Be A Meany For Halloweenie :)

Halloween has always been a magical time for me. As a child, it meant dressing up and becoming my dearest heart's desire. My sister and I always had the best Halloween costumes. Whatever I wanted to be was within my grasp. Every year we’d load into the car and take the winding roaded trek to our local Sprouse Ritz.

Once there, we would comb through fabrics until we found just the right ones. Pink laces and silky satins to make the perfect princess dress, or the right color blue stretch cotton that would transform my sister into the beautiful Smurfette.

The hours my mother spent huddled over her sewing machine, turning ordinary materials into puffed sleeves and hooped skirts. It was pure magic.

This is a tradition I’ve tried very hard to pass down to my own child, but alas, no matter what, the boy seems to only want to be one thing. That one thing turns out to be anything wearing a sweatsuit.

It started out quite perfectly. At age zero, I toted him around in an adorable Superman outfit that I had created out of a sleeper set, and I fashioned a cape and superman stenciled bib over the top. It was genius and he was warmly content as I carried him around trick-or-treating (hey you have to start early).

The next year, coincidentally, Aydin wore an army sweatsuit with dog tags and went as a little soldier like his dad. That sweatsuit was the beginning and the end of my Halloween fantasies.

Finally, Aydin was old enough to decide his own Halloween costume. He wanted to be Dark Heart from the Carebear Movie, which may sound cool, but Dark Heart is really a mean kid who wears a red, you guessed it, sweatsuit. I was doomed. I then decided to jazz it up by making a big car costume to wear on top. I spent hours creating this carific masterpiece. In the end it lasted three minutes before the car was discarded and Aydin went happily on his way in his red sweats.

Aydin the little store-bought army guy

For some reason I thought I’d be smart the next time around; we broke family tradition, which slightly broke my heart, and we bought a soldier costume. This was the year he almost froze to death and trick-or treating ended with a stop at Safeway to buy candy that I snuck into his pumpkin bucket.

My sweatsuit masterpiece Knuckles

The next year I created what I think is hands down my best sweatsuit masterpiece. The boy wanted to be Knuckles from Sonic The Hedgehog, and I was stoked! This was something I could work with. Yay!

I made gloves, and cartoony hair, I stenciled and sewed to my heart's content, and the kid was happy. He loved it. However, we lived in Alaska. Trick-or-treating meant drive the car...get out...run to a house...run back to the car before you freeze...drive ten feet...and repeat. It sucked, but man, the costume rocked.

The next year, when asked what he wanted to be, he said, “A jail guy.” What is a jail guy, you may wonder..or maybe you don’t? Well, I wasn’t sure if a jail guy meant an orange jumpsuit or a police officer. Off we went to the fabric store. We came back with all the crap to make a lovely striped inmate costume. Wonderful. The materials cost me about forty-five bucks. A week later, I found an almost identical thing to the costume I had just slaved over at Walmart for $6.99. Sometimes being creative bites.

A tribute to the years of the black sweatsuit

The next three years pass in a blur for me as the "black sweatsuit years." There was the secret agent (meaning boy in black sweats), the ninja warrior (a.k.a. boy in black sweats with a vesty thing), and the sullen mean boy who looked like a burglar in black sweats and a ski mask, until the mask was too itchy, and then he was just the boy in black sweats.

Percy Jackson

Finally, the year before last, Aydin actually was gung-ho for Halloween, and I thank his love of reading whole-heartedly for it. He wanted to be nothing less than Percy Jackson, and marvelously Percy does not wear a sweat suit. Nope, Percy wears a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt, but he carries a sword. At least, I got to draw on the orange T with Sharpee and we dyed his naturally blonde locks brown. Here’s to semi-creativeness.

My little witch, I mean wizard

Last year, we were once again back in a black sweatsuit..well dammit, I'd had it!!!!! The kid was ruining my Halloween. He was twelve, perhaps my last year of trick-or-treating with my baby. What is a mom to do? Well this mom threw a hissy fit. This mom cried (I was probably premenstrual). This mom, forced her son to wear a little witch outfit and lied and told him that he looked like a cool wizard. But hey, the boy was in a costume and this mom was happy.

Now, in 2013, Aydin has decided he wants to do his own costume. He’s planning to be a very original zombie, or of course as he would tell me he is NOT a zombie, he’s a WALKER. I had better get this straight.

I was never allowed to be anything evil for Halloween. My sister was once lucky enough to go as a she-devil while I was the angel. My mom didn’t believe in wearing “Evil” costumes. She liked happy princesses and cute smurfs. My mother obviously did not have a boy. Boys want to be boys. They want swords, and Halloween isn’t really about Halloween for my boy. It’s really about getting that sword for future play. The important part of Halloween for him is the fun, and the candy.

So, I guess I have to leave my motherly fantasies of princess costumes and fairy wings. I can still dress up the cat, or myself. But hey, a thought just occurred to me. An exciting thought, a hopeful thought, a marvelous thought....I just might be lucky enough to have grandchildren one day...and one of them might be a little girl or two, complete with the desire for princess attire. One can dream.

