The Year My Sister Scarred Me For Life On Halloween

For years I could not watch or read anything related to the Legend of Sleepy Hallow. This was partly because I am a wimp with scary stories and mostly because my sister traumatised me one Halloween as a child.

It happened one Halloween when I was growing up, I was still fairly small and we had finished the trick or treating part of the evening. A bit too much of the good candy had been eaten; the rest along with the crap candy was in a coffee tin in my closet. The good stuff would be gone within a week, the crap candy would stay in the coffee tin at the back of my closet until Easter when I would be forced to have a clean out by my mother.

So riding out the sugar high I was in the living room watching the cartoon Legend of Sleepy Hallow with my sister. Now as an adult I can point out that the ending of this cartoon made it quite clear it was a prank played on Ichabod Crane by the town bully, but as a small child that scene where Ichabod is chased by the headless horsemen who is holding a flaming Jack o’ Lantern as he chases the fleeing Ichabod...well it’s scary.

I may have cried

Now it’s also worth pointing out that as part of the Halloween decorations my parents had some fluffy stuffed Jack o’ Lanterns. It’s also worth noting that I wore glasses and am very near sighted...I think you can see where this is going.

Sometime in the night I woke from slightly freaky dreams to see this ghostly figure at the end of my bed, it was fuzzy and pale but I could see the orange grinning face where a head should be. I held my breath in terror when suddenly the figure threw its horrible orange leering head RIGHT AT ME. The scream I had felt frozen in my throat found voice and I screamed and screamed in the way only a younger sibling can.

During my screaming the ghostly figure had vanished and by the time my parents had got to my room I was sobbing and fumbling for my glasses. My parents comforted me telling me it was just a “Nightmare” probably brought on by the cartoon and deciding to bring one of the plushy pumpkins to bed. My sister, in an exquisite bit of acting, came yawning out of her room crankily asking what was going on and why did I wake her by screaming....wearing her long white nightgown.

It wasn’t until years later she admitted to coming in with her head under the nightgown to prank me, and you think I’d be angry but I’m not. As Halloween pranks go to pull on your kid sister it was a pretty good one and it gave me a pretty good story many Halloween’s later. Not being able to watch a Disney cartoon for 10 years is a small price to pay.

At least I didn’t wet the bed...

Gassy Tots

When I first had my son I felt fairly confident because I'd been around babies before. I was an old hand at burping and feeding bottles and was fairly sure I would be able to handle things.

Now while a few things didn't work out like I supposed they would (exhaustion, blood loss, and a sore lady's area makes looking after a newborn more work than I thought) the first thing that really threw me for a loop was that my son did not burp.

After his meals I would put him over my shoulder and pat his back or rub it and there would be a pause and then he would fart. He farted all the time and as soon as he was old enough to smile he was smiling after he farted. When he could giggle he did that after the farts.

Because he's a stereotypical boy.

This completely fazed me for some reason. I found it puzzling and I was a little worried about it simply because I had never met another baby who loved to toot as much as my son and who refused to burp. I didn't worry about excessively because even I could realize that as long as the gas came out of one end it was fine.

I started taking him to a baby group fairly soon after he was born and at like the 4th or 5th week I got up my courage and said "Um, does anyone's else baby....fart a lot?"

To my relief all the mothers (of pretty much all boys) went "Oh yeah! All the time! Almost all he does!"

So I'm saying now to any new mom's of babies that refuse to burp and fart instead. Don't worry, you're not alone. But don't expect it to get better, if anything they get worse.

I'm pretty sure my toddler thinks I'm stupid.

Every once in awhile Sometimes Quite often my 2 and a half year-old looks at me with an expression I've seen on his father's face. It's a mix of exasperation and pity...also I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm stupid.

Partly he thinks I'm stupid because all parents sound stupid while trying to get their kids to talk and count "What animal is this?" is met with a look that clearly says "How can you not know this?" and can't explain that you DO know and are just testing them. He also thinks I'm stupid because I'm a silly person and when I ask him if trousers go on your head or if he's a dinosaur today he just looks at me like I'm crazy.

I've tried to explain that I'm being silly on purpose but he doesn't seem to be buying it. Maybe because I'm asking if he can see any lions on the way to the shops, or because he's seen me with a (clean) nappy on my head before.

Lately he's given me the look because I decided I would introduce dragon kisses to the world. To give a dragon kiss you go "RAWR!" while holding your hands like claws towards a loved one, then gently grab their head and plant a big kiss on them. My son endures this patiently and then gives me a look like he simply cannot believe I'm his mother. My husband endures the dragon kisses far less patiently. He receives them with cries of "WHAT THE HELL! GET OFF ME!" and burying his face in his hands and weeping copiously.

I just asked my son if he liked Dragon kisses and he glanced at me and said "Uh, NO." with a clearly implied "Duh you mad woman."

They just don't understand me.

Wow okay! This doesn't suck. Also childbirth is icky.

This is one of many blogs I abandoned because I am lazy and because I decided I couldn't write and was stupid. I re-read the three entries I actually posted and discovered to my shock that they don't completely suck and are actually kind of funny. Also I can write more now as I spawned a demon child of my own.

