Halloween is a Special Kind of Hell for Preschool Moms
For the love of Pinterest, where will it all end?
Monday was Halloween Part Deux at Preschool.
Since my son’s class meets twice a week and some kids only attend one day, the teacher turned Halloween into a 2-day celebration. While cleaning the house this weekend I came across the costume I’d bought on the Toys ‘R’ Us clearance rack earlier this fall in preparation for next Purim. Having totally screwed up on Thursday I figured, why not let him wear it to class on Monday? Easy peasy, right?
This morning rolled around and I, still recovering from my latest illness, rolled out of bed late. My teething non-napper rolled out of the sack even later. The power went out. In the middle of a wind storm I had to reassemble and install his car seat that got taken apart to be washed over the weekend. In the 20 minutes I grabbed in-between the chaos we got dressed and out the door. Fortunately he was too into his costume to get lost in the fact that he wasn’t quite awake and neither was mommy.
But hey, he was in a costume! I was on Mom-point today, right? Or, so I thought. We walked in to a room full of moms carrying big tote bags of …what, exactly? These are your Basic Moms, bee-tee-dubs. Think: Same straight, highlighted hair; full-makeup; trendy ripped jeans and shoulder-less tops; vapid laughs at your comments in-between sips of coffee from trendy paper cups. In school world there are only two kinds of moms: Basic Moms and Bad Moms. I am not a Basic Mom.
Later after the kids had decorated treat bags “to take home” according to his teacher, the Basic Moms gathered together to open said bags and distribute treat bags of their own. These goodie bags were perfectly wrapped (one was made out of tissue paper twisted up to look like a Jack O’Lantern, for Pinterest’s sake) and labeled, “Happy Halloween” from so-and-so kid who won’t otherwise give your kid the time of day.
Seriously. These kids are two. If one gets within five feet of another chances are at least 50% of the interaction will involve screams of terror and the other 50% will involve a confused look so silent it would put Mr. Darcy to shame. But, please, let’s not let reality get in the way of the pretense best managed through time-consuming crafts. Now I know why they all use Instacart to get their groceries delivered.
One of my fellow Bad Moms stood alongside me as the Basics filled the bags. She turned her back to them and whispered to me, “You didn’t bring anything did you?”
“No, were we supposed to?”
“I don’t know. I hate this stuff!”
“So do I!” I replied with a laugh.
She’s a mom of three. Her third, a cute little boy in class, was a total surprise. As in, “Yeah, we own a crib, but getting it out of the attic was such a pain. We just pushed it off as long as we could,” and “He’s going to wear shorts until I can get out shopping.” I love her. She is my role model.
We traded comments on how much we hated classroom crap like this, especially when it involved sharing junk food that was inevitably lousy for kids anyway. “It’s everywhere,” she commented. With a 9 and 11 year old she ought to know. “The other day he had a lollipop for the first time and went crazy. Why do we want to do that to them, let alone ourselves?”
At that point one Basic Mom pulled out a container of home-made ghost sugar cookies for the kids to eat on top of ice pops the teacher had brought in. The ghosts had eyes. Big, candy eyes on top of hand-painted cut-out figures decorated with sprinkles. Thankfully my kid (and a few others) doesn’t eat things with faces. One time my brother brought him a Cookie Monster cupcake. He wanted to hug it. My brother’s jaw dropped.
On the way out the door I apologized to the teacher. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were supposed to bring anything.”
“You weren’t!” she quickly replied with a surprised look. Motioning towards the goodie bags she blinked her eyes a few times as if she wasn’t sure how to respond.
“I guess we’ll have to make it up at Christmas,” I joked.
Her eyes got even bigger. “What is everyone going to get for Christmas? A pony? I mean, oh my God!”
And that’s when I really smiled, because in that moment I found out the greatest secret of all: My son’s teacher is a Bad Mom, too. I knew I liked her.
P.S. We get home and while my child is contented with Sesame Street and a soft bagel I go through his goodie bags only to find that every piece of candy, sans 2 lollipops, pose choking hazards to 2 year olds. Not surprising coming from Basic Moms. Hopefully their kids get a few more Bad Mom teachers so they can learn what their Pinterest-perfect moms have yet to understand: Substance will always win over style.