Happy Halloween, everybody. Have a great time. Oh, and this year I'm wearing a sweatsuit....

SEX And Mens Funny Looking Parts

I was never having sex! No way, no way, not ever! Sex was loud, and sweaty, and gross. I’d seen The Blue Lagoon!

I was certain that no one I knew had sex. My Grandmother certainly never had sex. She may have bourne eight children, but no hanky panky had been involved, and my parents would never even dream of it, ewwww.

At this age I didn’t even know what sex was. I watched a PBS documentary that showed a man and woman rolling around in the sheets as it described the ins and outs (no pun intended) of creating life. The sheets were blue and that was about all I took away from the documentary. So I guessed that when you had sex you just rolled around in sheets, but they had to be blue to make a baby. Seven year old logic is always spot on.

When I got to school the next day I, of course, told my extremely interested friends all about those yucky-blue-sheeted-sex-people. They all squealed in disgust between games of horses and princess fairies. All, except one little girl Kristin who, being the proud big sister of a new baby, was sure that she knew better than me about the birds and the bees.

“The man puts his stick in the lady and then they wiggle,” she told me. “And they have to do it in the shower to make a baby.”

What was she talking about? I mean I was the one who had seen the video! I had proof on my side.

“I think you should ask my mom,” I rolled my eyes at her. “My mom is older than your mom.”

This secret sex talk became our recess ritual for quite a few weeks of second grade. Everyone had their own ideas, but none of us seemed to agree on any of it. The only thing that we were unanimously convinced of was that sex was entirely nasty and that because of this fact we were all planning to adopt babies when we grew up.

The years rolled on and games of horses turned into hours spent on the telephone. I was lucky enough to have my own mauve phone in my room, how cool was I? The sex talk became more about “Johnny is so cute and when I’m a cheerleader in highschool we’re going to dance like Janey on Jeff did in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and I was even planning to wear rolled up sweat pants just like Janey (AKA Sarah Jessica Parker).

I still had no clue whatsoever about sex until I read Flowers In The Attic by VC Andrews. This book was shocking and eye-opening and perhaps my naive twelve year old self was just too young to read it, but read it I did.

Oh My God Kristin was RIGHT! I was flabbergasted. I was shocked. I was appalled and I actually decided that I needed to ask my mom.

“Mom, how do people have sex?”

She didn't seem surprised or grossed out by my question.

I then proceeded to tell her everything. I told her about adoption and sheets and showers and Kristin and babies and Flowers In The Attic. She looked thoughtfully at me, smiled and said, “Honey, men have funny looking parts, but eventually you will learn to like them.”

And, you know what she was right.

A Tale of Two Sisters

My sister and I are so close that we finish each other’s sentences and often wonder who’s memories belong to who. We decided it might be fun if we each wrote a common topic on our blogs to see how similar (or not similar) our memories really are.  Our first topic: What a sister means to me. 

Read on!

________________

my mom and her sister with my sister and me

My mother had sisters. Close sisters. Sisters that she called on the phone constantly. Sisters that were her best-friends. At family gatherings they were always by each other’s side, baking together, each one doing her assigned task like a dance, chatting up a storm and singing. The singing was magnificent, voices rising and falling as one into perfect melody. True sisterhood and true love.

When my sister was born, I was just four days shy of turning two. Everyone told me that she was my present. She came home from the hospital on my actual birthday and we opened presents and ate cake so I knew it was true, my mom brought me a baby for my birthday. 

She was practically the same size as me from the start. There are sweet pictures of me holding my gigantic little sister and I swear her perfect round head dwarfs me. She was a beautiful baby, very round, and very blonde and they named her Shannon Renee.

Shannon loved her Johnny Jumper and I loved pushing her in it. When no one was looking I would push her just as hard as I could and scream, ”Wee baby!!!” As she flew through the air she would giggle and giggle, until she smacked into the wall, then she would cry. 

From the day she was born, I had a constant playmate. We fought like cats and dogs a lot of the time. Often accusing the other of “stealing” each others friends or my sister has a bad habbit of borrowing things “forever”, but she was always my confidant. 

When our mother died, her death brought us even closer. In a way my sister is like a mother figure to me and though I’m older I think that Shannon is the bossier of the two of us, although she just might tell you that I’m the bossy one. 

To sum my sister up isn’t easy. Shannon is the best mom in the world, the worst laundress. She breaks washing machines like a bad habit. She is remarkably talented, the person I go to for good and bad advice. She is my chauffer when I just can’t drive because I’m crazy afraid of driving, and she is my rock.

Thank God we were shown by my mom and her wonderful sisters the true meaning of sisterhood. In truth if you ask me what my sister means to me, all I really have to say is EVERYTHING! 

Me and Shannie

Click here to read my sister's version.