When Mommy Has Homework

And of course Mommy waits for the last possible minute because I am busy saving lives, one set of lungs at a time, for a gazillion hours a week. And if there is one thing I have learned, it is that this program I am in is definitely not for the faint of heart. As in a paper due every two days. Really, y'all, I'm not kidding. In APA format, please. Usually I manage to spit them out like crazy since I am the master of the last minute paper. When John was in school, this enabled me to be his enabler. He would wait until the last minute and I would feel bad for him and crank out a paper for him in addition to my 24 credit hours' worth of classes. And he would always get A's on my papers, and thus the bad behavior on his part was reinforced.

But these are my papers and no one is going to rescue me like I did John. And I most decidedly waited until the last minute this time. I had until 11:59 PM Colorado time to complete the paper, and I submitted it at 11:43. Well, the paper and the 2 ads I had to design for some unknown telecommunications company in North Carolina. Ask me what I know about telecomm and I will tell you I can log my ass onto the internet and hit "talk" on the cordless phone. Seriously. And I had to market a telecomm company that manages the telecomm expenses of multi-location national companies. Seriously. It is like a sick joke. And so I had to come up with this marketing plan.

Excuse me, what? A marketing plan? WTF is that?

And so I was perched at the kitchen table for hours, looking haggard in an old pair of scrubs and some reading glasses, main-lining coffee and muttering expletives under my breath in the hope that Evan, who was awake and in the adjacent room, would not hear me. And he kept coming into the room to show me something or other, or tell me some random fact he learned in school a week ago that just came to his 9-year-old brain. And I am trying to be Good Mom and act interested. I sincerely hope the "MMMM-Hmmmmm"s I kept offering up sounded like they came from the heart. I really do. But what I really wanted to say was, "Evan, Mommy has this insanely difficult farking marketing plan to write. Do you know what a marketing plan is????" But I didn't because I love him and cannot afford the extra therapy. But I must have had APA on the brain because one of the random facts he spewed in my direction was, "Mom, palm oil is killing the rainforests!" Or some shit like that. And I responded with, "That's interesting, Evan, can you cite your sources on that information?" To which John busted out laughing, asking me if I really asked that of our 9-year-old kid. And--surprise, surprise--my little smartass came back in the room and thrust his Time for Kids issue at me, exclaiming, "Here's my source, Mother." Ugh. What was supposed to happen was Evan was supposed to be stumped and try to figure out what in the hell I was asking of him. It was supposed to buy more silence, less interruptions, and at least get me through the SWOT analysis of the paper. This is what one gets when they raise a smart kid. Because then not only was he back at the kitchen table with me, but he had the magazine and he actually wanted me to read the oh-so-interesting article of how palm oil is going to kill off all of the rainforests. Seriously. So when I looked at him and said, "Yes, Evan, but how is TeleSource going to reach a bigger market segment to compete for a bigger piece of the telecommunication dollars pie???", his eyes glazed over and he finally left me alone.

And now I realized I never got a goodnight hug. But the damned paper was in on time.

This is what I get when I say I want it all. I get just that. And something or someone always suffers just a bit.

Another First

Because we are terribly healthy individuals and insist on passing our habits down to our kids, I present to you:

Zach's first McDonald's french fry.

Tough Love

We've been telling him. We've told him time and time again. We meant business, and apparently he thought we were just playin'.

"Evan, if you do not clean that room, we are going to throw away anything that isn't put away."

Of course I realize that as Evan gets older, his room becomes less and less our territory and more and more his personal space. And if you talk to some parents, they will tell you to pick your battles, meaning to pick another one and just shut the damned bedroom door.

Yeah, okay.

The child of the person who said that doesn't have a room like Ev's. I call Evan's Tornado Chic. But really, it was worse than that. I imagine it may have looked comparable if a tornado, earthquake, and meteor strike all occurred simultaneously with Armageddon. It was seriously that bad.

