This is Jack.
Fall has begun, marking the beginning of the holiday season and, for the first time in ages, I’m not facing the coming weeks with a knot in my stomach. I’m relaxed, relieved, and somewhat excited. Sure, I’m still desperately aware that the Lupron is making my mood unpredictable, leaving room for me to completely screw this up before the first of the year, but I’ll worry about that when it happens. In the meantime, I’m positive and that’s all that matters.
Growing up with a bipolar mother meant there was a real “all or nothing” approach to any given holiday, but Mom was most excited about Halloween. October mean that her cyclical reaction to her chemical changes had just started to switch from Manic Mom to Hibernating Helen, which was about as level as she got. My earliest memories have strong ties with dressing up and decorating for Halloween. We lived on a street years ago, I must’ve been four or five, that did the neighborhood participation contest thing, throwing themselves into each holiday with vigor. We were friends with our next door neighbors and the adults banded together to make extra spooky Halloween extravaganzas. Mom dressed me up as a zombie vampire ghoul...Looking back, my costume was all over the place, but I was so proud of myself. I wish I could find the picture. There was I was, covered in white makeup, blood dripping from my mouth, my eyes sunken in and scary behind large glasses, a shredded white robe wrapped around me, standing next to my adorable blond friend, who’d dressed up as a Cabbage Patch Doll and looked the part. (This was in the early to mid eighties, ‘83? Maybe.)
The years that we lived there were probably my happiest. It proved to be the only time I ever lived so closed to friends that liked me and didn’t bully me, my parents weren’t yet fighting all the time, and they had couple friends. It was idyllic in my fuzzy memory. The way childhood should be. But, we moved away and Halloween became less and less, until my parents stopped decorating and we went to things like Trunk or Treat, or stayed home to watch Halloween specials and gave out candy. What I remember most is that it never got out of hand; we never fought on Halloween, even when I was a snotty pre-teen with emotional issues and fought with everyone, so it became my favorite holiday.
Nora’s first Halloween was super quiet. We put a cute shirt on her and handed out candy as a family. Last year my dad and step-mom came to visit. Nora was big enough to walk, but not old enough to understand what was going on. Adam and I got into a huge fight, quietly of course, because we can’t communicate and my Dad seemed embarrassed for me. I’d sewed bells onto a tutu of Nora’s and we bought her a witch hat and broom. She was adorable and while I was sad that we didn’t do more, it was a lovely holiday for her.
This year I seemed to have overcome my crippling anxiety at “Not being good enough” and I’ve just gone for it. The month of October has been filled with crafts and finger painting. Nora has been so excited to be involved in these messy, creative pursuits; I’ve even managed to enjoy them. Go me.
Adam’s mom gave us a pumpkin, like she did last year, and, unlike last year, I felt brave enough to carve it. Admittedly, I tried to convince Adam to do it with me, out of fear, but he declined. I have a break in chores on Friday, so all week I told Nora that we’d carve the pumpkin. Every day she’d go down and chat with her pumpkin, climb on it, ask me questions about it, generally getting acquainted with what was to be, essentially, a sacrifice to the Halloween Gods. I was nervous that when the actual carving started happening she was going to have an epic meltdown and it would dissolve into hysteria, ruining Halloween for her forever. So, when Friday rolled around, I kind of procrastinated. Like a jerk.
I made a couple different face patterns for Nora to choose from, unsure of how she wanted to decorate. She ended up choosing the smiling pumpkin with the scraggly teeth and the sideways eyes. “He looks silly. I like it.” We cut out the holes in the pattern and stuck it on the side of the pumpkin. Nora was so excited by the time we’d made it outside that I thought she was going to burst. Surprisingly, she was super good, waiting on me to cut the top off so that we could get to the guts.
Initially, Nora had zero interest in the guts. I’d gotten all pumped up, preparing to film Nora getting the seeds out of the now opened pumpkin, but she didn’t go for it. I think I got two minutes of me trying to coax her into putting her hand in the pumpkin and avoiding eye contact. Oh well. After I showed her how to scoop the guts out with tools, she was much more keen. She likes helping, especially when tools are involved.
Here, again, she was really patient, because hollowing out a pumpkin is time consuming and a bit labor intensive for a two year old. She kept herself busy, chatting with me, waiting for me to make mounds of seeds inside the pumpkin for her to scoop out. We work well together, like a team, and carving the pumpkin really brought that home to me. I’m not going to gush, but I might’ve teared up a little about it. I’m not too proud to admit that.
