What up, Mom? Put down that coffee and grab a wine. Get ready for another episode of Nursing and Cursing, a parenting podcast that covers more shit than your baby's full diaper. I'm Kate. I'm a stay-at-home mom of three living in Brooklyn, New York. Hi, I'm Christine. I'm a freelance video editor living in Los Angeles and mom to a toddler. Allie here, podcasting from South Kona, Hawaii, where I live up in the mountains with my husband and two sons. Hey, I'm Molly. I live in Los Angeles, California as a mom of a toddler and a teacher. And I'm Sarah, your in-house expert on all things mom and baby. I'm a nurse and a doula with a PhD living in Brooklyn, New York. Between five busy households, it's a miracle that we make it on the mic at all. But trust me, we need this as much as you do.
Hey guys, welcome to Nursing and Cursing this week. Hey Molly. Hey. Hi everybody else. Trick or treat. It's Halloween. And our topic this week is just talking about the ins and outs and how we're getting through it as moms. At first I was like, Halloween, is that really like an episode? But, well, it's an episode. You just said the word Halloween and the thread lit up. Everybody was like unloading so fast. It's so true. There's so much going on with that. Okay, so how many weeks out are we from Halloween right now?
Two. Two and a half? Two. Okay. So starting with the obvious. Costumes. What are you going to be, Molly? Oh, God. Yeah, and that's the thing. Like, I don't like the idea of dressing up as a mom.
Adele costumes, right. What about family costumes? Am I getting too far ahead of myself? We're doing all skeletons, the whole family. That's an exception, though. He's going to change. He's going to change his mind. But let's be honest. I love the family. Family Skelebones? That rules. We've been doing Skelebones for years. I mean, I'm just leaving my kids in. Yeah, I'm totally leaving the kids out. We have always loved Halloween, and I'm talking in we's because it's kind of like our friendship holiday. We've always loved Halloween. In the last maybe five to ten years, we've been skeletons. Yes, that is correct.
Seven to ten. Seven to ten. It's been a very easy costume. Yeah. But when it comes to family costumes, I don't think we're the type to ever do it. You mean you're not going to be the ketchup, Tim's not going to be the mustard, Augie's not going to be the hot dog? You're not going to be the Paw Patrol? Marigold's not going to be the tomato?
Yeah, no. America's a little biscuit. A little biscuit. It is. But, yeah, we're not that type. What about you guys? Allie, you've done it before. Oh, yeah. It's really worked out. There's so many Halloween opportunities here, I feel like. Oh, my God. What do you mean? You guys nail Halloween every year, Allie. There's so many nights of Halloween. There's, like, my kid's school fundraiser, which is not actually on Halloween, which is a really fun one. And then there's Halloween night. So, really, it's two. But we have done.
We've done family, but the way I like to do it is pretty much, okay, look in the basement. What do we have? What can we pull together? I work the best under pressure. I work the best. I'm sorry, I'm loving it. I'm loving you describing Halloween, dressing up two people younger than seven as under pressure. Oh, no, I'm talking to all of us. Yeah. Haphazard materials, whatever you can find. I'm not like...
getting on amazon and doing um the wizard of oz family fucking costume you know or are you the type who's like i know the answer to this but like sewing something months out okay wait how obviously no how can anybody be but i am duct taping i'm duct taping the night of i don't know how anybody does that because i don't know i'm sure this is normal but every day levi wants to be something different so i ordered him his skele bones but he's not going to wear it and he's in fact he's not going to dress up he's going to trick or treat in his regular street clothes to even buy like the 3.99 face paint because oh yeah i want my 20 bucks back The same thing that happens at our house every single year. Starting July 4th, people start talking about what they're going to be for Halloween. Things get really involved and elaborate. Then we have to consult our friends. There's team costumes. There's just a million different ideas.
