parenting

Halfway through the Dark – Traveling Home for Christmas

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

In the midst of winter, we rage against the darkness with as much love and joy as we can muster, celebrating with family and friends. I celebrate Christmas, but it is only one holiday among many, whether it is New Years, Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or earlier in autumn, Diwali. We prepare ourselves for the coming cold by surrounding ourselves with light. This year, our family was so fortunate to be surrounded with love, even when we stumbled a bit.

Unlike many families, Chris and I never had to worry about sharing Christmas between two sets of parents. As we were high school sweethearts, our parents still live four miles apart. For the past several years, we’ve actually done a joint holiday, where we open presents separately at each house in the morning and then all have dinner together. This year, we stayed at Chris’ parents house for the whole week, along with his sister and brother-in-law.

But unlike previous years, we had a toddler. While Sprout was in our midst last Christmas, he was barely sitting up, much less mobile. He required constant supervision, but at least stayed where you put him. Last Christmas Day, we were able to prop him up in a laundry basket while he looked adorable in his little Santa pajamas. This year, he was everywhere all at once all of the time. Between the relatives and an endless parade of guests (Christmas Eve, Christmas dinner, the day after Christmas), plus the tree and decorations, there was a palable sense of excitement. Needless to say, there was none of his normal interest in sitting quietly by himself flipping through a book.

Adding to this chaos was a number of non-human friends. My sister and brother-in-law brought their schauzer puppy, Jasper, who is about half Sprout’s size. They became fast friends. Sprout would slowly pet him on the back saying, “Niiiice” in a tone that my sister-in-law likened to Borat. While he did become bolder over time, I was proud of how gentle and kind Sprout was to Jasper. Occasionally the constant petting became a bit much, but in general Jasper was very tolerant and enjoyed Sprout’s company. One of them was almost always following the other around. When I took Sprout over to my parents’ house, Jasper was genuinely excited when he returned. He was even protective of Sprout, barking when he thought he was doing something dangerous.

The other non-human friends were a bit more – mechanical. My mother-in-law loves singing animatronic Christmas decorations. In addition to her “people” (little synchronized carolers), a singing stuffed Santa, a set of Disney characters playing instruments, and a penguin, she bought Sprout a singing Christmas tree that was about half his height. To the tune of Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, it bounced, its mouth moved, and its little lights blinked. It was cute the first few times. On repeat number 10, it became intensely grating, especially when Sprout turned on all of the singing creatures simultaneously. It also bothered me that they mesmerized Sprout even more than TV. We hoped Jasper would attack them and force a retreat, but he seemed to enjoy them as well. Which meant the rest of us either had to tolerate the same recorded songs over and over and over again or whining that we hid the toys on him. We settled on some combination of the two, along with a heavy dose of distraction. Even my mother-in-law became sick of them eventually – it took a toddler for her to realize that someone could love her “people” even more than she did.

While Sprout was wonderfully careful around the dog and fragile decorations, we started to see some of the fabled toddler defiance emerging. He began saying “No!” with a snotty edge in his voice and a pout. He degenerated into mini-meltdowns a few times, both conveniently in public, at restaurants. Thankfully, getting away from the table helped calm him down significantly. I know that won’t always work in the future, so I’m working on my bag of tricks, including deep breathing (for him and me).

I couldn’t blame him for being on a bit of an emotional roller-coaster – everything was so confusing. After an absolutely bonkers December with the first two weeks spent traveling, we bopped from house to house several times over the course of the week. On the way there and back, we slept over at my aunt’s house. Once we were in upstate New York, we spent half of the time at my in-laws and half the time at my parents’ houses. And we weren’t alone in those places. As Sprout is starting to be afraid of strangers, the crowd of unfamiliar extended family and friends must have been disorienting. Considering how much was new and overstimulating, he did extremely well.

With all of the other thrills, he wasn’t that excited by Christmas Day. He’s too young to enjoy anticipation, so unwrapping presents confused him. His very first present was a Little Tykes slide and once he saw that, he wasn’t interested in sitting still enough to open anything else. To him, the wrapped presents were just fancy boxes.

