Wednesday 31 October 2012

Halloween and my half-assed approach

The girls were super excited this morning. Halloween! Which meant dress-up day at school, they could come as their favourite book character, but nothing too scary. The girls put away their vampire and zombie princess costumes in favour of Sleeping Beauty and Angelina Ballerina (thanks to the inspiration on Twitter).

School here is obviously a lot different to home. They start at a different age, the teachers and students are from all around the world, there are different languages and religions. Academically I think it's a lot tougher than school at home too, Lil-lil is certainly being pushed a lot more. In some ways it's good, in others not so good, for the moment she's coping with it so I'm OK.

The one thing I really like about the school is that while there is a strong academic focus, they do like to have fun, like the dress up day. The lessons will go on as normal but they'll be Spidermen and policemen and princesses. They do things like this quite a lot and it makes the kids eager to get school.

To help celebrate Halloween, the parents committee decided to put on a bake sale. The note that came home said they wanted spooky treats that were home-made, purchased items would probably 'end up with the appreciative cleaning staff'. I have to say this really got my goat. Sure as parents we would love to spend time in the kitchen baking treats for the bake sale, but let's face it some of us don't have time, some of us just aren't that good at it.

Yesterday, I was stuffed after being up quite a few times in the night, after school was swimming lessons, Skip came home from work early to spend time with us. I could have spent time in the kitchen for the bake sale, but I decided there were more important things, so I cheated. I bought a packet of biscuits and some icing and went to work. As I watched telly and made my spooky treats I giggled and thought to myself: "These for sure aren't going on the blog! What a mess." And then I decided that they should go on the blog.

Life isn't perfect. I'm not a bad mother because I haven't home-baked. I'm not a bad mother because my contribution to the bake sale isn't going to end up on Pinterest any time soon. I'm just a mum who decided to spend an extra half-hour at the playground watching my baby eat sand rather than in the kitchen baking.

I remember my mum hating cake sale time, the pressure of it. She hates cooking and anything related. I remember her buying some biscuits from an old lady charity stall, so two charities won and she didn't have to bake.

So here's my half-assed Halloween bake sale effort for all the world to see. Lil-lil told me she was so excited about them she was going to buy them all, bless her.

I wonder how many were snapped up at the cake stall?

Note half-assed cardboard crown and mouse ears. I think they still look cute.


I would love to know what you do that is half-assed and not destined for Pinterest, Facebook or even your blog. Come on, share with me! 

9 comments:

  1. oh rin - i love all your lovely home made gifts! And the girls look so bloody cute... and they love it all and that's the most important thing... xxxx

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  2. I hate baking too! I like decorating though! Our school fete is coming up in Nov and we are all asked to contribute "well presented" home made cakes! Serious.. JB

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  3. Wow, that's tough to say no purchased goods. My weakness is sewing and costumes. Struggle street when it's book week. Good on you for setting your own priorities and not others dictate you.

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    1. Me too Charmaine. Our boys go as Harry Potter each year. I order something extra each year (a new tie, a quiddich robe, hedwig) so they are always really excited about it. Might get a bit tired by year 10 though.

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  4. Our class rep recently went as far as asking us to 'commit' to say exactly what we were going to send (so that there weren't duplicates of any food!). I was thinking of a packet of lollies or chips....but was tempted to reply 'twice baked goat cheese souffle with a hint of truffle oil'....but decided in the end not to reply (silent protest). He took a packet of chips. And that is from someone who DOES like baking!

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  5. We had the same with Miss O's pre school. They sent home such strict instructions on the baking and the costumes had to be homemade and recycled.... I just gave up and prepared for the walk of shame. Only to discover when I got there that everybody else had pretty much done the same thing and ignored the costume instructions.

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