20 minutes before showtime. This is every single year. My kids take off all their costumes, say I'm not going as that, take red lipstick, smear it all over their face. I'm going as a zombie, pick up my pillowcase for my candy, walk out through her every year. So how could you sew a whole costume? I would be so devastated if I did that and my kid didn't wear it. But there are moms who do it. That's when you force your kid into the outfit. I don't know. I think some kids understand the hard work that goes into it and they're very excited. I can think of one right now and it's fantastic every year.
lots of hard work and it's also yeah that type of situation no there's so many things around that it's the way that you're doing it it's the way you're being raised it's the stuff that the kid is exposed to of course there are those type of families right you know they're not in the aisles of target every other week then you know they're not we're not seeing oh i want to be that i want to be that and you know what you know obviously i am in the aisles of target every other week but yeah of course there are kids that will wear the costume that their mamas so of course all right i i love that but i'm a fucking amazon mom great great yeah what you're saying you're saying the right thing with the wrong tone of voice okay so but i'm with gritty because our kids are kind of almost the same age aggie is well aggie's going to be four soon so we're still in the three and a halves And yeah, it's changing every hour. It has been, I want to be Mufasa. I want to be Simba. I want to be Kion. Next day, Batman. Next day, Iron Man. Today, it's Thor. And recently, I was so pleased when he said, Mama, I know what I really want to be. And drumroll, please. I just lost those. Thanks, girl. I got you. Paleontologist.
Wow. Somebody's been catching their, what, dinosaur train? Yeah. So I look up at my husband and I'm like, done. And I said to Tim, do not bring up costumes until Halloween. Do not say, oh, look at that. Or what do you think of that? No more discussing it. Even though it comes up, we just let it pass through, let it pass through. And then of course, because I'm investing, even if it's 10 bucks for this vest, I'm investing money in it. And the costume's going to be revealed the day of Halloween, obviously.
Molly, why do you care if he's a paleontologist or if he's Raphael? Oh, I don't care which one, but Kate, the superhero ones, they're coming in and out and it's never right and it changes. So this is the one that is sticking. Molly, Augie dresses up in costume like on a regular day. So Halloween is different for him in what way? I think that's the key, Sarah. No, I don't even think so. I think the key is he's not seen this costume. He will see it the day out. That's the difference because everything else, you know, he is trying out day to day. That's what it is. When your kids wear costumes all the time, and my kids do, you guys know, all the time. Yeah, Wilder was Wolverine for four years. I don't mean four years every year. I mean literally for...
Whatever, 365 times four is that many days he wore a Wolverine costume. Yeah, I've learned. I don't think I'll bring it out until an hour before we're supposed to go. And then they're like, you know, it's like getting a new toy. They're over it the first 20 minutes after they play with it. So over it. You're right. Bringing it out the morning up is too early. Way too early, Molly. Too many hours to go fit. Yeah, it's just hard because we want to be like, it's Halloween. Right, we're excited. We're excited. We love Halloween. We love it. It's so good. We love it.
We love it for the candy. We always have you guys. Now, what about, what do you think about that for your kids? Well, I wanted to ask you guys, this is the first year for me. My son's kind of aware of what candy is and is super psyched. And I don't want him to have all that. What do you do? Yeah. Do you just hide? I'm not going to go to sleep. It's a three year old. So, um, he's not totally, he knows what candy is, but.
doesn't really know what it is so okay wait my friend from LA tells me about the switch switch do you guys know what the switch switch is no no no I do okay so tell me if I'm getting it wrong but okay you trick or treat you get a bag full of candy or a pillowcase or whatever and then you get home and you basically get to I mean The mom will say something like, why don't you pick out one piece or two pieces or whatever it is, and then here is your choice. If you decide to put your whole sack of candy out on the doorstep and you go to sleep at night, the Switch Witch is going to come by and switch your candy for a present, a really good one.
But it's gambling. You don't know what you're going to get. So you're taking the chance to get something spectacular in return for your bag of candy. I hate that. You know what that mom deserves? She deserves to get an elf on the shelf for the Switch Witch. I would have told my mom to go fuck herself. I'd be like, there's no peasant better than Candy Witch. Yeah, you know what you can do, mom? You can suck my dick. That's the worst plan I've ever heard. Oh my God. Oh my God, I like that. I think that it sounds like a good idea.
