I always forget that just because you are my oldest kid, you are still a very young kid. I’m sorry I always expect you to get it right the first time, and always try to get you to do things on your own when you aren’t yet ready. I will try to remember to let you be little. Because, well, you’re little.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love it even more than Christmas. I think the reason I like Halloween so much is that no matter how much consumer junk there is available to just buy and be done with it, there is really no reason to accidentally spend $1000 on Halloween like there is for Christmas. Also, no matter how easy it is to buy a Halloween costume, it doesn’t discourage a ton of people from getting down with their creative self (even if they think they aren’t creative) to make a costume out of clothes from the thrift store or cardboard or fabric.
This year I spent the two weeks leading up to our school’s “Trunk or Treat” making a family’s worth of under the sea themed costumes. The girls all decided to be mermaids, so that was easy. We went online and looked at Google Images of mermaid costumes until they picked the one they liked the best. They settled on the ones that were the easiest to make, thank goodness, and I got them all done in one weekend.
Everyone say Hi to our neighbor, the fairy.
My original plan was to make a Cat Bus hoodie for my costume, but the girls told me I needed to be in the theme, so I changed my mind to octopus. I used 2 yards of fleece fabric (because it’s OHIO and it’s cold on Halloween every year) and draped it over my mannequin to make the pattern. There was no measuring, just guessing, because that is what knit fabric is for.
Notice I am not the only crazy person in this family.
I used jewelry wire to hold the non-sleeve tentacles in shape, and hot glued minkie fleece to the underside of the tentacles for suction cups.
Then we made a giant sand castle out of cardboard boxes and sprayed it with glitter glue. And put the whole thing in front of a fabric ocean scene hanging from the gate of our trunk. And for the whole event I played Octopus’s Garden by the Beatles on the van’s speakers. Can’t you tell everyone loved it?
Oh yeah. I never got a picture of it, but Rob wore a golden crown and carried a trident I made out of a hiking stick. And we passed out Swedish Fish.
I may have gone a bit overboard.
I think the answer might be yes. I never thought it could be true before, but I think it must be so. Â It all started when one of the Girl Scout moms in our area joked that I was crazy for taking on a second troop and I admitted it was because I wanted to be sure that Elise’s troop would get to do all the same stuff that Olivia’s troop is doing. That was my first hint.
Then this morning as I was wallowing in the depths of my lack-of-control, also known as parenting Elise when she is in a bad mood, first I cried and got some emotional encouragement from some school friends. Then I went to Panera, bought myself a bagel I didn’t need and spent the morning checking things off my “to-do at the computer” list. I felt like a million bucks. I even managed to fit in a trip to Staples to replace our printer toner so I could do more to-dos tomorrow. Then I wrote this Facebook Status: “Note to self: when having a bad day, spend an hour controlling the things you can control. Then you will feel better about the stuff you can’t control.”
One of the comments to that post was, “Thanks for the reminder! love, a fellow control-freak.” And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I am a control freak. I know how it needs to be done, an I’m just going to get out there and do it so move over already.
Sorry, Rob. I’m a pain in the rear to do home improvement projects with, and now I know it’s me, not you. Sorry, kids. You guys are sweet and lovely, and I’m sorry I don’t let you help me with things as much as I should because I just want it to be done right, not done slowly with mistakes and learning. Sorry, all the people. I am really trying to learn how to keep my mouth shut and know that someone else’s way is different, but it’s probably just as good as mine.
Is there such a thing as a humble control freak???