Eventually, he did open them all with a bit of help. I wouldn’t say otherwise (of course), but I was extremely pleased with what everyone got him. While I wrote a list, I knew folks were going to buy items that weren’t listed. Fortunately, all of our relatives stuck to giving the types of toys we value – active, creative, practical, durable, and not electronic.

Chris and I chose to make the trek up to the great, cold north so that we can spend it with our family and old friends. It was worth every mile.

Why I Will Never Buy Elf on the Shelf

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 12 Comments

The Elf on the Shelf is more than just an annoyance – it also promotes a lot of terrible values. Here’s why I will never buy Elf on the Shelf. 

Why I Will Never Buy Elf on the Shelf (Photo: Picture of the Elf on the Shelf with a No Sign Through It)

Wandering the bookstore in December, looking for gifts, I really hope that my four-year-old doesn’t notice – or at least doesn’t care about – the Elf on the Shelf prominently displayed by the check-out counter. While I know it’s a beloved tradition in many families, I kind of hate the thing. Besides its aesthetics, it stands for a bunch of values that are the opposite of what I want to teach my kids.

For those who have had the good fortune of avoiding the Elf on the Shelf, it’s stuffed elf that comes with a book. The main idea is that the Elf is a spy for Santa who watches the kids all day and reports back every night. Each morning, the parent puts the Elf in a different place, some of which involve increasingly complicated scenarios. While I normally love toys that come with books, the only thing the Elf on the Shelf is good for is these hilarious photos that reveal the Elf in some very compromised situations.

Here’s why I will never buy the Elf on the Shelf:

Continue reading →

Partying with the Other Cartoon Mouse

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

From reading parenting blogs, there appears to be a trifecta of parental hate: Calliou, glitter (the herpes of craft supplies), and Chuck E. Cheese. So when Sprout was invited to his first proper kid birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, I was intrigued. I loved the place as a kid, but I was a kid then, so what did I know? I found that while it wasn’t as bad as everyone says it is, it was rather mediocre – somewhat fun, no more and no less.

Although Sprout hid behind my legs when we first arrived, processing all of the action, he moved on to the toddler rides soon enough. Much like the their bigger cousins at Disney World, he showed much more interest than enjoyment. His little face showed rapt attention, his eyes concentrated and mouth neutral. It wasn’t that he disliked the rides – when we lifted him off one, he’d tap the seat and look at us, asking to put him on again. Instead, he was focused on absorbing and making sense of the experience. He requested going on the tiny carousel and the creepy clock swing so many times that we had to take a break for our own sanity. I have no idea how on earth they could be fun, but I am clearly not the target audience’s age.

Of course, the other essential part of the Chuck E Cheese experience is the games. Which – and I know this makes me sound hopelessly old, boring and nostalgic – were really disappointing. A few classics were present: driving games, basketball, and my old favorite, skeeball. They had a baby basketball game, which after the Thanksgiving playground incident, I knew Sprout would enjoy. As we handed him balls, he gently placed them in the basket. It was absolutely adorable.

But most of the games weren’t worth wasting free tokens on. A few were cutesy one-shots, where you had 1 level that took 30 seconds and couldn’t progress to the next level without putting in more money. No marathon sessions of side-scrollers like the old days. But even worse, the large majority of “games” were kiddy slot machines. They just dispensed tickets instead of money. They required little to no skill, offered a single chance, and promised big prizes with low odds of winning. Instead of a place where you could play with your friends to accomplish a goal (even if it was an inconsequential one), these games have turned arcades into casinos! I don’t want Sprout feeding my money into these machines, I don’t want him to be isolated, I don’t want the plastic crap the tickets pay for, and I definitely don’t want him gambling. I was very glad he was too little to pay notice to these games – I’ll take the baby rides any day.

About halfway through the party, the staff members pulled us together for pizza and the Chuck E. Cheese show. The pizza reminded me of the “good pizza” in the elementary school cafeteria. The birthday cake itself (not from Chuck E. Cheese), was simple – sandy tan frosting – but toy tractors on top turned it into a perfect tiny construction site. The rock-star themed show consisted of a costumed staff member “jamming out” with the birthday kid. The birthday boy – who had just turned two – had no clue about the symbolism but had a grand time anyway. He loved the inflatable guitar and crown, even though he had difficulty understanding, much less following, the instructions of the Chuck E. Cheese staff member. Under her beaming smile, you could tell she was the tiniest bit exasperated with trying to get a two-year-old to play along with a party template designed for an older child.