You don't want your kid eating that shit and you don't want their teeth rotting out and it's easy. And it works. But I'm going to try it. For your kids who don't eat candy on a regular basis, they must think of this Halloween bounty as a pot of gold. They wouldn't trade that for anything. Maybe that's okay when you're younger. It will not work for your age. Not only will it not work, but candy isn't just delicious. It's also currency. I know for sure she's going to stuff it in her pocket. She's going to go to school the next day and she and her girlfriends are going to stay in a little circle at recess outside. They're going to put all their candy in the middle and then they're going to...
Who's got what and who gives what to who? She doesn't fucking trade it up. She doesn't want to. Whereas here, probably everybody's doing a switch, which, but really, no, we're not even taking our kids trick or treating until we in the very last. Like, how long can I push it? You guys, Phoenix is going to be seven really soon. He's never been trick or treating. You're the one saying take him trick or treating the next day. No, I'm saying that's an idea. I didn't come up with it.
I'm going to try it. And if he says no, then when he's sleeping, I'm going to jump half of it. I really hope the Switch Witch brings me five pairs of light-up shoes. Here's where I think the Switch Witch plan has a hole in it, Molly. The choice. Quit with the choices. There's no choice. This is what we do on Halloween. I like it. You pick one piece of candy, and then the Switch Witch comes. That's it. It's not, do you want to choose and take a gamble? That's not Halloween. You don't want your child having the candy? Then you tell them what Halloween is. In the same way that people run Christmas in the way that they want to, you know?
Yeah, I like that. They then talk to their friends at school and their friends are like, what the fuck is this? I think that's where the choice came in. And because these are not little kids. This is a six year old and a nine year old where it worked successfully. And the choice.
I'm dead serious. Allie's right. It's probably a nine year old who wasn't brought up on candy and doesn't really care about it. I know plenty of nine year olds that would go for it and they would be like, hell yeah, I would way rather have the lightsaber or whatever. They would want the candy, but they know it's just, they know that it's, you know, not something that's okay. I hear what you're saying. My, my nine, my 10 year old might go for the switch, which.
And because he might be like, oh, well, I eat candy every day anyway. So I'm just going to ask for – I'm just going to use this as an opportunity to ask for some first-person shooter game that I know my parents are definitely never, ever going to say yes to. He might be like, oh, I hope the Switch Witch brings me Call of Duty. We also might get a lot of comments from listeners about this who actually do the Switch Witch because I'm just getting it through other people. And I might have all the rules wrong, but I have a feeling that the choice aspect was just for this family specifically. But who knows? We might hear all sorts of things.
sorry, without a toy, just having other choices of treats that you're okay with, like a big pile of treats, you know, that either are whatever, organic lollipops. Like you swap them out in the middle of the night? Yeah, whatever it is. Bars and organic treats or gummies or whatever you're okay with. I think that's an option. Lara bars and quest bars. Yeah, but remember how you guys would feel? Remember how you felt when you would get to that last house at the end of the night and it was like a box of raisins? Hell, fuck that. Yes, but Augie doesn't know the difference and neither do my kids. They do not know the difference and so there's no heartache yet. And once they get to an age, I think that...
They can do it. Kate's laughing at us. I'm not laughing at you at all. The way that we do Halloween is we go trick-or-treating. Side note, it's usually at like bodegas because it's in New York. We go trick-or-treating with our friends. It's rowdy. For three to five days, we don't regulate the candy at all. Zero regulation. Just let them do whatever the fuck they want. And then when they're at school, I just throw it all out and we move on. That's how we do it. Right. I feel like my mom might have done that to me. Same. That was mom. Yeah. And that's fine. And I did talk to Augie already. I was like, oh, what do you think of trick-or-treating? What is that like? And he kind of like regurgitated what he remembered from last year and I told him.
