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I am a retired English teacher and department head, the mother of three grand mother of four, and have been married to the same man for 52 years. I subscribe to Dr. PM Forni's concept of Civility. I was born in South Philadelphia and grew up in the 'burbs. I love soft pretzels and cheesesteaks, the Phillies, the Eagles, and San Diego. I love being Mom, Aunt Kathy, Nona Kathy, and Teacher. I spend a lot of time in my gardens in the spring and summer, and in the winter I plan what I'm going to plant. I also am an avid reader and photographer.

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Friday, October 31, 2008

The Parade

Today is All Hallow's Eve. Tomorrow will be All Saint's Day which in the Roman Catholic church is a Holy Day of Obligation -- meaning you're supposed to go to Mass. Mostly, though, today is celebrated by going door-to-door and coercing candy from one's neighbors. I was going to hand out little bags of Utz's pretzels like we did last year, but my daughter claims if I do that we're begging to be "egged", so I bought Reese's peanut butter cups. I haven't broken into them yet, but the day is young. There would have been no such restraint with M&M peanuts or Snickers. Our neighborhood has undergone it's cyclical changes; we now have young couples with lots of babies, so we don't usually get many Trick or Treaters, but I bought four bags of candy, just in case. Last year we had a few kids and I had a chance to meet and talk to lots of parents.
This afternoon I will attend our younger grand daughter's very first Halloween Parade. This is something the schools around here do -- I'm sure many schools nationwide have similar events where the kids dress up in their costumes and "march" around the outside of the school. My daughter is dressing her like Princess Leia from STAR WARS. I'm not sure how much marching she's going to do because she's eight months old. (Daughter assures me that the baby knows exactly what's going on:)) So, I'll go and support my daughter because she wants me there. Stuff like this is hard for me; I don't know why I get so emotional, but I do. I used to tear up when the school buses all pulled away from the school each afternoon and I taught in a high school! I mean, we're not talking cute little kids, here. (One year, the impetus was to separate the ninth graders from the rest of the student population. We were in a workshop trying to come up with ideas for actually doing this. This is where I came up with the idea of putting them on an ice floe). I don't know if it was the sheer magnitude of the exodus or separation anxiety, but I find stuff like this touching. Think of me...I'll be the one crying and trying to take pictures at the same time!

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

Awwww. Emily has an October birthday so we skipped her first Halloween. I remember the next few. And the parades. Show us some pics!

Gin said...

I love parades and react the same way sometimes. Hope it was fun!! I'd love to see pix too!!

A Slice of My Life said...

We took our oldest trick or treating when she was ten months. I won't go so far as to say she knew what was going on, but WE had such fun with our new toy...er baby!

I totally get the tearing up thing.

bonnie said...

Our neighborhood is also in a new generation cycle. We saw kids between 7:00 and 7:30, and only about six bunches. It's been like this for a few years now. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. Wow. Are our kids late separators??? I usually think that motherhood is a series of separations from birth.