So to stay on topic I will post something I wish I had been told about childbirth....okay actually I WAS told but I didn't believe my sister when she told me. You're not going to believe me either...so this is an exercise in futility but what the hell! Let's run with it.

So you're pregnant with your first child, you're nervous about labor and worried about how much it hurts.

Let me set your mind at rest, first it does hurt but it's easily NOT the most painful experience in my life, and I had a traumatic birthing experience with my son (sucker came out FAST). Seriously, breaking my foot and dislocating my knee easily top natural childbirth, and they didn't have the positive pay off of childbrith which is the best freakin endorphin high EVER. I can never take drugs because it so wouldn't match that high, though gas and air was much appreciated after. Believe me labor? Totally worth it! You get the biggest high in the world and a baby! And then it doesn't hurt anymore because you've stopped trying to push a person out of you! So you can relax on that point.

However, and this is important, when you do actually start pushing it will feel like you need to poo. It will feel like you are the most constipated person in the world and everything would be better if you could just poo. You don't need to poo. That's a baby's head. I know this because I nearly gave birth to my son on a toilet before the nice midwife convinced me to get on the table to check me and apparently the head was already there. This is because my son is impatient and wanted to be born right away.

So yes, there's that.

Also despite all your assurances that you will not be "one of those mums" for the first three months of his life you will obsess over the contents of his nappy. This is okay as long as you don't share it on facebook...or twitter....or with anyone who isn't the baby's father or a midwife or health visitor because ew.

"Just Eat 3 More Bites..."

This is advice directly to children.

Hi Jimmy or Jane or whatever the hell your parents called you. Probably more like Ka-ceey and Sequoia (friends reference!). Anyway, you know how you sit at the table facing a pile of brown rice, or wild rice, or peas and you ask to be excused and your parents say "Just three more bites of (insert hated food here)" so you carefully use your spoon to make three spoon sized holes in the food?

Yeah you're an idiot and you're not fooling your parents because they're sitting right there watching you do it.

Next time? Just eat the damn rice.

Is Green Jello Alive?

This is more for families where their is more than one child in it. It is a fairly common trick (or at least was in my town) for older siblings to tell the younger ones that Green Jello is alive so that they can eat both desserts. This can cause trauma and distress for the younger sibling and concern for the parents.

My sister had me convinced of this for years, partly because she was a good convincer and partly because I was an idiot. My parents were concerned but I'm not sure if that was because of my distress or because they thought I was brain damaged (later stories will show why they might have thought that), but I wasn't coherent enough to tell them who had told me. I think my sister might have told me my parents knew but were trying to make me eat it anyway or something.

But here's the kicker.

When I was 19 I was travelling on a plane for the first time to visit England. It's a long flight and it's hard to read properly on a plane so my mom bought me a useless trivia book. While flying over the atlantic I discovered the disturbing fact that Lime Jello when hooked up to an EKG displays results almost identical to that of a average healthy adult human.

Holy crap my sister was right!

The most disturbing part of this fact is that it's only Lime Jello...not any other flavour. Usually kids seem to make up stories about green coloured food for more vague reasons. Maybe because we like the colour, I don't know...but in this case kids were right. Green Jello might be alive.

I haven't stopped eating it as an adult because it's too yummy but I feel very guilty for doing so.

The advice of this post...if you want to feed your child green jello and they say they can't because they've heard it's alive...for the love of all that you hold dear do NOT let them find out this fact.

Which is hard to do in this information age so you're probably better off feeding them any other flavour, or serve the Green Jello and when the older kid eats it all tell them about this fact...or maybe not...bright green vomit is hard to clean up.

Where Babies Come From

At some point your girl-child or boy-child will come up to you and say "Mommy" (unless they're English in which case they'd say "Mummy" or if you're male in which case they'd probably say Daddy instead) "Mommy, where do babies come from"

And there is the conundrum that a lot of parents face. Do we tell little Johnny or little Jane the truth? Do we tell them the story about the storks to protect their little minds? WHAT DO WE DO SO WE DON'T SCAR OUR CHILD FOR LIFE!

Well don't you fret because I have the answer.

Tell them the truth.

Really, sit them down, explain the mechanics, even use a book that has helpful diagrams and explain that it's something that grown-ups who are in love do if they want to have a baby.

It's all safe and you won't scar your child because they won't believe you.

Seriously, I remember my mom explaining about sex and I listened politely but I didn't really believe her because why on Earth would anyone actually DO that! The very idea was gross beyond words. He puts his what in her WHAT! We actually HAVE one of those, I didn't believe my mom about the vagina thing either. Next time I went to the toilet I checked and was amazed that my mom was telling the truth because I still didn't believe sex actually happened that way because I couldn't see why anyone would willingly engage in said activity.

My friends didn't believe it either, we thought they were hiding something a lot more fun from us. Eventually I had to agree it was probably true but I remember thinking "They must want a kid a LOT to agree to do that."

When you're 5/6 (the age most kids seem to ask or at least the age I asked) the thought of simply touching a boy is gross. If one kisses you you punch him and wail because now you have contact smell because boys are the grossest thing on the planet and he probably eats bugs.

That's why if your kid wants to know where babies come from you can tell them the truth because they just flat out won't believe you.