Standing around the pizza table was the first time all of the adults attending the party were in the same place. Before that, we were following our kids around the ride/game area, ensuring they didn’t put anything weird in their mouths or push other kids. Now, we were so physically close that normal social graces would require us to converse. But anything with multiple toddlers doesn’t fall within the bounds of normal social graces. Instead, we ignored each other, focusing on our kids eating without causing a disaster area. I kind of wanted to talk to people, but didn’t even know where to start. The only person we knew was the birthday kid’s dad, which Chris met at a Halloween party at our town’s community center. Instead, Chris and I talked to each other and watched Sprout eat his pizza cheese-first.

In the end, we cashed in our few tickets for stickers and headed home, having survived our first trip to Chuck E. Cheese as a family.

The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh: Won’t You Be My Visitor?

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

I am a huge museum nerd. As a kid,
one of my favorite destinations was the New York State Museum. When I travel, I usually visit multiple museums at a location. So I was very excited to introduce Sprout to his first museum experience. While we had brought him to art museums before, they were much more for our enjoyment than his. Even though we live in the museum capital of the world, they’re all designed for folks much bigger than him. As it turned out, having first real museum experience at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh was just right.

Pittsburgh has never struck me as a tourist destination, but I had to go there for work anyway. As I’m also traveling this week, Chris and Sprout came with me so I wasn’t absent for two weeks in a row. As it turns out, Pittsburgh actually has a wealth of cool, unique museums, all of which are very different in form and function from the Smithsonians.

I’ve been to a number of children’s museums, but Pittsburgh’s was easily one of, if not the best, I’ve ever visited.

One of the things that really set it apart was its focus on integrating art into the play space. For example, it had a whole exhibit called Tough Art, a series of pieces designed for children to touch and interact with. One piece was a metallic moon with stars that played different musical tones if you touched the moon and one of the stars at the same time. At first, it seemed like the same person needed to touch the moon and the stars to get it to work. But much to my delight, we realized that wasn’t quite right – multiple people could make the elements sing, but they had to be touching each other for the harmonic resonance to vibrate through their bodies. Holding hands, Chris, Sprout and I had a blast, working together to reach the furthest star. Another part of the exhibit was a series of white poles with colored spotlights that refracted off them, making your shadow shift between multiple colors as you moved. I don’t think Sprout noticed the colors, but we loved watching the rainbow of light as he ran loops around the poles.

Art was integrated into the regular exhibits as well. The Waterworks floor, which had water tools and toys for kids to experiment with, includes a piece simply called Rain Shower. Even the toddler area had visually sophisticated art as decorations, with stained glass pieces giving the area a fairy-tale feel.

Besides being interactive, the museum’s approach to art had two more unique facets – its invitation to children to think about the art as well as create their own. Many of the pieces had captions, just like in a regular art museum, but at a kid’s literacy level without being over-simplified. In the Makespace, kids can use sophisticated tools they may not have access to otherwise to create objects that meet at the junction of art and science. We didn’t visit that section because Sprout was too little, but I look forward to it when we visit in the future.

The other exemplary aspect of the museum is how it managed to have activities that were appropriate for, appealing to, and respectful of a variety of ages. For example, Sprout’s two favorite exhibits were a giant Lite-Brite board and a machine inspired by the bounce pattern of a Superball. For him, the Lite Brite board was awesome because not only did it involve sticking pegs in and out of holes, but the pegs glowed when you put them in! For me as an adult, it was still fun to arrange the pegs into different space-agey patterns. The Superball demonstration had a series of balls on poles that dropped in a wave when you pulled a lever. Sprout loved pushing the balls in place, pulling the lever (which he figured out from watching the museum guide) and watching the balls fall, bouncing up and down. He actually worked quite hard to push the balls into place – the only reason we helped was because we lacked the patience to wait! As he got older, I could see this exhibit still being interesting, for the way it illustrates the pattern of a wave.

