Dear Hot Mess Mom on Halloween,
Girl, I see you. And seriously, I just want to say, SAME HERE.
Let’s start with the fact that it is nearing the end of October and you, excuse me, WE have 4 randomly selected pumpkins sitting outside on our front porch and they are not arranged in any specific way that is meant to be cute or special. The children put them there and they are proud. It’s fine. The neighbors can think whatever they want.
Let’s also talk about how instead of buying a $100 inflatable ghost for your front yard, we are throwing together a trunk for the school’s Trunk Or Treat event and that will cost more money than we promised our husbands it would. Also, I’m buying groceries, so there.
Hot Mess Halloween Mom, do you have costumes for your kids yet? Oh, good. Me neither. Tell me what your kids are going to be so I can be on the look out when I go out on a mad search for my own children’s costumes on October 27. My boys want to be ghost busters. I’ll need a toddler size and a kid size medium. I know you’ll be on the look out for me, too.
Did you already break into your candy? Same. Those peanut butter cups did not stand a chance!
Let’s make a pact that we are going to stay off of Instagram and since we both know we won’t hold up to that, let’s at least make a pact that when we see all the Instagrammy pictures of the perfect Halloween kids and moms that we will not fall into a comparison trap. That is them. That is their business. We are busy doing other things that we are good at and not getting any credit for because no one posts on Instagram how wonderful it is to do the hard, gritty, messy, loud, chaos that motherhood actually is. Let me remind the both of us that motherhood isn’t about perfect moments captured and shared to social media. It’s quite the opposite, really. It’s all about the hard stuff. Not to say that those perfect Halloween Moms don’t do hard stuff. I know full well that they do. So let’s not take a picture at face value and hold our own value against it.
I’m going to take a pause this year and not get so caught up in my own ideals about what I should be doing for the holiday. I want to get caught up in my children’s big smiles and the excitement in their eyes. I’ll embrace my hot mess-ness and I’ll hope you’ll do same.
Happy Halloween!
Love, Jennie
