What tests my motherhood mojo
I’m pretty good with spilled milk. I can knit through tantrums like I’m a knitting buddha. I have been known to steam a carrot. Certain parenting challenges, I’m up for. There are ones, however, that are like personal Sloughs of Despond, with Rodents Of Unusual Size thrown in. Halloween costumes are one.
I liked to dress up as a child. If my mother had let me, I’d have worn my sunbonnet to school (I had no social skills and a passionate attachment to Laura Ingalls Wilder). I traipsed about in long dresses, ballet shoes and crowns. I longed for hooded capes and opera gloves (I still do). My children? They think dressing up is a form of torture. Daniel has set the pace on this, but Helena also feels worried when she’s faced with a costume. I sense it’s something about their sense of identity, of being subsumed into the imaginary character. Even now, if Daniel has a magnifying glass, you can’t call him Sherlock Holmes, you have to say, Oh look! Here is Daniel with a magnifying glass. He looks a little like that great detective, Sherlock Holmes. He is going to be Calvin for Halloween. You know Calvin.
That’s him. Today he had on his wig and t-shirt to see if they worked and Ed said, “Oh look! It’s Calvin!” Daniel howled. Quickly, we said “Oh look, it’s Daniel in his Calvin costume!” and all was well. This is huge progress for Daniel.
Helena has spent all month wanting to be Winnie the Witch. This is Winnie the Witch.
I pulled out the stops, found orange and yellow tights and made a Winnie dress — and you know how much free time I have. Then today Helena decided (just as the dress came off the sewing machine) she cannot POSSIBLY be Winnie lest people think she really is a witch and that would be scary and she’s being four but she’s also really worried and was half-crying and so naturally I will not force her.
Naturally. Naturally, dammit. I will however, sulk. And grump. And moan. And stomp about. And snap. And refuse to cut out pictures of turkeys. It may be an understandable reaction but it is not good mothering. At all. It takes what was (no matter what the outcome) a loving gesture and turns it into a piece of emotional blackmail. I feel bad about that too (although the saucepan full of mulled wine is helping). Basically, I don’t, on an instinctive level, get what worries them about dressing up. I see that it worries them. I respect that it worries them. I just don’t empathise which means that my gut-level reaction is one of confused irritation. It also means that I cheerfully fling myself into producing constumes that the children say they want but don’t really want but that I forget they don’t really want because hey! dressing up is fun! I’m like that crazed soccer coaching Dad who loves the sport so much he can’t see that his daughter really wants to play the cello instead.
Still, I’m getting over it. And Helena has helped because she agreed to let me take her photo, as long as Daddy and Daniel didn’t see her in the dress. And she thinks she might be a ballerina which will be easy as pie since we have a little ballerina dress somewhere. Next year I think I’m going to make myself a costume and let the children fend for themselves. But in a cheerful way.
But come on. Tell me this dress didn’t rock the coven.
Funny you should mention the Laura thing. The exact thing happened at our house. My daughter decided to be Laura. Got the bloomers, the dress and the top apron done, and voila…now she wants to be a fairy. Her dad said no…mom said hon…her Halloween we’ve already got the stuff…so goodbye Laura and hello whatever name she is fairy girl.
I felt like weeping, I am not a seamstress by any stretch of the means and it took along time for the dress.
Maybe she will wear it for dress up, just maybe.
Have fun storming the castle!
I feel bad. I handmade Aladdin and Jasmine costumes for Hannah and Zach when they were 2 and 4 (their request), and when I was finished, Hannah pronounced hers “scratchy” and refused to wear it. I put a cotton tank on her (under it) and she still wouldn’t wear it. Tears and protestations of hatred for that thing I’d just slaved over followed. Well, I made her wear it. Once she was out the door, she forgot all about scratchy… as far as I know.
It is a gorgeous dress – you are so talented!