Broken crayons, naked of their paper wrappings, which were also all over the floor. Teensy tiny Legos. Hot Wheels sans wheels. All. Over. The Floor. Books with pages ripped out mingling with empty fruit snack wrappers in cahoots with the Diet Dew cans he apparently sneaks to his room once we go to bed at night ( I'm having flashbacks of the "NO SOFT DRINKS, EVAN!" rule).... About half of my plastic drinking tumblers and cereal bowls. And his dresser drawers and closet were completely empty because the clean clothes were...All. Over. The floor. Sheets stripped off of bed.

But the clincher? The nasty dysfunction had incubated and managed to creep and crawl out of his room and all over the basement floor. And boxes of stuff from the basement--old papers, old books, old clothes that have been packed in boxes with the word "DONATE" on the side--torn open and scattered all over the basement floor. Because the kid couldn't possibly have enough stuff. Heaven forbid I donate some of his outgrown clothes to charity so they can go to a kid who has nothing.

And so he thought I was playin'.

I wasn't.

I put on my Mean Mom face and armed with a fat roll of black heavy-duty garbage bags, I headed down the stairs to his room. I put Zach in his Pack'n'Play down there and spent the entire day sitting on my butt, using a broom to pull piles of crap to me, sorting through piles of crap, and throwing crap away. Of course John was with me in all of this. And Evan casually wandered from the living room and the Disney Channel to the basement where we were doing all of this, and back again. He never protested. He never said a word about what we were doing, as a matter of fact.

All in all, we filled 20 garbage bags with junk. Enough that we have to call the trash people in the morning and arrange for a special pick up. And some of the stuff was our stuff. CD's that had been dug up and left on the concrete floor, grating against it until they were useless. Books torn up. You get the picture.

We worked until our bodies ached. Then until it was too dark out to see into every nook and cranny of the basement, and then we stopped. We headed upstairs. We all bathed and ate dinner. Watched a little tv. And then? Then it was quiet time-the time when you don't necessarily have to be in bed, but you do have to be in your room and doing something quiet because we are trying to get Zach to sleep and unwind from our day. It's the time Evan usually plays with his Legos or train tracks or Hot Wheels.

And that is when it sank in. He came upstairs with his beautiful face streaked with tears and thrust his hands at me. His hands that held 5 Hot Wheels.

"This is all I have left!" he cried.

And we had to say, "We told you so, Evan." And I stayed firm, though this is normally when I would crumple and admit that I didn't really throw his toys away and that he can get them all back if he just keeps his room reasonably clean for a week or so. I couldn't say that this time. This time was no bluff. (Mind you, that is not all he has left in total, but all of the Hot Wheels where there used to be a huge storage bin full of them. He has other toys still, though. If it was put away, it stayed.)

And he went downstairs to play quietly with the remaining five.

And then I cried.

Because it gets to me, too.

It gets to me that he is hurt. I wish he would have taken us seriously. I hate to see him cry. I wish it wouldn't have come to this.

The waste gets to me. If I would have had ample amounts of time to do this, I could have at least given those toys to charity. If you don't have boys Evan's age, then you probably have no idea, but those Lego sets alone that he plays with are about $100 a piece. We probably threw out about $2-3K in toys today. Somewhere there is a little boy who doesn't even have 5 Hot Wheels and would have given anything to have what Evan treated as garbage. But alas, I didn't have the time. And so they are in the trash.

The sentimentality gets to me. Among the things he destroyed? A children's Bible my mother had given me and I subsequently passed down to Evan. Books. Oh, the books. For each gift-giving occasion--birthdays, Easter, Christmas...--I have given Evan a hardback keepsake version of a story that has special meaning, and have written pertinent inscriptions in the covers under the dust jackets. Guess How Much I Love You for his first birthday. The Polar Express when he really started to believe in Santa. On and on for 9 years of his life.The plan was that he would have them for years. That he would have them if there ever came a day when he no longer had me.Nope. But the one that rips my guts out? I tried to start the same tradition with Ben. And for Ben's first birthday, and incidentally the only birthday of his where he was with me, there was The Giving Tree. And some simple words inside: "Happy First Birthday, Benjamin. May you always find shade under my branches. Love Mommy." I trusted Evan with it, and now it is garbage. And then the bear. The stuffed bear we made when Evan was 2 at Build-A-Bear Workshop. I had jut graduated and made my first paychck with a number in the "net pay" column that required a comma. For the first time in my life. And we went out to celebrate. And we made that bear together. It's 7 years old. And he tore it to smithereens.