Eventually I was able to successfully carve the pumpkin! With the addition of the face, though, the former pumpkin became Nora’s new friend. She wouldn’t leave the darn thing alone for the rest of the day. She even demanded glamour shots. With the pumpkin. (The face makeup was a test run on her costume earlier in the day.)
Growing up with a bipolar mother meant there was a real “all or nothing” approach to any given holiday, but Mom was most excited about Halloween. October mean that her cyclical reaction to her chemical changes had just started to switch from Manic Mom to Hibernating Helen, which was about as level as she got. My earliest memories have strong ties with dressing up and decorating for Halloween. We lived on a street years ago, I must’ve been four or five, that did the neighborhood participation contest thing, throwing themselves into each holiday with vigor. We were friends with our next door neighbors and the adults banded together to make extra spooky Halloween extravaganzas. Mom dressed me up as a zombie vampire ghoul...Looking back, my costume was all over the place, but I was so proud of myself. I wish I could find the picture. There was I was, covered in white makeup, blood dripping from my mouth, my eyes sunken in and scary behind large glasses, a shredded white robe wrapped around me, standing next to my adorable blond friend, who’d dressed up as a Cabbage Patch Doll and looked the part. (This was in the early to mid eighties, ‘83? Maybe.)
The years that we lived there were probably my happiest. It proved to be the only time I ever lived so closed to friends that liked me and didn’t bully me, my parents weren’t yet fighting all the time, and they had couple friends. It was idyllic in my fuzzy memory. The way childhood should be. But, we moved away and Halloween became less and less, until my parents stopped decorating and we went to things like Trunk or Treat, or stayed home to watch Halloween specials and gave out candy. What I remember most is that it never got out of hand; we never fought on Halloween, even when I was a snotty pre-teen with emotional issues and fought with everyone, so it became my favorite holiday.
Nora’s first Halloween was super quiet. We put a cute shirt on her and handed out candy as a family. Last year my dad and step-mom came to visit. Nora was big enough to walk, but not old enough to understand what was going on. Adam and I got into a huge fight, quietly of course, because we can’t communicate and my Dad seemed embarrassed for me. I’d sewed bells onto a tutu of Nora’s and we bought her a witch hat and broom. She was adorable and while I was sad that we didn’t do more, it was a lovely holiday for her.
This year I seemed to have overcome my crippling anxiety at “Not being good enough” and I’ve just gone for it. The month of October has been filled with crafts and finger painting. Nora has been so excited to be involved in these messy, creative pursuits; I’ve even managed to enjoy them. Go me.
Adam’s mom gave us a pumpkin, like she did last year, and, unlike last year, I felt brave enough to carve it. Admittedly, I tried to convince Adam to do it with me, out of fear, but he declined. I have a break in chores on Friday, so all week I told Nora that we’d carve the pumpkin. Every day she’d go down and chat with her pumpkin, climb on it, ask me questions about it, generally getting acquainted with what was to be, essentially, a sacrifice to the Halloween Gods. I was nervous that when the actual carving started happening she was going to have an epic meltdown and it would dissolve into hysteria, ruining Halloween for her forever. So, when Friday rolled around, I kind of procrastinated. Like a jerk.
I made a couple different face patterns for Nora to choose from, unsure of how she wanted to decorate. She ended up choosing the smiling pumpkin with the scraggly teeth and the sideways eyes. “He looks silly. I like it.” We cut out the holes in the pattern and stuck it on the side of the pumpkin. Nora was so excited by the time we’d made it outside that I thought she was going to burst. Surprisingly, she was super good, waiting on me to cut the top off so that we could get to the guts.
Initially, Nora had zero interest in the guts. I’d gotten all pumped up, preparing to film Nora getting the seeds out of the now opened pumpkin, but she didn’t go for it. I think I got two minutes of me trying to coax her into putting her hand in the pumpkin and avoiding eye contact. Oh well. After I showed her how to scoop the guts out with tools, she was much more keen. She likes helping, especially when tools are involved.
Here, again, she was really patient, because hollowing out a pumpkin is time consuming and a bit labor intensive for a two year old. She kept herself busy, chatting with me, waiting for me to make mounds of seeds inside the pumpkin for her to scoop out. We work well together, like a team, and carving the pumpkin really brought that home to me. I’m not going to gush, but I might’ve teared up a little about it. I’m not too proud to admit that.
Eventually I was able to successfully carve the pumpkin! With the addition of the face, though, the former pumpkin became Nora’s new friend. She wouldn’t leave the darn thing alone for the rest of the day. She even demanded glamour shots. With the pumpkin. (The face makeup was a test run on her costume earlier in the day.)
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