Much of this understanding of and respect for children’s needs stems from the museum’s patron saint – Fred Rogers, who was a major influence in its founding and design. While he’s gone, his spirit very much remains in the museum’s special appreciation of children. Sprout had a wonderful time and was especially engaged by some specific exhibits. While would have liked to stayed longer, I was so glad we were able to introduce him to the joys of museums through the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

Thankful for All of Our Families

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

We have so much to be thankful for. That’s never been more apparent than this past Thanksgiving, when we had not just one, but two different feasts with our church and biological families.

Usually, we trek home to upstate New York for Thanksgiving. But as it takes us close to 10 hours to get there and we’re going home for Christmas, we had no desire to make that drive twice in a month. Plus, a quirk of bad work scheduling means that I am traveling the first two weeks of December.

Instead, this year our parents came to us. I’m an only child, so it was simple for my mom and dad. For Chris’s parents, it was a bit more complicated – his sister lives in Las Vegas. As they couldn’t be on two coasts simultaneously, we delayed our Thanksgiving until Saturday.

Nonetheless, we carried out some Thanksgiving traditions on Thursday. Chris baked off Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, a treat his family has every holiday. We plopped on the couch for the Macy’s parade, which enthralled Sprout. He grooved to the Broadway numbers, tried to lift his leg like the Rockettes, “toot toot”ed at the Thomas the Train balloon, and loved the Sesame Street float.

With the afternoon free, we joined our church’s Thanksgiving dinner. We have one every year for congregants who aren’t leaving town, along with any family or friends they bring. This year, it was Chris, Sprout and I, my parents, another couple from our church with a small child, my pastor and his family, and one of my pastor’s homeless friends. The table was full of conversation and laughter. One of the more amusing incidents was my pastor’s son describing an imaginary Blue’s Clues parody that involved Blue rabidly attacking the videocamera and Steve using Slippery Soap to take a shower. While it was pretty funny, his dad shut it down before it got even longer and more inappropriate.

After dinner, several of us participated in the nerd-traditional post-meal activity of playing video games, namely an eight-person game of Super Smash Brothers. I couldn’t figure out where my character was half of the time, but it was a lot of fun. While the babies couldn’t play, they kept busy building towers out of Megablocks. Later on, we put them on the piano bench and they played the cutest little duet I’ve ever seen. While it sounded like a modernist sound piece, they were tapping on the keys rather than banging, which was impressive for a couple of toddlers.

That night, we pulled out the board and card games. After a couple games, my dad headed to bed while Chris, my mom, and I stayed up with a bottle of red wine. Although I had earlier insisted that six bottles of wine was too much for the weekend, I was clearly wrong. A couple of glasses each fueled a conversation about drunken escapades, poorly thought-out decisions, and other quirks of adulthood that was so engaging that we completely lost track of our game of 500 Rummy.

My in-laws arrived on Friday night, making the party complete. I’m extraordinarily fortunate to have a great relationship with them. As Chris and I were high-school sweethearts, I basically grew up with them.

Despite all of the company, I was relaxed. While I sometimes get defensive when visitors help with the dishes or clean my house, I accepted the assistance. As the grandparents adored playing with Sprout, I was happy to give them that time. At work, I’ve been sprinting from one project to another, so it was good to physically and mentally rest.

Thanksgiving dinner was similarly lacking in disaster. The menu was fairly traditional – turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, canned cranberry sauce (with ridges, of course), Crescent rolls, green beans, corn, and carrots. As it was the first Thanksgiving we ever hosted, we made some compromises – my family’s sweet potato casserole instead of his apples and yams, his canned cranberry sauce instead of my cranberry jello mold. We made about a million trips to the store and ran the dishwasher about 10 times, but that happens any time Chris takes on a big cooking project. The only thing that didn’t go quite according to plan was that for all of our existing kitchen equipment, we had to buy a turkey baster after the bird already went in the oven.Our Thanksgiving turkey.

We even had time for some family activities. Heading over to the park, we found out that Sprout is very interested in basketball but tragically a little too short to play it yet. Our park has a “funnel ball” game, where you toss a ball up into a big funnel and it falls out of one of three holes. The adults were playing it, although we weren’t very good at actually getting it in the hoop. After watching us, Sprout took his ball, walked up to the pole supporting the funnel, stood up on his tip-toes, and threw it as hard as he could. Which was about three inches. And then he did it again and again. He was convinced that if he just tried hard enough, he would get it in. When we lifted him up to help him out, he was just pissed that he was still too short to get it in the funnel. He finally got so frustrated that we had to move on to a different part of the playground to prevent a full-blown tantrum. I had to admire his can-do spirit though.

