a belated halloween story
ok, so a quick halloween post-script, waaay too late. in blog years it's practically halloween already again, but that won't stop me from telling a quick story.
we opted out of halloween this year. the kid is 17.3 months old and frankly doesn't know a pumpkin from a steam train. AND add to this the fact that she screams bloody murder any time we try to put pants on her. you're going to tell me i should spring for a costume she'll tolerate wearing for all of .0004 seconds? not. (although the entire week before halloween every time she saw a particularly garishly decorated home, all green-spiderweb and hockey-masked-scarecrow, she would point and go OOOH!).
the nanny came on halloween morning. the baby was in her pyjamas and could stay that way for all we cared: wife and i had an appointment with our lawyer at the end of the day to sign the contract on our apartment, which WE SOLD WITH A QUICKNESS (god bless park slope). so we told the nanny to meet us at the lawyer's office (conveniently on "court" street, how quaint), and to bring the kid. at 6 pm i show up at the lawyer's. so does mrs nice guy. just steps behind her is the nanny, who has our child ... in the cutest fucking unicorn onesie EVER IN THE WORLD HISTORY OF CUTENESS. (jesus, enough with the caps.) our child was all in white, with a purple horn and a purple tail and purple glittershoes. how cute was she? my heart exploded in my chest, cracking my rib cage and unspooling my intestines onto the floor in true halloween fashion.
then, slowly, it dawned on me: i knew that mrs nice guy did not purchase this costume. i know for damn sure that i didn't. i asked the nanny -- "did you buy her this?" she, sheepishly, said "no. my mother did."
and so it's official. we are such bad parents that our nanny's mom feels the need to intervene. we're such total deadbeats that our NANNY'S MOM feels the need to step in and do it right. i can't possibly imagine what was going through nanny's mom's brain, but it was probably something along the lines of "fucking losers." she thinks we're spite-filled, black-hearted, halloween-grinches. i bet she called child protective services. ok, maybe she didn't. but she sure as shit laid some serious guilt on us from afar for being too caught up in our multi-squijillion dollar real estate wranglings to spare a thought for our poor child.
(update on the mp3 situation ... will hopefully have something straightened out for you shortly. meantime be brave, little ones.)
we opted out of halloween this year. the kid is 17.3 months old and frankly doesn't know a pumpkin from a steam train. AND add to this the fact that she screams bloody murder any time we try to put pants on her. you're going to tell me i should spring for a costume she'll tolerate wearing for all of .0004 seconds? not. (although the entire week before halloween every time she saw a particularly garishly decorated home, all green-spiderweb and hockey-masked-scarecrow, she would point and go OOOH!).
the nanny came on halloween morning. the baby was in her pyjamas and could stay that way for all we cared: wife and i had an appointment with our lawyer at the end of the day to sign the contract on our apartment, which WE SOLD WITH A QUICKNESS (god bless park slope). so we told the nanny to meet us at the lawyer's office (conveniently on "court" street, how quaint), and to bring the kid. at 6 pm i show up at the lawyer's. so does mrs nice guy. just steps behind her is the nanny, who has our child ... in the cutest fucking unicorn onesie EVER IN THE WORLD HISTORY OF CUTENESS. (jesus, enough with the caps.) our child was all in white, with a purple horn and a purple tail and purple glittershoes. how cute was she? my heart exploded in my chest, cracking my rib cage and unspooling my intestines onto the floor in true halloween fashion.
then, slowly, it dawned on me: i knew that mrs nice guy did not purchase this costume. i know for damn sure that i didn't. i asked the nanny -- "did you buy her this?" she, sheepishly, said "no. my mother did."
and so it's official. we are such bad parents that our nanny's mom feels the need to intervene. we're such total deadbeats that our NANNY'S MOM feels the need to step in and do it right. i can't possibly imagine what was going through nanny's mom's brain, but it was probably something along the lines of "fucking losers." she thinks we're spite-filled, black-hearted, halloween-grinches. i bet she called child protective services. ok, maybe she didn't. but she sure as shit laid some serious guilt on us from afar for being too caught up in our multi-squijillion dollar real estate wranglings to spare a thought for our poor child.
(update on the mp3 situation ... will hopefully have something straightened out for you shortly. meantime be brave, little ones.)
posted by mr. nice guy at 10:04 PM
5 Comments:
But you know, that's an awesome nanny...
It is "awesome," but would your judgment have been less loathesome if she hadn't been able to get the baby to wear it contentedly?
For a friend of mine, it wasn't something as frivolous as Halloween (and I am no Grinch, either-If I could have gotten my babies in costume in utero, I would have; I settled to popping them into pumpkins pretty much straight from the womb), it was hats. As in *winter* hats. We live in the frozen Northeast, and she had to give up, it wasn't worth the battle to pretend that having a hat in close proximity-or more likely, 20 yards back on the sidewalk) was actually keeping his head any warmer. You can imagine the tongue clucking she received when venturing forth.
Fortunately, he was a hairy beast....
my two children were dressed up as Mario and Princess Peach aka Princess Toadstool. No one in town knew who mario and peach were. My 20 year old friend dressed up as the little mermaid, and everyone assumed she was ten. Tons of candy. Then she caught on fire. Pumpkin candle. And as far as you go, I was a child care provider for 5 years, and did things like buy costumes, or coats to ease the stress of the two working parents. They loved their kids, but their jobs sucked a lot of their life away. I liked to parents, so I did things like that. Or maybe your nanny's mom thinks you daughter is like a new grandchild.
OH, that is so sweet of your nanny's mom. I prefer to think that she just saw the costume and thought it'd look lovely on your little girl, vs. the more passive/aggressive "you people suck; here is a costume for your poor deprived baby". Oh, and congrats on the sale of your place! Speedy!
This is the best Halloween story about a kid ever.
*chortle* Your nanny's mom. That's just. Classic AND classy.
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