Straight up, I was like, we're going to have a pile of candy that doesn't make our body feel good. And you are allowed to have some licks of a lollipop. So I already told him he can have that. I'm with you. Like when he's older, this is not going to work. So the only reason that Mavis age four is going to be doing like a, you know, fucking eight balls of pixie sticks is because she's, there's, I can't have different rules for different kids. So she's having the 10 year olds have age four. But of course, while you're at age three.
I didn't let him binge for days and days. Of course not. Guys, people are going to listen to this and be like, you guys are fucking psychos. I'm looking on Google and Google says that Switch Witch, you plant the seed like a week ahead. Like, ooh, the Switch Witch is coming. What toy are you going to ask for? I'm going to start planting the seed tomorrow. Okay, Critty's going to do it. And I want to also point out the dentist.
has some kind of a thing. Does anybody know about what the dentist does? No. What are you talking about? You get something special if you bring your candy in. Oh, God. ZZZ. That's like when you turn in your guys. I don't like that. They're just hooking up all of the dental hygienists. I want to be really clear. They're just putting it in the bowl at their front desk. I might use the word donate this year just to pat myself on the back and check off the kindness box.
We're going to donate all those stickers bars right into mama's pantry. We're going to donate those to somebody who needs them, like your mom. Like your mom. Can I clarify, you guys? I said that Phoenix never had been trick-or-treating, which we haven't in the traditional sense, but we do. It's easy because my community, we're real close and we're all on the same page and we throw an epic Halloween party, like a rave basically for kids in their Halloween costumes. We even have stations where they trick-or-treat, you know, four or five stations and they get whatever, erasers or little... Raisins.
Lollipops. Oh, my God. Have you guys got a toothbrush station yet? It was so good. I got stickies floss. I got bubblegum floss.
On our new street, we have a block party that shuts down. I guess we like shut down before Halloween and party. And then it's like, okay, everybody. Yes. That's going to be so awesome. Then your kid takes four legs of a lollipop and fucking woo. And Critty, oh, how's it going with your house decoration? You have major pressure in your neighborhood, don't you? Yeah, our neighborhood goes off, I guess. They bust kids in. My neighbor told me they went through $500 worth of candy last year. What? One house? All of these plans. We need to all be going OKC. I'm not going to be that household. Got about a 20 spot for candy.
That is expensive. Wow. Chrissy, are you going to do, like, the bowl outside, lights off, hide in the basement? Probably. Probably. I'm really nervous. AKA, yeah, the Betsy, like my mom. Oh, yeah. I feel like I'm hanging out at a neighbor's house. I'll probably hide in someone else's house. So how about leading up to Halloween? Do you guys have any, you know, events that you do? What? Pumpkin carving? Pumpkin patch. We do all of that. Yeah, all that. But, Allie, we usually kick off trick-or-treating with a rager with our friends, too.
But then we really do go trick-or-treating. And not that it's, like, better than yours. Well, no, it is. I mean, I would enjoy it more, but whatever. No, no, no. My kids, like, they probably would be happy to stay at the party and just rage all night. But I was going to ask, Sarah, are you – you have a teeny, teeny, tiny newborn. Are you guys going to – are you going to open the door to trick-or-treaters in your apartment building dressed in costume, which I love when people do, like dress up and stay home? Or are you going to dress up and take out or nothing? Well, no one's ever knocked on our apartment door. Maybe – well, we do have a couple of small children in the building, but –
I don't know why they've just never knocked. So I, I, anyway, my mom group is getting together, um, on the weekend before Halloween and we're going to all dress up our babies. Have brunch. Oh my God. Okay. That's great. Okay. Technical difficulties. Okay. Um, I'll start. Cool. Okay. I'm going to start with a fail guys. My.
