Halloween
The costumes – handmade by mom…
Happy Pumpkin Man (and friend)…
Trick-or-treating with the cousins…
When Halloween is still magic
When she is sixteen years old, rushing off to a halloween party with her friends and no longer interested in trick-or-treating with Mom, I want to remember six-year-old Maddie, blowing out the candle in the jack-o-lantern, turning off the kitchen light (even though I was doing the dishes) and whispering “Good night, Happy Pumpkin Man”. When I protested, she said “But Mom – he needs a good night sleep – he’s got a big day tomorrow!”
This morning I told her that I was suspicious that Happy Pumpkin Man might have snuck out and partied all night. He’s got such a short life, after all – wouldn’t you want to live it up while you still can?
They make me so proud
Nikki and Julie to Maddie before heading to a movie: “Of COURSE we don’t buy candy at the movie theatre. It’s way too expensive. Instead we go to Bulk Barn to stock up on cheap candy and then we bring a big purse along so we can stuff it with our own snacks. When you’ve been raised by OUR mom, you know how to find the deals.”
I’m so proud!
Time to pack the glue gun away for another year
I know you’ll all find this hard to believe, but, with Halloween still more than a week away, I AM FINISHED THE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES! And they are good. Martha Stewart good. “Mom you ROCK!” good. Try-them-on-a-dozen-times-a-day-just-so-you-can-stare-at-yourself-in-the-mirror good. I am basking in the glow. For the first time in thirteen years, I will NOT be huddled over a sewing machine at midnight on October 30th. (Sorry Accidental Seamstress if I’ve left you feeling abandoned.)
Twenty years from now, when my children are grown, it’s what they’ll talk about. “Remember the costumes mom used to make? The sheep? The monkey? The fairy princess complete with gossamer wings? The elephant? The Campbell’s Soup can?” “Yeah, she was a little crazy/obsessed/single-minded two weeks before Halloween, but MAN did we have good costumes!”
It’s what I do. I make good costumes. Once a year, I get to rock their socks off. Dig deep into my psyche and you’ll probably discover that it’s really about me trying to compensate for all of my other failings as a parent, but I’m not about to visit a shrink to find that out. I’ll just sew. And glue. And cut. And then send them off into the streets to wow their friends and beg for candy.
Truthfully, I didn’t think the glue gun would become a once-a-year tool. I used to spend a lot of time creating things – all kinds of things from leather moccasins to dried flower arrangements to hand-painted Christmas ornaments – before I had kids. When I started having kids, I thought I would be one of those moms who would forever be hauling out paints and feathers and little bits of fabric and spending many magical afternoons creating things with my fanciful, imaginative children. That was before reality set it. It turns out I’m not really very fond of the mixture of children and paints and feathers and little bits of fabric. It turns out that it’s an awful lot of work to create – and more importantly clean up the messes – with your children. And it turns out that a full time job on top of motherhood doesn’t leave a lot of time for magical art-filled afternoons. Some days just keeping them fed seems beyond my capacity.
Nope – I didn’t live up to my own expectations. It’s not that I never do art projects with them, it’s just that I haven’t been as committed to it as I’d anticipated. But what I still do, despite the years it nearly led to a nervous breakdown, is make good costumes. And sometimes, in this obstacle course called parenting, there’s such a thing as “close enough”.
Tell me something happy before I go to sleep
Yesterday wasn’t very happy. It started getting better after a lousy morning, but then the phone call came. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Marcel asked. It turned out there wasn’t any good news. Just a crapped out hot water tank spilling water all over the basement floor. And a big repair bill. Of course this comes only a week after Marcel finally got paid (after substitute teaching for a month and a half and after 5 and a half years of living off my income while he went to school) and we dared to hope that we could finally get ahead. Pffftt. There goes that pipe dream.
So I need to take a page from one of my favourite bedtime books, and think happy thoughts. Here goes…
– Nothing was seriously damaged by the water in the basement.
– Despite this big repair bill, I managed to get at least slightly caught up on some of the other bills hanging over our heads. AND I cleaned up that pesky stack of papers and bills and envelopes cluttering the top of the microwave.
– I have a great job that I still love after 4 years and that won’t likely be put in jeopardy by this economic downturn.
– The new indoor soccer facility is only 10 minutes from my house! Yay!
– I managed to rearrange my next business trip so I won’t miss Halloween after all. Plus I get to visit a part of the country I don’t get to very often.
– I’ve made my way back to the gym and I’m enjoying it again.
– Thanks to the gym, I was the only family member who got to have a warm shower this morning.
– My kids think I rock because I make Halloween costumes that make their friends jealous. There are few words more sweet than “you ROCK mom!”
– On Friday night I had the most lovely time with one of my newest friends – enjoying a Margaret Atwood lecture and ending the evening with some yummy dim sum.
– There’s a little girl who wakes up too often during the night (especially when she’s sick), but when she wakes up, it’s me she comes looking for. Me. I get to be her mom. I get to be the one to sooth her and cuddle her and chase away the monsters. Just for a little while until she grows up and learns to chase away her own monsters. For this moment, I don’t want to overlook how lucky that makes me. Especially since I don’t get to chase away her brother’s monsters.
You know you’re having a bad day when…
– your sick daughter gets up at least 5 times during the night;
– you miss not one, but TWO buses on the way to work;
– you trip over air in your driveway and gracefully plant yourself face first on the concrete; AND
– somebody swears at you when you step off the bus (just because you turned to wait for a colleague and got in her way).
And that was only what happened before you got to work…
I should have stayed in bed.
My body aches from its encounter with the pavement.