The countdown is on and the conversations have started...What are you going to be for Halloween?! As a busy Mom of three, I am big on suggesting EASY and INEXPENSIVE Halloween costume ideas (because you know they never wear the same costume two years in a row!). Here is a little photo galley to inspire you on Halloween Costume Ideas...
Aside: I know what my kids' WON'T be...I have strong opinions about Sexualizing Girls' Halloween Costumes. A tween girl should look like a tween girl (not a hooker). I also am against weapons as Halloween accessories...I don't let you play with guns any other day of the year and Halloween is no different.
So on to some easy and inexpensive costume ideas...
Juice box: Take a cardboard box andcut holes for head and arms. Colour logo with markers (or print). Visit Home Depot plumbing dept. for light plastic tubing to use as straw.
Doctor: A set of scrubs and a toy Stethoscope (available at dollar stores) and voila, you can be a doctor! Bonus: re-wear the scrubs as pjs.
Scooby Doo character: Visit a thrift store to find clothes that match the characters. Great group costume idea!
Smurfs: White pants, blue shirt, white hat (hat you can make with fabric). Easy peasy.
Tim Hortons Coffee Cup: My personal favourite (saw someone costumed as a Timmy's cup last year and it was AWESOME). Cut hole out of bottom of brown plastic garbage can (available at Home Depot). Cut holes in "lid" and knot suspenders to hold costume up. Cover top of cup with white fabric to look like lid. Draw logo (or print out).
All of a sudden, my kids' regular length jeans have turned into capris. It's amazing how they have grown over a season. As they are trying (and tossing) their clothes—I am putting them in piles for donation. Fall cleaning for me is donation piles of gently used clothes, toys and even books. Kids' grow out of their stuff so fast...it seems a shame not to give it another life.
I am washing, folding and sorting those too-small-for-my-kids clothes. The stained ones go to the workroom to find another life as a rag. The gently used clothes are going to friends.
Our toy bin runneth over...and we just have too much. While the kids are at school, I am using nap time to sort toys and make a donate bin (yes, kids get final approval...but so far they've been ok with my donate choices).
The dvd cabinet got a look through. ME: "Do you guys still watch Barbie movies?" KIDS: "No way." Making the decision my toddler boy will probably not be too into Barbie movies...she's in the toy donate bin too.
My challenge is getting rid of books. I love books. How do you give them away?! My kids...well, they don't have my sentimental heart for the printed page...when my 12 year old was doing her weekly room cleaning (yes, we make them clean their rooms every week)...she brought out a STACK of books. "I'm never going to read these science books" she said. I cringed. I really wanted to go through them. Turn the pages. Talk her into keeping them.
But I got a bin and let her put them in. And I made myself not look.
She was ok to let them go, so why couldn't I do the same thing?
We teach our kids, through pop culture, that hoarding is a bad thing (I often wonder if hoarding reality T.V. shows are there to entertain or warn us). Growing out of our stuff...and giving it out...is a healthy...good thing.
Whether you donate to a friend, consignment shop, thrift store or family shelter. Make fall cleaning about giving away previously enjoyed things for others to enjoy. I'm taking the challenge myself and going through my closet...anything not worn in the last 5 years is going. And I won't look at it twice.
Big kids back to school...I decided I should register baby in a class to get some routine back in our routine. Being an extremely active toddler (why didn't my mom-of-boys-friends warn me about little boy energy?!) I thought to register him in gymnastics to focus his stamina into good rather than evil. Little did I know the workout I would get from Mom & Tot Fitness…
I kinda wish I had talked to Sweaty Mummy about fitness before I registered for this class. I am finding, through baby gymnastics, that I am the un-fitt-ist Mom on the block. Bordering on sloth* really.
Let's face it: Parent and Tot fitness classes is a cruel sort of boot camp. Wanna know what we do in toddler gymnastics?...these are the exercises they don't put on the brochure (but you bet I'm doing them!)
The Baby-Stop-Lunge: A strength training exercise whereby the parent lunges to their full capacity; reaching outwards (or downwards) to stop, grab, full-steam-ahead baby. Usually done when baby is about to a Kamikaze run into the gym wall.
The Unwilling-To-Move-To-Another-Activity Deadlift: A weight training exercise whereby the parent lifts a 24-ish lb baby (in full-I'm-NOT-moving-dead-weight) from a full squat to a standing position. Repeatedly done when toddler refuses to move from fun trampoline to boring mats.
The On-All-Fours-Downward-Dog: A humiliating exercise whereby the parent goes down on all fours to coach their baby to come out of the tunnel at gymnastics. Accompanied by the phrases "C'mon honey, you can do it!"and "You're holding up the whole line in the circuit" and "LET'S GO!"
The Toddler-Dash: A face-paced exercise whereby the parent dashes off after toddler who decides to bolt it back to the fun trampoline leaving the class at the boring mats. Apparently, it has to be a re-current and repeated exercise.
Ironically, these parent exercises are not strictly gym class workouts. Babies switch them up. You know what I mean right? Who hasn't done the Toddler-Swing-Dash at the playground? Or the Unwilling-To-Move-From-The-Cartoons Deadlift?
I think Erica should train for her Birthday Run Team at our baby gymnastics class (it makes me want to run—away from the gym).
Despite the fact that I ache from the lifting and dashing (showing how sloth-like I am), my son's smile is worth going. And you don't have to enjoy every Parent and Tot activity right?...some can just be for the kids' enjoyment**.
Sloth: habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence; laziness. See picture of Caroline
My son LOVES the trampoline. If he could take it home in his pocket he would. He loves it that much.
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