The Day After

It's that time again.. that time that every parent dreads. We knew it was coming. We thought we were prepared. We all braced ourselves. But nothing we imagine is ever like the real thing. The horrible, awful, terrible, really not fun Day After. The monsters have ingested about 35 pounds of sugar and high fructose corn syrup each. The artificial colorings, flavorings, and preservatives have eliminated the need for embalming when they die of old age, and will have a shelf life of about 4600 years. They could be donated to medical science for research. Twinkies have NOTHING on the monsters at this point. Oh. And they're all high as a kite. If someone took a blood sample from one of my offspring today, it would probably be grape scented, bubble gum flavored, and sparkly.

Logan got ONE fun sized package of plain M&Ms, and I don't think we're ever going to be able to peel his cute lil body off the ceiling. The maniacal laughter is becoming a little disturbing. #6 is contemplating swinging around on the ceiling fans, I can see it in his eyes.

So then, the question is, why do we do this to ourselves? We're the parents, we have a reasonably high IQ, a fairly decent memory. But really, even if we had a crap memory (which I do), that's why God invented digital cameras. But I have a point. We know that our children are going to be irritable, irrational, hyper, and all those unpleasant things after eating all this crap. And yet... we all do it. We buy the costumes. We buy the candy to hand out. And we send the little darlings out trick or treating with....... a smile, a wave, and a bucket capable of carting back more than half their body weight in candy.

I have to wonder.. is this like supplying a heroin addict with their drug of choice? True, it only happens once a year... then again on Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, Valentine's day, End of School parties,New Year's, Thanksgiving..... what's wrong with this picture? Am I teaching my children rationalization, gluttony, addictive behaviors, and bad fashion sense when I allow them to go out trick or treating on Halloween?

Of course not! It's tradition! And besides... it's a great excuse to replenish my OWN stash! Hope y'all had a GREAT Halloween! *wink*

Images in this post from Google images