I often joke that I’m Mother of the Year in a sarcastic way but I really do manage to screw up quite a bit, it’s not just jokes. Last night I was on the phone with a client who knows I have a 1 and 3 year old and she said, “Wow the little ones are still up?” I said, “What did you think I was a good mother? They win the bedtime fight every night. I’m too tired to argue.”

It’s true.

Well, the entire neighborhood convened at the elementary school on Saturday for the annual Halloween Parade. The kids march through the streets and then everyone goes back home and goes trick or treating for a few hours, then the lights go out, the families go to bed and the group house parties start and keep us up all night saying to each other, “Remember when we used to have fun? When we would just lay in bed and listen to music with dueling bottles of champagne? Before these kids came along?” Oh. I digress.

Well we lined up for the parade and because we were last, we were at the end of the line. Except everyone in the line turned around and started marching down the street behind us. So we actually ended up being first. They had given us a clear verbal map of the streets we were supposed to walk down and we did okay in the beginning. We got the first street right. We even got the second street right. But then Cool Dad and I were preoccupied with chasing our Garden Gnome and Drunk Elsa that we just turned back toward our street to go home.

And 500 witches, goblins, dinosaurs, princesses, astronauts and pirates came with us. Then we went back up the stairs to our house. And everyone else just sort of stopped outside our house and then milled around not really knowing what to do since the parade just disbanded.  I went inside and ordered a pizza, then came out with a bowl of candy and just sat there. Looking at everyone. Wondering if they knew that we were the parents who broke Halloween this year. Oh well.

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