I know Halloween is not a holiday of the same caliber of Dia de Los Muertos (thank you to my 7-year old for pointing this out; I stand humbled and corrected). However, Halloween has taken on a special quality for me since moving to our "new" house 8 years ago just 6 weeks before that snarky 7-year old made his appearance.
I was pregnant enough by Halloween to make it a slow waddle to the front door for trick or treaters. We had been in our house about 2 weeks and I wasn't sure what to expect at our door. Our old house was barely a trickle of costumed, giggling kids all hoping for a good payout. I was surprised at the new house by the wave of kids AND their parents on Halloween.
After about an hour the traffic picked up substantially and I could have sworn some of the kids were crabby and I recognized a few of the parents as some who had come by before. Then somebody burst out of the crowd and said, "I'm Mick (name changed to protect the vaguely innocent) and I live behind you. Welcome to the neighborhood!" I was taken aback and then they all looked a little nervous and somebody blurted, "So, are you renting out the basement apartment?"
"Um, no. We're just going to live in that space as well." That's a weird question, I thought.
The group started laughing and after Halloween we began to get dinner invitations. It took a while to piece it all together but our house had once had a sterling reputation for badness. It had been the house police had to be called to; it had been the one people avoided and rolled their eyes at.
It now knows a certain other kind of badness but one where rooms go uncleaned because of parental stand offs with unwilling children and the lazy principals of the land sometimes take the weekend off and forgive the grass their growth.
That Halloween introduced us to a new sense of community. A sense that has been forged by joining the school and the PTO. No matter how much of a drudgery you might think a PTO is, ours is not.
THANK YOU to our PTO, all the parent volunteers and the teachers and staff for putting on a fantastic Trunk r' Treat. It's safe, it's free and our Trunk r' Treat rocks! (Ooh, maybe we should get some music next year to celebrate exactly how awesome our school is.)
From all of the decorated trunks to the bouncy houses to the photo booth with a painted backdrop JUST FOR US and all of the games, it was an outstanding evening. Our PTO President, Rebecca Howard, was a fabulous wizard of ceremonies and made it a magical evening.
We are fortunate to have TWO churches that continually support our school. That's a lot of donations from parishioners that most likely do not have kids of school age attending Whitney or have kids at other schools.
The teachers and staff always go the extra mile for our school. I don't know of any other profession where people work all day and then stay all evening to work and have such a GREAT time doing it!
Thank you again.
Thank you ALSO to the parents and families who brought their kids. This is what it means to show up for your kids and be a presence in their lives. That is the real present of parenthood.
Most of all, thank you to our tireless Principal, Jean Lovelace, for creating such a tremendous sense of Community and giving everybody a safe place to feel wanted and appreciated.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
No comments:
Post a Comment