Mind Retrofit

Last evening Daniel actually played with Joshua while I made dinner. He was talking the whole time to Joshua. It was awesome. This was after the “color wheel incident”. Later David was planning on making a quick trip to Target. We had no plans of all of us going but Daniel heard us say Target and he said “I want to go to Target”. I said ok, because he never asks. He told me he was going bye-bye, getting in the car, and going to Target. I had no idea how it was going to go. The last time we all went to Target Daniel flipped out and literally hit me so hard a bunch of times that my face and chest had hand print marks and David had to take him outside to the car.

So I was a little apprehensive about going again.

We went and it was the best experience I have ever had shopping as a family. As we were walking in, Daniel pointed to the big lighted bulls-eye and said “Target”. Then he spelled it for me. The letters were under the bulls-eye, but he was telling me about the letter “T” and that is the letter we have been learning this week.

This was the first time we didn’t put them all in a cart.

We let them walk and look at everything. They showed us stuff and touch the items. Daniel was so happy he took me down all the isles and talked to me. He kept picking up spinning toys and I told him we’re not going to get them. He put them back. They did get to pick one toy and he found a ball filled with water and blue sparkles so it moves all around, it’s pretty cool. When he was done with the toys he said “want to go home now”. I told him we had a few more items to get and to get him focused on something else I said “hey, there is the Halloween stuff”. We went and checked it out and he saw things that he was not comfortable with but he comforted himself by walking by the items and saying “it’s ok”.

I continued to tell them that they were not real and there is nothing to be afraid of.

We don’t tell our kids to be afraid of ghosts and goblins and all that jazz. We do not celebrate Halloween but we do talk about how others do and why some people do. Although we do have some issues with us as Believers celebrating this holiday our main reasons for not celebrating Halloween is what our society has made it into. We are not comfortable with saying “this one night it is ok for you to go to all of these strangers houses and get candy” when every other day of the year we are saying don’t talk to strangers, don’t take candy from strangers, don’t go near dead, yucky things but this night it’s ok. We have gone once to a church event for the bouncy houses because they love them but no candy and sweets. The church people thought I was awful. What a horrible mom I am. Hm…

We don’t see the point of spending money on costumes for the night. We prefer to wait until they all go on clearance and then use them for dress up. My biggest beef with Halloween is that it is about CANDY! At least for kids in America. We don’t eat candy so there is no point in doing it.

Besides there is so much more to Halloween, for me it is not as simple as just let the kids have fun, eat candy and get dressed up. When they are older and we get more into different beliefs I want them to understand what Halloween is about not what it has been reduced down to.  The understanding of the pagan holiday is important to me and having them understand it not fear it. I believe that is some of my AS kicking in. I can’t let it go. I have another whole issue about Christmas. Last year was the first year we had a tree. I won’t go into that. I don’t have a problem with others joining in all the different festivities it’s just not for us. We just do our own thing for each holiday.

Sorry for the soap box. Back to the story.

Everything went great the kids were all worn out and ready to go we had all of the items, so on to the check out. There was the conveyer belt. Daniel gets obsessed with them and goes behind the registers and freaks people out. He did that last night but he listened when I told him he couldn’t do that but then he found a spinning airplane. I told him no he couldn’t get it but he was determined and in the end we decided this was not a battle we wanted to take on. It just wasn’t worth it to ruin the whole night by not allowing him to get a spinning thing. He did really well through out the store putting things back so we feel we made the right choice.

We went home and they went to bed. It was all so pleasant and I am still beaming with joy that we all got to enjoy going to Target.

Small steps but leaps and bounds!