My three-year-old's just been itching his butt all week. But like to the point where I'm like, that doesn't seem right. It's every single day, like just digging deep after school. And I'm like, okay, well, this could be the old, you know, preschool wiping himself. But, you know, we clean him up after school and make sure he's all fresh and whatnot. And you guys know I –
I consulted the text string, the thread, all of you guys. And I, I asked, um, all of you, like, could this be worms? And I know that there's been some experience with worms on the thread. So, um, let's call them pin worms, not just worms. They're specifically pin worms. Okay. I don't know. Okay. Allie said, yeah, not worms. Okay. So, um, I guess just the fail is that just right before this podcast, I was just up in my son's bed.
Pulled his covers down and his pants down. That sounds so terrible. With a flashlight. Is he sleeping through all of this? He's sleeping. Although I did get his consent before he went to sleep. I told him what I was going to do. But he's very difficult to wake up once. Once he's asleep. So I was up there talking like. Mama's going to check your bum bum. Are you awake? I was like. Basically under the covers with my head. Like in his butt. With a flashlight in the dark. And I was just like. You know what? This sucks. So that's my fail. But the nail is worm free. Pain worm free. Yay. That's great. That's huge. That's awesome. Yeah. I think. Right Ali? I mean.
Yeah, if he's still itching, you know, check every night. Seriously. Yeah, because who knows. But you're living kind of in the tropics now. You're in Florida. So normal. Swamp ass. Yeah, he's got swamp ass. They call it Everglades ass in Florida. Yeah, he's just probably got a constant yeast infection. Well, I mean, I will say raising kids here, it's just a way of life. It's like, okay, you bet. No, I mean, that's not gross, but you kind of like you get a cold. Yeah, your kid gets pinworms like once a year. You deal with it. Everybody who grew up here is the same thing. They had it growing up. It's gross.
It is what it is. Just trying to normalize it for you all. It's terrific. Lice, right? But I love how you just called it a way of life, just how maybe two years ago you called coconut oil also a way of life. I know you called that a lifestyle. Lifestyle. That is a lifestyle. So rub some macadamia oil on your son's ass and move on. Pinworms, a way of life. Okay, who's next? All right. Well, I have a nail in a fail from this evening, actually.
I had a nice autumnal kale salad prepared for my husband when he came home from work, and I was so proud of myself. What does that mean in the beginning of the kale? What did you just say? I think it just means like a fall, like fall. Yeah, like a fall salad. So there's like butternut squash in it and shit. What's the word? Autumnal? Autumnal, like autumn. Oh, wow. She has a PhD, okay? That's why she used that.
So your fail is having stupid fucking friends. You had a ton of salad. My fail is that I was like rushing to prepare it and I was holding my pee and I sneezed right when we were sitting down and I peed my pants. Oh, babe. Did you tell your man you loved the salad? Of course I told him. I was like, okay, I just peed. And I put a pause on this. Oh, and it was delicious. I'll send you the recipe. Don't bother.
Okay, who's next? I'll go next. Okay, go. Okay. Nail. I have such a good nail. I got a text from Levi's teacher a couple hours ago, 8 o'clock at night. Wow. That said, I'm sorry to text you so late. I just want to make sure I didn't forget. Your son is so kind, dot, dot, dot. There's a new kid in school, and Levi went out of his way to be kind to him and share with him, and no one told him to do it, and I just wanted to know how sweet he is. That's amazing, pretty. It made me cry. I was real touched. We have a listener who wanted actually an episode where we kind of focus on, like, what do we do to...
