Parenting|

All The Ways October Challenges Your Chill Vibes

by Team Scary Mommy
witch Halloween costumes
Alina Demidenko / Getty Images

Even if you consider yourself the chillest of moms, there’s a good chance October challenges your chill. Because here’s the thing: We’re expected to be extremely EXTRA all throughout October. We’re supposed to do all the fun fall/Halloween things while we keep doing all the other things we have to do every day. It’s not like planning great costumes cancels out laundry. Or that making witch-themed cupcakes means you get the month off from making dinner.

Now’s the time to find your zen, sister. Let’s just walk through all the things you should probably start letting go of right this minute.

Giphy

Expectation: Your kids will choose costumes well in advance. These costumes will not only fit, they will also make sense and be easily recognizable. AND the kids will still want to wear those costumes on October 31.

Reality: The day before Halloween, you will look at the calendar. A deeply unsettling realization will come over you: They still don’t have costumes! You will frantically head to the nearest mass-market retailer at rush hour. The kids will hem and haw and choose something too big or too small, or they will insist on creating a costume so obscure that everyone you encounter on Halloween will put on a confused smile and ask, “And…what…are YOU?”

Giphy

Expectation: You’ll capture the perfect Halloween memory, suitable for framing. Kids will be in costumes (the good ones, not the ones they’ll actually end up with), and you’ll get them perfectly posed on your front lawn. There will be an exquisite amount of multicolored leaves scattered about, which your children will joyfully toss into the air as they delight in each other’s company.

Reality: It will rain for days and the leaves on the ground will be a muddy brown — definitely not suitable for joyful tossing. One kid will have already succumbed to the autumn sniffles, and the other will be 100% not into the family photo moment. There will be tears.

Giphy

Expectation: Your home will be subtly but flawlessly decorated for the season, with a unifying theme and understated (but still seasonal!) colors. Neighbors will ooh and aah. Strangers will ask if they can stage their fall photoshoot on your porch.

Reality: You’ll rummage through the attic and find a crumbling cardboard box of Halloween decor. It will contain exactly one jolly plastic jack-o’-lantern and what used to be a “talking” skeleton that now only makes a weird whirring noise. The stores will be totally picked over and you will decide that the *actual* cobwebs will have to do.

Giphy

Expectation: One October weekend will be spent at the pumpkin patch, selecting unblemished and symmetrical pumpkins. Another will be spent apple picking, making memories to last a lifetime. Yet another fun-filled weekend will be spent at a costume party straight out of a sitcom, in which everyone is dressed in costumes that appear to have come from a Hollywood studio wardrobe closet.

Reality: You’ll grab the last available pumpkin at the supermarket, the kids will fight so much that you’ll threaten to call off the apple picking — and then possibly be forced to actually do it. Some brave soul will plan a costume party for families. You’ll show up on the wrong night with those homemade string cheese witch finger “treats” that will already be sweaty and weird.

Giphy

Expectation: There will be a break in the chaos. You’ll get a dinner on the table that everyone in the family can not only agree on but also enjoy. Together.

Reality: Whoa. This is one you can actually pull off! We live in a deeply divided country. (I’m referring, of course, to pro and anti-candy corn factions.) But the one thing pretty much everyone can agree on is that pizza night is THE BEST. And with Red Baron pizza, reality meets expectation in the form of pizza crust perfection. Our family loves the Brick Oven style pizza, but we always keep a backup Classic Crust for those nights when someone decides they hate what they loved yesterday.

Red Baron

In about 18 minutes, you can serve something they’re all going to love. And who knows? Maybe your ‘grammable moment comes without a perfect scattering of leaves or an award-winning costume design. Maybe your moment is when everybody is at the table, eating pizza and cracking each other up as they talk about their day.

Chill restored.

Red Baron® pizza is crust perfection in every bite. A better crust makes a better pizza, and that’s the reason Red Baron® pizza has been a fan favorite for over 40 years, with a variety of offerings for every taste and occasion. Visit RedBaron.com to find a store near you.