No pumpkins.
No candy.
No costumes.
Ummm…well that was a great Halloween, Guys! What the hell?
I texted the boys yesterday from the Pumpkin Lot. (Yes, I know I’m not allowed to text them while they’re in school…but this was important!) I asked them if they wanted to carve pumpkins. I mean, it was Halloween after all and I was totally craving those dang pumpkin seeds!
Here’s what I got: “Um, Mom. We are too old for that crap.”
Wow.
I looked at my phone and texted back, ”Of course, Duh!” with some heart emojis and a pumpkin. (I’m low-key obsessed with emojis, btw.) Then I sighed and barely made it to my car before I started to sob. I sat in the parking lot surrounded by people buying last-minute pumpkins and I cried. I mean, why do they do this to me? Rip my heart out every chance they get! Don’t they know I die a little inside when they say they are “too old” or “over it”?
No. they don’t and why should they?
They are teenagers. They’re egocentric and loving their lives. (Which is precisely how it should be.) They are not supposed to give a flip about their Mom and how she is longing for the days of olde when we used to carve pumpkins and pull all the gooey shit out of them. Jonah would gag and Zac would beg me to “clean his hands!” Ha. Good times.
Or how about when we used to Trick-or-Treat, going door to door and Jay would ask for “blue candy.” Yup. I shit you not. My kid would walk up to every, single house and in the sweetest, four-year-old voice say, ”Trick-or-Treat, Do you have any BLUE candy, please?” Mark and I would watch as the people would smile and shake their heads. Jonah would shrug his little shoulders and turn and walk away, defeated. His sweet face all sad. (But for fucksake! Who has BLUE candy on Halloween? Do they even make a blue-colored candy? Jesus.) We lasted about ten houses before Jonah lost his shit and Mark carried him home on his shoulders. I promised to buy him all the blue candy I could find the next day. Ugh! Welcome to my world…but it was our world and I loved living in it.
Shit, I’ve told that story a million times, it never gets old. I miss those days….but get over it, Hurvitz!
My boys are no longer boys, they are TEENS. And teenagers are over it.
All of it and it just breaks my heart. Will the guys even want to celebrate Thanksgiving with me? How about Hanukkah? Are all holidays off-limits or just the ones where you dress up like idiots and run around the neighborhood asking for candy from complete strangers (when you can go buy it yourself)? Hmmm. Maybe I need to prepare myself for them to boycott all special occasions! Lol.
Or maybe I just need to realize that they are growing up in spite of me.
I need to come to terms with the fact that I have two independent, head-strong, intelligent young men with minds of their own that are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. They are making decisions and choices…all by themselves.
And isn’t that what I wanted? (That’s rhetorical, y’all.) I think that’s what we all hope for when we raise our kids. So sure it hurts our hearts to let them grow up and spread their wings…but it’s incredible to watch them soar!
I was just kinda hoping I’d get one more year of Halloween candy to dig through last night! Damn those little shits. 😉
Xo j