We’ve put up pumpkins by our front door, and now Ellie is too scared of the ‘monsters’ to go in or out of it without being carried…. Oh who invented Hallowe’en!
it IS a superb costume – you definitely rock. but rather than go through all this angst every year, why not move to england, where halloween (sp?) is so minimal, i’m not even sure how to spell it? think of me, putting my feet up instead of getting in a lather over my total lack of creativity and sewing skills … it’s almost wicked!
mmmmm…
you just made me think
of the worst halloween night
ever in the gkgirl residence.
i just might have to blog
about it later
heehee.
and the costume is adorable!
as is the wearer.
Oh, I feel your pain! Just finished the boy’s costume (he had been making noises about being a different character for Halloween, which was making me sweat with panic.)
Anyway, he tried it on and loved it so much that he wore it all afternoon. But if he hadn’t liked it, I would have been a cauldron of seething resentment.
Helena’s dress is awesome; I like her sensitivity about scaring other people who might think she is actually a witch (look at that face – AS IF!)
Another saucepan of mulled wine, garcon!
My mother convinced me that all the women in our family were actually witches and that it was our responsibility to dress as witches every single Halloween. So every single Halloween of my life, I have been a witch. (Not telling about the other days.) Costumes must have been easier that way.
We have a rule that Son comes up with what he wants to be for the final time at the last minute and we scrounge around then for what we could put together. Strangely enough, I have endless fantasies about sewing extremely elaborate ballerina costumes….
Your daughter is DEFINITELY invited to my coven meeting, um, I mean to come trick or treating at our house.
You know, once I spent a very long time sewing Aidan a batman cape (during his mad obsession with the superheroes)
When I was finally finished sewing it for him, he cried. It wasn’t good. It didn’t look EXACTLY like batman’s cape.
In his mind, while I was sewing it, I think he thought it would magically turn him into batman for real.
When it didn’t he was tortured.
I could not empathize at all. I was hurt, irritated, frustrated, and angry.
Not good mothering at all. I was trying so hard to remember to be an adult about it and not throw a tantrum myself.
I have been having a similar experience this Halloween sewing Aidan his Halloween costume.
One second he wants it green, then after I’ve already sewed it, he’s all teary because he actually wants it red.
Oh for Christ, I thought this was supposed to be a FUN thing, a bonding thing for us to make this costume together!
Agh.
I love Halloween, but I share in some frustration around the whole costume stuff (for different reasons) but the feelings are the similar I think.
She is too adorable. And, oh yes, the costume is awesome. In a way, I can totally understand their hesitation to lose themselves at these ages. It is rather confusing to wrap your mind around all that abstract identity thing. Maybe next year, huh? Lucky me, a kid that can’t talk and doesn’t know any better! I didn’t realize how good I had it.
OK, where is written that to mother properly means to never have hurt feelings? That children can reject the loving efforts of their parents without any repercussions?
Perhaps your response is a lesson for Helena in appreciation. You can respect her feelings, her passions and acknowledge her feelings. But that does not erase yours, and she should know how you feel when she rejects something you put a lot of effort into. At four, it is totally understandable when someone has costume-issues. It is something else when she is 9 and being bratty. Somewhere between then, you must teach her the difference.
Perhaps you are taking things too seriously, but to have the sunshine-mother-has-no-feelings-but-limitless-love-and-compassion is being too hard on yourself.
Look, I could tell you about the time I dressed as a witch in the 4th grade and my Mom did my face paint like Ace Frehley because she did not know the difference between KISS and witches…
We moms are not infallible. Everyone has miserable Halloween failures.
You are a much more compassionate mom than I am! I would have said Wear it, or fend for yourself! Of course, we have a whole slew of random tea party and princess dresses as last minute options, but nothing laying around is as cool the dress you made! It’s adorable.
Awesome dress. Lily Grace did something similar. I spent hours sewing (I do not sew) fluffy fur trim onto her pants for her cat costume and then she decided she wants to be a witch.
The costume looks so awesome!
You know I think it is amazing that your children have such a strong sense of self. That will be a powerful tool against peer pressure later on!
It is hard to allow our children to make their decisions. My kid is a princess! All her own doing!
So, I completely sympathize–only my daughter backed out of the witch thing on Halloween night, after the hair was teased and the face painted green and the waxy warts were on her nose. I think she ended up as a pumpkin that year in a cousin’s leftover store bought costume.
Have a great Halloween!