The last day, we went to the National Zoo to see their Christmas light display. Needless to say, it was far more successful than our last trip there. While many of the exhibits were closing when we arrived, we saw some animals who are often hiding in the heat. Sprout watched the furry beaver intently as it ambled along and then splashed into the water. As he woofed at the wolf, it sulked by and then cast an intense gaze on him. He also liked the farm animals, especially the huge Holstein cow who had an astoundingly low moo. But his favorite part was the holiday train display, where he just stared at the three levels of trains going around and around and around for a good ten minutes.

I’m so grateful that I could spend the holidays with so many people who are both weird and wonderful.

Why Toddlers Are Better than Newborns

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Why Toddlers Are Better than Newborns (Picture: Chart describing differences in showing affection, receiving affection, communication, play, sleep and independence)

During Sprout’s first few months, every time someone said, “Oh, take advantage of this time while you can,” I wanted to smack them. I was strung out with sleeplessness, lonely, isolated as hell, and emotionally frayed. I loved my son and was amazed by his very presence, but was also terrified that I’d break him. Those first few months were definitely the hardest of my parenting experience and some of the hardest of my entire life.

In contrast, hardly ever anyone says that now that I have a toddler, even though I believe it would be much more appropriate. While Sprout certainly doesn’t lack his challenging moments, I enjoy my time with him so much more now than I did when he was first born. Toddlers get a bad rap.

Here are just a few of the ways in which for me, I find toddlers better than newborns:

Continue reading →

The Myth of the Real Adult

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

The Myth of the Real Adult. Who is this real adult my mind keeps claiming I'm not anyway? (Picture: Woman talking to two kids at a kitchen table, dressed in a 1950s fashion)

When I look at our gross kitchen floor with bits of food that have been there for several days, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When I put Sprout to bed at 8:45 PM for the third night in a row, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When I look at the baskets of unfolded laundry, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When I think about all of the friends I haven’t emailed in months, years, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When I look at all of the unchecked items on my to-do list, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When the lawn is way too long and the garden is an overgrown mess, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When the dishes aren’t washed at 11:30 at night, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.
When I only remember my mom’s birthday because of Facebook, I feel like I’ve failed as an adult.

Continue reading →

A Halloweening We Will Go

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Halloween is a holiday that is a hell of a lot more fun with kids. I love Halloween, but as an adult, I’ve found it oddly dissatisfying. As a teenager, I imagined celebrating Halloween as an adult would be mysterious and attractively dark, like a Victorian masquerade ball. But instead, I found out that people’s costumes are less interesting, parties are less well-attended, and it’s just another excuse to drink. While I suspect adulthood in general would be disappointing to my teenage self, I did rekindle my love of the holiday this year through a series of activities with Sprout. With a kid, you once again have an excuse to participate in all of the Halloween activities you remember nostalgically.

Our Halloween started early, with the Silver Spring Zombie Walk followed by a whole week of activities. My newly retired mom came down for the week to celebrate with us, bringing Sprout’s costume with her. She sewed all of my beautiful, original Halloween costumes, so of course we wanted her to make Sprout’s as well. (Unfortunately, her craftiness did not pass on to me.) We ended up picking a dinosaur, as he refuses to wear hats and it was the one toddler costume that didn’t need head-gear to be recognizable. Although I wasn’t impressed with the photo on the pattern envelope, my mom turned the costume into something spectacular. She found scaly, shiny green fabric that gave him a lizard-like feel. She added spikes up the back even though the pattern didn’t have them. She raised up the tail so it didn’t drag on the floor, increasing its aesthetic attractiveness and scientific accuracy. (Although I don’t think any dinosaur with spikes walked upright.) It ended up coming out better than the most expensive store-bought costumes, and of course, it was made with love.

