Happy Hallowe'en everyone. This year I fell into the Mommy Trap, i.e. how can I show that I am both funky and talented? Answer: horribly complicated monkey costume. Stacy knew I was biting off more than I could chew when we bought the fabric in September, but aside from offering last-minute help, she let me figure out how badly I screwed myself. How badly, you ask? Well, this morning, as I sewed the final touches to the monkey headpiece, my fingers were bleeding.

Yeah. 90 dollars worth of material; bleeding fingers; the equivalent to three full days of labour (yesterday this was all I did from sunup to sunset); deciding when I ran out of time to forgo the feet, the vest and the cap; uncounted hours of dreading the deadline; blinding flashes of Type-A disappointment for not producing a perfect product...and in the end, Blake kind of hates wearing it. Oh, he'll put up with it for a few minutes, but soon he cries, "take it off!" and starts ripping at the front. Good thing it's ludicrously large on him; he'll be able to wear it to his prom.

I think my favourite moment today was when he'd had enough of the monkey shortly after church. Shortly before the costume parade was to begin, he tore off the costume in a sweaty fit of rage and then stormed down the deserted aisles in his underwear. Man, was he ever happy to be tearing around church in a onesie. Later he can strike that off his list of ambitions.

I call his frenzied emergence from the costume "evolution." Heh.

Still, I can't say that it's all regrets. Despite all the wabi*, I'm a little proud of myself for kicking out such a neat little costume; I'm more proud that I didn't start losing my shit when Blake showed a profound dislike for the suit. Maybe I still have a chance in the Mommy Olympics after all.

We went visiting to Lucretia Nightshade's house in the afternoon, as she was in the final throes of her dissertation and the entire Nightshade clan had gathered to proof-read and cheer her on. Dirk & Fortuna (their mom) made much of my monkey sewing abilities, fed us homemade chowder, and generally made us feel human again after a pretty stressful week. Dirk also showered us in gifts, an accumulation that may or may not date from missed birthdays, Christmasses, Labour Days or Aleta Days. Any way you slice it, my new bat purse is the cutest thing I've ever seen: just perfect for my sock-making materials. I'm very glad we decided to go over there today; I've been in a deadly cycle of work-guilt-illness-guilt-guilt-work. It's nice to be somewhere cheerful, somewhere I'm not responsible for anyone but Blake (and away from home, Blake seems to need much less minding than he does under the protective eye of my parents. Funny thing, that.)

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 10/30/2005 07:32:00 p.m.