Halloween Candy and How I Can Get Some

My favorite time at Halloween is about 20 minutes after my kids go to bed on Halloween Night. This is when I admittedly raid my kids' Trick-or-Treat bags to pull out my favorites to indulge in - Snickers Bars, Kit Kats, Peanut Butter Cups, and Sour Apple Blow Pops. And my kids know I do this.

I recently read a blog that suggested that you could teach your kids a lesson in tithing by requiring that they give you 10% of their spoils. I won't even go into all the theological problems I have with this. I don't think I need to make a spiritual lesson out of what they've gathered in order to get some of their candy. My kids are pretty good about sharing their candy with me to begin with.

Why?

I think it's so easy for my kids to want to ultimately share their candy with me because of how much I participate in the whole experience with them. From planning their costume, to taking them out trick-or-treating, to spreading out their candy with them at the end of the night to sort out their loot, to our debriefing of how the night went (who gave out the best candy, which was the scariest house, what fun costumes we saw)...we were in it together.

What a perfect parenting lesson. When we're "in it together", there is more cooperation, more sharing, more give and take, more FUN. When I tell them what to do "because I said so", when I have expectations for them that I don't expect for myself, when there is an atmosphere of "us" versus "the kids", there is resistance and frustration (on both sides).

The truth is, good parenting gets you "Snickers Bars", so-to-speak. When we take away our need to control, rule, and dominate our children and instead coach, teach, and participate in life with them, parenting our children is so much easier and sweeter.

And you don't have to fight to get your favorite candy out of the trick-or-treat bag.

By the way, what's YOUR favorite Halloween candy?

Fall Walk With Sami

This morning I looked out my window. It was a beautiful day. After a week of cold, cloudy, rainy weather, I felt my heart leap with excitement as I saw what awaited me on the other side of my front door. Today there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sun was reflecting off the many colored leaves of the huge trees that grow in our neighborhood. The grass was a thick and healthy deep green having been brought back to life from the week of rain. The fuzzy black squirrels were already out enjoying the day. I didn't want to waste another moment.

"Come on Sami! Let's go outside!" My 15-month-old daughter's face lit up. She clumsily pulled her little body up and started to waddle away knowing I'd direct her toward the way out.

We stepped outside and the morning air smelled sweet. I closed my eyes and soaked in the feeling of the warm sun on my body. But Sami kept walking. I quickly opened my eyes, a bit disappointed that we were already on the move but looking forward to a fall morning walk through our neighborhood. Sami had other plans.

Samantha's plans were to draw with chalk for a while. I was able to convince her to at least move into the sunny part of the driveway. I drew hearts while she put colorful chalk marks inside them. I was just settling into this change of plans when Sami got up and started to walk away toward the street. Maybe we'd be getting that walk in after all.

We got to the street where she grabbed my finger (her hand is still too little to hold my full hand) and the two of us began to walk down the street. Just on the other side of our property is a large pasture where often a herd of cows hang out so close to our house that we can walk right up to the fence and practically touch them. This is where I thought we'd walk to first. But Sami had other plans.

She pulled me the opposite direction and led me across the street to the culdesac. This would take us nowhere except around a circle and right back to where we started. But she was insistent. I decided it would at least be an easy place to set her free since there wouldn't be as many, if any, cars to worry about. So off she waddled ahead of me down the street of the boring take-us-no-where culdesac.

We'd barely entered the culdesac when one of our neighbors walked out of her house preparing to take her dog for a walk. Samantha could hardly contain her excitement. A dog! Our neighbor came over to let Sami see the puppy. Sami got to "be gentle" and touch the dog while getting a big lick on the face in return. Samantha is facinated with dogs and acted as if this short visit from a furry friend was like winning the "Big Deal of the Day" on Let's Make a Deal. When our neighbor moved on, we stood and watched until the dog was completely out of sight. Then Sami turned to continue on the route she had chosen.

We hadn't even gone twenty feet when she discovered a pine cone in the middle of the road. We stopped as she picked it up, threw it, kicked it, picked it back up, dropped it, kicked it again, stared at it and then decided to moved on. We rounded the top of the culdesac now facing the direction we started from. Maybe now we could make our way back to the main street and go see if the cows were on our side of the pasture.

But Sami had other plans. In the gutter were small piles of red and gold leaves. Samantha started walking through them looking up at me every few steps with a broad grin that said, "Are you seeing this, Mom? They crunch and move under my feet!" We must have spent a good five minutes walking back and forth through the leaves talking about the sounds they made. And then she was off again. This time heading back to the gutter in front of our own house.

I followed her. In moments she was seated in the gutter rubbing her hands in the dirt and gravel. I sighed and sat down beside her. I looked up above me at the clear blue sky that seemed to want to suck me up into it. I wanted Sami to notice, too. So I interrupted her gutter exploration. "Sami, look up at the sky! Look! The sky is blue! Look at the blue sky, Sami!" She casually glanced up to where I was pointing and then went right back to focusing on the dirty mixture on the ground. She scooped up some of the gravely mixture and handed it to me, almost as if to say, "Yeah, but did you see THIS?"

I let her explore a few more minutes. And then I grew impatient. "Come on, Sweetie. Let's go see the cows." Samantha didn't move. So, I scooped her up and carried her the short way down the street to the fence where there were...

no cows.

Sami looked up at me. She stared at me a minute (did I see pity on her face?) and gave me the sign for milk. Sigh. At least we were near home and not on the other side of the neighborhood.

I had plans of a wonderful fall walk around our neighborhood. To see animals, to look at the changing leaves and enjoy the beautiful sunshine. It wasn't quite how I imagined it, but we DID do all of those things and more. And maybe Samantha knew that ultimately her way was better.
I wonder how often in life this is the case?