Fortunately, Sprout really liked it. He didn’t fuss while we were putting it on, except for the head piece. (We have exactly two photos with the hat, both with me trying to shove it on and him in the process of pulling it off.) At first, he had a lot of difficulty sitting down because the tail got in the way. But once he figured that out, he seemed to enjoy the costume quite a bit while it was on.

That was a particularly good thing because we put it on him as often as possible. Early in the week, he wore it to a Halloween party at one of our town’s community centers. Despite the variety of activities, he spent most of his time sticking googly-eyed stickers on a pumpkin. But he was far from the only one enamored by the stickers and the fact that he didn’t try to eat them is definitely something for the win category. Later that week, they attended an party at the local kiddie gym that teaches his movement class. There, he cemented his tendency to be a bit of a thrill seeker by going down the baby roller-coaster multiple times all by himself.

Of course, Halloween evening was the pinnacle of the activities. I worked from home that day, so I was able to enjoy the whole evening with my family. We started the night with the annual neighborhood Halloween parade. The fact that my town and its neighborhoods put on numerous events is one of my favorite things about where I live. The parade had close to 75 parents and children, with a full spectrum of adorableness. Among the kids, there was a lightening bolt, a police officer (with his dad as a prisoner!), the dragon from How to Train Your Dragon, a train, a truck with working headlights, a bunch of princesses, Pooh Bear and Piglet, and many others. I wasn’t the only parent in costume either – quite a few adults got in on the action, with funny hats and full costumes. There was even a friendly dog in a purple and green tutu, which slobbered all over Sprout’s face when he got too close. We dawdled along, with the pace being slow enough that Sprout could walk on his own in parts. When he started going too slow and backed up the group, I would scoop him up and hustle to catch up to the rest of the group.

After the parade, we did an abbreviated trick-or-treating route. He was too little to know what was going on, but he also likes trying new things. Also, we knew our immediate neighbors would love to see him in his costume. At first, he was confused as to why he was standing in front of a closed door and would turn around towards us. When someone finally opened the door and greeted him, he got really excited. By the last house, he had the routine down pat, except for the words, of course. Our neighbors were so charmed that they gave him handfuls of candy.

For his hard work, we allowed him to eat a single piece of candy. As most candy is either too small (choking hazard), too chewy (ditto) or has peanuts (haven’t introduced yet), it was surprisingly hard to choose one. We finally picked an Almond Joy and plucked out the almond to avoid the aforementioned and ever-present choking hazard. He loved it, gobbling the whole thing right up. I’m not looking forward to the day he realizes what happened to the rest of his candy.

The one single disappointing thing about Halloween was that we didn’t carve a jack-o-lantern. We left our hard-earned, beautiful pumpkin outside since we picked it a couple of weeks ago. In the meantime, we had a number of warm and rainy days. By the time we went to carve it, it was so mushy that it wasn’t structurally sound. As it was the night before Halloween, we just used Sprout’s pumpkin with way too many eyes instead.

Parenting offers you the chance to see the world through your kids eyes, but this Halloween, I also remembered what it was like to see it through the eyes of myself as a kid.

Just Shambling Along: Bringing a Kid to the Silver Spring Zombie Walk

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

As toddlers often have a loose grasp on the mechanics of walking, they sometimes lurch or shamble. So we thought it was appropriate to bring Sprout on his first Zombie Walk this past weekend.

A Zombie Walk is pretty much what it says – loads of people dress as zombies and then shamble along a route. Moaning, saying “Braasinnns,”and/or gently teasing bystanders is highly encouraged. A town near us has been hosting a Zombie Walk for the past several years and they’re immense fun. Like the Renaissance Faire, they’re an opportunity to dress up and become something radically different for a little while. As someone who gets Very Concerned about Big Issues (and sometimes stupid little ones), the idea of playing something totally brainless has a certain appeal. Unlike most zombie movies, Zombie Walks (or at least the Silver Spring one) aren’t meant to be scary at all. Instead, they wholeheartedly embrace the camp aspect of zombies, recognizing that often the zombies in movies are more interesting and sometimes more sympathetic than the protagonists.

