Halloween is a mere two days away, and like the negligent mother I am, I waited until today to figure out what to do about Saya's costume. While I was at it, I scheduled her 12-month pediatrician's visit. You know, since she's 15 months old.
Please do not judge me, for I am a fragile being.
I thought I had at least until tomorrow (the 30th) to figure something out. But because Halloween falls on a Saturday, Saya's daycare is celebrating a day early. And so on Tuesday I received the happy news that not only was I supposed to have Saya wear a costume tomorrow, but I was to also bring a treat to share with the class, and attend their Halloween parade. The only silver lining to this cloudy news is that the treats must be store-bought, since homemade goods aren't allowed on the facilities.
I originally had high hopes for a Halloween costume. Last year, I actually planned ahead and figured out
Saya's lobster costume. This year, I had lofty ambitions of making a
California roll costume for Saya. But alas, I ran out of time, and my poor mom spent her visit cleaning our disgusting house, rather than making a Halloween costume for Saya (or, like, relaxing). I also had to seriously re-consider the Halloween costume when I read that it involved "hand-whittling" foam into giant, individual grains of rice. Hand-whittling, my a**.
It was sad giving up the California roll dream. I feel like I have to represent my Asian heritage out here...and it's a losing battle. When my mom visited, she accused me of "not being a real Asian" because I didn't have shoyu in my kitchen.
In addition to Asian guilt, I have horrible costume guilt. Growing up, Halloween was a huge deal for me and my sister. We started planning our costumes well in advance, and my mom diligently sewed elaborate, amazing creations for us. Now I'm cursed because I somehow feel I'm short-changing Saya if I don't do the same. I'll file this issue in the thick "Ashlyn's Mommy Hangups" folder.
Today, Saya's daycare called me at work and told me that Saya had "two episodes of diarrhea" and needed to be picked up (this is a state regulatory requirement). When I arrived, the daycare people were like "oh yeah, I think it's because we had spicy tacos for lunch and Saya went to TOWN on them."
I decided Saya wasn't really sick. I mean, we all know what happens when we eat too many spicy tacos. Now was as good a time as any to figure out her costume.
I took Saya to the Bloomington "mall". I use the word mall in quotes because it may not qualify as an actual mall for you city folk.
I was focused. My goal was to find something (1) semi-homemade looking, (2) not cheap-looking, (3) not too cheesy, and (4) unique.
I have one word to describe this quest: FAIL.
I went to Target. Nothing.
I checked two kid's clothing stores and Old Navy. Nothing.
I went to the Halloween costume store. Nothing except those sad "princess in a bag" type costumes. And a disturbing looking infant version of the "lusty wench" costume.
Finally, I went to Claire's. You know, the store with all the tacky-looking tween accessories? They had a few costumes. And I found the least obnoxious Halloween costume there, which was still incredibly obnoxious (just less so than the other things I'd seen). It was a kid's sparkly butterfly costume. They had it in purple, blue, and pink. I decided blue was the least obnoxious, so I picked out a pair of sparkly wings and a skirt.
Unfortunately, they were out of the matching leotard and tights, and also ran out of the antenna headbands. So I bought a plain blue headband, and a blue bracelet with big round beads. I figured I could use the beads to make antenna bulbs, and get some pipe cleaners to make antennae to attach to the headband.
I went back to Target. At this point, Saya was getting annoyed, so she started chewing up a bunch of pretzels into a mushy paste, and then squelching them repeatedly through her teeth until they covered her shirt. Awesome.
I found a pair of black velvet pants and a little black top for Saya to wear as the butterfly body. I couldn't find pipe cleaners, but I found some blue party twizzle stick straws that could work as antennae.
Saya started hitting the wall. By the time we left Target, she was screaming bloody murder and I carried her while pushing the stroller all the way back to the car. My nerves were pretty shot after two hours.
I was so relieved to get home. I unpacked the car and started showing Kris everything I'd gotten. I reached in the bags, and...wait, where were the butterfly wings?
Oh &#*$&. Kris checked the car. The butterfly wings were nowhere to be found. They probably fell out at some point during my endless mall walking.
At this point, a casual observer might have thought that someone residing in the house (me) had Tourette's syndrome. I had what we might refer to as a "Tourette's moment."
Kris told me not to worry and that we could buy some more blue wings tomorrow. I told him he didn't know what he was talking about, and that the costumes were already completely picked over.
Ten minutes later, I was back at Claire's. After explaining what happened to the overworked salespeople, they sadly informed me that they'd sold the last pair of blue butterfly wings a mere five minutes earlier.
So...I did what any reasonable (psychotic, guilt-ridden, emotionally unstable) mother would do.
I re-purchased the entire costume in pink.
I got home. At this point I felt like I won some mommy martyr points and was feeling confident gain. So what if I'm not Martha Stewart and don't hand-stitch my kid's costume? What-ev. I was going to embrace my inner
Sandra Lee and make it semi homemade. And just like Sandra Lee, I was going to be oblivious to the obvious poor taste and tackiness with which I executed my vision.
I busted out my mini hot glue gun, the new pink headband, and the new pink bracelet. I cut the bracelet to use its beads, glued the beads to the tops of the pink twizzle straws, and then glued and fastened them to the headband with pink ribbon.
And here you have it, folks. Proof of the butterfly effect: the flapping of a small butterfly's wings (or the non-flapping of non-existent blue butterfly wings) can produce...a storm of semi-homemade crap. It's CHAOS THEORY, B*TCHES.