To make sure our kids learn that lesson. I have a real hard time with that. So good for you, Critty. That's awesome. That was amazing. I would never get that text. Fail. I had quite a few today, but I'm just going to give you one of them. I was trying to make dinner while Matilda was napping before Levi came home from school. Making a hot pot, big pot of soup, and then I threw it in the blender to puree it. And too much liquid, too much pressure. Flip on the switch. The top of the blender blew off. Scalding hot soup splashed in my face, in my eye, on my shoulder.
down my breasts all over the curtain all over the wall just everywhere where was my daughter wakes up screaming crying and I'm covered in burn like shivering covered in hot soup like just in like shell-shocked didn't even know what to do first like get this fucking hot soup off my body my daughter's freaking out house covered in soup like everywhere guys on the ceiling everywhere are your burns okay Yeah, they didn't blister. I just have, like, red splotches all over my arms and my face and my boobs. Oh, my God. Thank God. And my lips. It's impossible to think through anything when there's a screaming baby. Like, just can't think of what's next. No, but the burn, the hot, it was just a fucked up moment in time. But anyway, all good now. Wow. Yep. Oh, guys, and then when I served the soup for dinner, Levi took a bite and he goes, I don't like this. And I almost fucking lost my drink. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's pretty good. And I fucking fly across the table and fucking punch him in the face. Yeah. I literally chugged my glass of wine when he said that. Ooh. Yeah, just chug it. Just knock back that Kirk's. Yep.
I've got one. Okay. So sports authority in my town shut down a couple of years ago. They couldn't make it. Huge fail. I didn't know they were still in business. I can't believe that's how you started this. Sports authority.
I forgot Sports Authority even exists. Ditto. Sarah, I was racking my brain. I was like, does she mean Models? Dicks? No. It's a huge building. And this year, there's a Halloween pop-up shop that went into the old Sports Authority. So I was like, oh, this is epic. It's going to be, you know, it's like a museum. This is an outing in itself. This is part of Halloween for us. So I took the boys down to the pop-up shop.
the halloween store um and just going to it is crazy amazing there is costumes for everyone children adults there are all kinds of decorations and seriously we can be in there for an hour and a half but so i take them and we're having a great time but The fail is we go over to the section where there are like those scary Halloween statues that you can step your foot on the button and something happens, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. So the kids are like, this is the best part. You know, we get to step on a button and see what happens. And Leo steps on a button and there's the back of this little girl in a swing. It just starts swinging. She starts singing. I see dead people. I see ghosts. I see the one that hates you the most.
back dips backward and she's got like blood coming down from her eyes that is terrifying oh my god oh my god what did he say they were just like mom you know just like staring at it phoenix of course is kind of laughing like doing a side swipe smile going that's not scary oh god anyway and then you know we pass the shelf of like literal, literal babies, like naked babies with dead baby faces. Sports authority went to the dark side. Thank you, Allie. Okay, Kate, do you, Allie, did you have a nail? No, that was a nail fail. Like we got a great museum. Yeah. All right, Kate, you got one to close us out? Yeah, but sorry, I'm still recovering.
Okay, guys, wrap it. Come on, get it together. Mine's not even as funny as Sports Authority. I don't have a nail, sadly, but I have a fail. As you guys know, I bragged the other day about getting a minivan. One of the great things about the minivan is you can open and close the doors with just a click of the key, the same way that you lock it. So the other day...
took the kids to school came home parked the car ran up to the house and just like locked it on the thing and took the groceries out locked it on the thing came inside the house for whatever like six hours and went back outside and manually opened both of both of the doors my minivan just parked on the street in new york city with both side doors wide open 100% open they had been open all that time six hours molly and as i was As I was walking up, I was getting this feeling like I saw the minivan. I mean, it's New York. I thought somebody was going to be living in there, like I hadn't moved in. Anything could be in there. Your nail is that it was still there. Yes. Still there, nothing taken out of it, but the whole drive to pick up, I kept thinking somebody that I hadn't checked enough and somebody was going to come flying over the backseat with a knife, somebody who had been moved in. I didn't find a used condom or something. All right, guys.
I wish you all a very spooky Halloween, and I hope the kids have a great time rotting their fucking teeth out. Good luck with that switch, bitch. That's right. All right, guys, we will. That's not what it's called. What is it called? Sarah. Good night, guys. Good night, everybody. Bye. Check us out next week for another episode of Nursing and Cursing, where it's safe to admit that you just left your kid in the car to run into Ace Hardware for five minutes.