all she has to do is sweep it up and put it in the trash, she will not do it. I constantly remind her that next year she will be in college and have to deal with bugs herself. She just tells me that her roommate will have to deal with them. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when she and her future roommate encounters their first bug sighting. Anyway, you better hope you don't have squeamish kids. If you do, you'll be the one stuck with dealing with the bugs. So, now you know, and you can ... Consider Yourself Warned! Parents out there, what are your kids squeamish about? |
SassyGirlTye lives with her two wonderful teenagers in Brooklyn, New York. No matter what she says in her posts, she truly loves her children with all her heart.
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