Halloween Strangeness

I KNOW! I keep saying I will update more regularly and then it doesn't happen and I'M SO SORRY. I'm a terrible blogger. But it's a hard life! I've got a perpetually-sick little one to take care of on top of being pregnant and miserable. Maisie is just starting speech therapy and physical therapy and a couple of new meds (more about all that later). It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Anyway. I think I can safely say that on Friday, I experienced one of the strangest events of mommyhood ever.

It should surprise no one that Friday was Halloween. It may, however, surprise some of my neighbors that, when you trick-or-treat, the "treats" are candy. Maisie did a little trick-or-treating in her little elephant costume and it was adorable, but we came home after only twenty minutes or so because she was exhausted. So from 6:30 to eight we were fielding trick-or-treaters of our own. And around 7:00, a group of five kids between the ages of three and eleven showed up. They all cried "Trick or treat!" and I pulled out the candy bowl and the oldest kid looked me in the eye and politely asked for the non-food options. That is exactly what he said. "Can you bring out the non-food options?"

Um.

No?

Was I supposed to prepare a bowl of toys too?

I know some moms will have little plastic teeth and stuff in with the candy, but I always hated cheap, useless knick-knacky things like that. "I don't have anything but candy!" I said with a big smile.

And then. The sanctimommy. Oh. My. God.

This women march up and give me the full lecture on the toxicity of store-bought candy, the obesity rates in the US and the reasons behind them, the nutritional needs of kids, and the inconsideration and narrow-mindedness of not providing something other than comestibles for trick-or-treaters. What about the kids with allergies? What about the mothers who actually care about what their children consume instead of shoving over-processed, nutritionally-poor crap "food" into their kids? Have I ever stopped to think that not all kids are as lucky as mine must be, and that not all kids can eat whatever they damn well please?

At this point I was FURIOUS. I looked her square in the eye and said "What about the children who are tube fed? What about the children who can't eat anything at all?" And then I called for Maisie. I lifted up her pajama top and showed these women the g-tube that keeps her alive. Yes. I know about the kids who can't eat whatever they want. I know about the kids with allergies. I know about the kids with dietary restrictions. I HAVE ONE.

She shut up and hustled her kids away. But it left me thinking. This was the first Halloween that Maisie was actually able to participate in. She had very strict dietary restrictions up until about ten months ago. There have been stretches of time where she couldn't eat or drink ANYTHING because her kidneys couldn't take it. There have been times where she just refused to eat. There have been times where she could only eat very short list of things. And we celebrated Halloween in other ways. With decorations and pumpkins and stuff that was safe for her to eat or drink. We didn't freaking take her trick or treating where she would have to walk away from almost every house empty-handed because she couldn't eat sugar or chocolate or dairy or dye or nuts or whatever. That's just cruel.

I'm over it now, obviously, and the whole thing was just weird. But I thought my fellow special needs mamas would like to hear that story. Anything like that happen on your Halloween? Or any other holiday? Or anything at all? I want to hear from my readers, I don't get any comments!!