Before heading out, we zombified ourselves. In the past, I’ve actually gone as a specific type of character – I was an activist zombie one year, decked out in as many buttons as I could find and holding a placard saying Occupy Graveyard. This year, I wanted do a family theme. While there are some very clever (and gross) costumes people have created with baby carriers, our inward facing Ergo-Baby doesn’t quite have the same Evil Fetus costume potential. Plus, Sprout’s too big for it now. Instead, I wanted to do an idealized 1950s zombie family. I put on my purple button-down retro-style dress for myself, so I had my part down. While they weren’t exactly period-appropriate, we dressed Sprout in his skeleton pajamas so he could fall asleep in the car on the way home. Unfortunately, Chris didn’t want to fuss with a suit. He did put on a button-down shirt, but it wasn’t quite the effect I was going for.

For the makeup, we used gray water-based make-up on Sprout. The application process wasn’t all that different from putting sunscreen on him, which he’s used to, even if he doesn’t like it. Chris and I both used oil-based makeup to provide more color, and I dripped fake blood around my mouth. (I used corn syrup and red food coloring, which is less drippy, cheaper, and easier to wash out than the store-bought stuff.) Unfortunately, our makeup ended up barely visible in the poorly-lit street. Afterwards, Chris commented, “Our faces just look dirty.” I guess we needed more green and less gray.

People dressed up as zombie versions of Thing 1 and Thing 2 at the Silver Spring Zombie Walk
Arriving at the starting point, we found a broad array of interpretations of the theme. A zombie family with everyone dressed in wedding gear celebrated the mom and dad’s real-life anniversary. The dad was holding a sign saying “To have and to hold in life and undeath.” Zombie 1 and Zombie 2 were the undead versions of Thing 1 and Thing 2, holding the decapitated head of the Cat in the Hat. The prince’s kiss seemed to wake up Zombie Snow White, despite the fact that she was actually dead. Zombie Sharknados got props for a clever costume idea in general, but points off for it clearly just being their Halloween costume with zombie makeup. Zombie Elvis was decked out in sequins, strumming a guitar, and singing versions of the classics tweaked appropriately for the audience. There were even a few folks facing the invading hoard with panache – Shaun from his eponymous movie was there, as was a church lady of the Dana Carvey sort with a Repent Zombies! placard.

We didn’t quite match up, but our one saving grace was having the darn cutest zombie on the walk. While there were a number of other kids there, and even a few around the same age, none of them were quite as prominent. We hauled Sprout up on Chris’s shoulders so he could see everything and be seen. As we walked, bystanders gave numerous, “Look at the baby zombie!” and “He’s so cute!” We even had a number of people take photos. While I’m not fond of strangers taking photos of my child, it’s inevitable if you participate in an event like this.

For his part, Sprout seemed to enjoy it. Most of the time, he had his “I’m taking it all in” expression on his face. I think he especially liked being up on Chris’s shoulders and seeing everything. The only problem was that he kept sticking his finger in Chris’s ear! We joked that he was trying to dig for tasty daddy brains.

I had a couple people I told about the walk ask if Sprout was scared; I can definitely say he wasn’t. While he gets startled easily, he isn’t old enough to understand why this would be scary. I think he just interpreted this as “another weird thing mom and dad are doing,” along with all of the other weird things we do. Heck, it’s not that much weirder than Disney, which has a giant mechanical bear singing about murder on one of their classic rides. As he gets older, I suspect we’ll take a couple years off between when he’s old enough to understand the concept of zombies but too young to appreciate their camp aspect.

To sum it up, my kid has been to some weird events. But with parents like his, weirdness is inevitable.

An Autumn Extravaganza: Halloween at Butler’s Orchard

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Photo: Child walking through a tunnel framed by a jack-o-lantern. Text: "An Autumn Extravaganza: Halloween at Butler's Orchard."

Autumn is my favorite season, with the changing leaves, the cooler weather, the fall harvest, and Halloween. Oh, Halloween – a celebration of imagination and as much candy as you can mooch off the neighbors. A perfect chance to be someone else for a night and engage with the not-so-scary monsters of the world before you have to face the ones in the real world. So of course, I’ve looked forward to celebrating Hallowern with Sprout. And you can’t have a good Halloween without a high quality pumpkin. So off we went to the local orchard to pick a pumpkin and attend their fall children’s festival.

Continue reading →