A lot of things change when you become a parent. In fact, your life will never be the same again. The one thing that I was least expecting was just how much Halloween changed for me when I became a mom.

I’ll start with the obvious: COSTUMES!

When I was a kid my mother was extremely talented with conjuring up some very unique costumes. Throughout my teen years and into adulthood I spent time and what money I had to create my halloween costumes. Now that I have my own children, that tradition has continued. My first child had a multitude of costumes for his first Halloween. It is a little embarrassing now as I look back on it, but I just couldn’t help myself. We do a lot of halloween events and he couldn’t be seen in the same costume twice (I guess I was afraid to commit a baby faux pas!). In total, he had 8 costumes. Everything from a peanut to a wolf-man and each one was a perfect combination of hysterical and adorable. With my second child I was a bit more conservative and settled for two costumes for her first Halloween. Now they only get one maybe two costumes each. I love being creative with their costumes. The hunt for costumes and theming starts in July. I use amazon to purchase costumes and then cannibalize other clothes to make something unique for them. I spend so much time on their costumes that I barely have an hour or so to throw something together for myself.

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Decorating

I’m sure I’m not alone here, I’ve always liked to do over the top decorations at my house during any holiday. But once I became a mother I had this intense need to be the best house on the block! Over the past five years our house has grown into a showstopper for our neighborhood. We aren’t a fancy home haunt (my husband does that on another property) but we do have some black lights, spiders all over our roof and some other garishly great decor. The inside of our home is also decked out in full blown Halloweentown style. I’ve learned to hit the stores towards the last couple days before Halloween and then I check them regularly during the week after Halloween to catch those great sales. The decorations go up earlier and earlier each year.

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October is fraught with different activities. Pumpkin patches, haunted houses, theme park Haunts, hay rides, maize mazes and a multitude of other fun stuff. When I didn’t have kids I could take my pick of anything I wanted to do. Now I have to plan…big time. Some haunts are not kid or family friendly. Obviously you wouldn’t take your 7 year old to an escape room, so those aren’t even a consideration. It becomes a little difficult to plan an evening with more than two or three stops. Kids just don’t have the patience to wait in long lines for one place let alone three places. And don’t forget the biggest factor, MONEY! Many events don’t have child pricing so we have to take into account that we will be paying the same amount for our 2 year old as we do for ourselves. It can get expensive very fast.
On top of all of this planning for different destinations we have our own home haunt to run. Which means that I can’t just take off while leaving the husband and the crew hanging. Just like everyone else, I have to arrange childcare; which can be just as frightening as any escape room.

Trick or Treating

By far the biggest thing that has changed since I became a mother is trick or treating! The feeling of joy that I get while watching my kids skip around our neighborhood with their bags of candy is indescribable. It trumps the compliments on their costumes. It’s far better than the joy that I had trick or treating. The whole thing is truly magical. We are very lucky that our neighborhood is very active. Just about every house is decorated and some of them are very impressive. Last year people had chimineas/fire pits in their driveways along with tables of more decorations, candy and drinks! The whole block was alive and it felt like a big party. The only problem I encountered was there was no one at our house to hand out candy. I did leave a huge note asking people to come back. This year we are doing the fire pit, table full of goodies in our driveway and hopefully we will have some single friends hold down the fort while we take the kids out for a bit.

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After the first real trick or treating escapade with my son I realized that one of the many joys I used to live for, going around and filling my pillowcase full of candy, was just as enjoyable observing carefully from the sidewalk. I watched with tears in my eyes as my son grabbed my daughters hand house after house to help her up steps, they took turns knocking on the doors while yelling “TRICK OR TREAT!” His little sister kept up with him for a good portion of the night and her expression was priceless when she got to pick what candy she wanted. A steady stream of M&Ms for her while my son did mix it up a bit (“I’ll get the Reese’s because dad likes them”) After the sugar high wore off and I put my little goblins to bed I began the ultimate in parenting perks of Halloween – two bags of candy that I had to “fully inspect”
Last year I ended up with a tremendous stomachache. Lesson learned, space out the amount of candy consumed from raiding your children’s candy stash.

About the Author

Erin Jefferson-Foley (Mommy Fearest) is terrified of scary movies, gore and zombies. But she loves all things Halloween and Haunt related! Slowly but surely she has been dipping her toes into the realm of horror movies with great results. Pretty soon she will work her way up to watching a scary movie when it is dark outside. Erin has had a love affair with theme park Halloween events for the past 20 years. Her first time at an event was at Knott's Scary Farm in the late 80s when a family friend, a Knott's employee, escorted her into the park to watch Elvira and give her a behind the scenes tour. She was intrigued as she walked through the break room and realized that they were just people in masks and makeup. It seemed like only a short time later, Erin was performing for Halloween Haunt which led to her meeting the love of her life, her husband. Each year she cheers on her husband and his friends as they set up and run a home haunt. You can catch her helping with line control and repeating the same instructions over and over and over to the guests each night. She has been a professional dancer and actress for over 20 years. When she is not in the studio teaching dance or in her office writing, you can catch Mommy Fearest with her husband and two kids at various conventions throughout California. She enjoys Cosplay, Star Wars, Renaissance Faires, Halloween, haunted attractions, paranormal happenings, special effects makeup and horrible reality television shows.