So there is that, and then there is the horrid, ugly hurt. I've told the stories on here, so I don't need to go into a lot of detail, but I didn't always make the money I make now. And even now, the money I make, though decent, isn't so much when you count it is the only income for a family of 4. But the thing is that even when we were dirt poor, when we didn't have money for medicines one of us needed or new glasses when mine broke, Evan never knew it because I have always made sure he gets not only what he needs, but the majority of what he wants as well. I don't keep a running tab of all of the times I have really, truly needed something and have done without in order to get Evan the latest toy he wanted. Even in the leanest of times where an extra trip in the car would mean not enough gas to get to class, or a trip through the drive-thru would mean not enough grocery money for the week. Evan never ever ever knew it. He never felt it. Because I thought it was my job as his mother to ensure that he never did. And then, as he got older and his toys more expensive and our way of life more expensive, I would work so many hours of overtime that I would run myslef into the ground. Just so Evan got what he wanted. Those toys I threw away were not just toys. They were my sacrifices. My good intentions. My overtime hours and lack of sleep. And he didn't appreciate any of it enough.

I hope, now that we've stuck to our guns, that he will know from now on that we are serious. I hope we never have to do this again.

Of course, before you think I am completely cruel, I should explain that this is all coming on the heels of a pretty rough patch for Evan: misbehavior at home and at school, rude to John and I, throwing tantrums. I have devised a plan for Evan to get more toys. For each day he brings home no behavior notices from school, does his homework without a fuss, and keeps the remaining toys he has picked up and his room clean, I have agreed to give him $10 toward his "new toy fund". We plan on doing this for one month, giving him the opportumity to earn up to $300 to use on nothing but toys. It isn't a lot, but he needs to be appreciative and earn the replacements for what I have just handed him before. I am not including in this gifts I would normally buy him or things I deem a requirement. Example: a bike is not a luxury in this house. It is a means to get him outside and more active and is thus good for him. Books are not luxuries, but rather the more time he spends reading, the sharper his reading skills. Art supplies spark creativity. Those things don't come from the $300, but rather from me.

Let's all hope this works...

Mom Extraordinairre

It seems like my days off are few and far between, but I've noticed I spend 100% of my time off being Mom Extraordinaire. Bathing Zach and splashing with him in the tub. Down on the floor, helping him reach his milestones. Interacting with Evan and helping him do whatever Evan does.



I can offer this up as evidence: I am currently baking cupcakes. Fricken cupcakes. I don't even recognize myself anymore.



I'm so far from perfect the Perfect exists on an entirely different planet from the one on which I live. And I have been giving this a lot of thought lately. We don't do soccer games and PTA meetings bcause John has no interest and I just don't have the time. I'm a member of the school's HSO, but don't do a lot of participating because of scheduling conflicts. We don't go to church. It just seems that my precious time off shoud be spent here at home, not making myself insane with shuttling Evan everywhere under the sun. And it works out perfectly because Evan has no interest in anything. Until now.



Evan's school is starting up baseball for the elementary kids and Evan wants to sign up. On one hand I want to encourage him to not be a fat couch potato and get out there and go for it. He spends large amounts of time reading books, playing on the computer, and he watches more tv than I can tolerate. The activity will be good for him. But I also have several misgivings about it. Will I have time? Which makes me feel like the worst parent of all time because I should somehow find time. Will he be good at it? Which makes me feel even worse because the point is to have fun, not foster the talents of the next baseball great. And most of all, will Evan do it? Because Evan, when not interested, has no attention span. I can see him in the dugout waiting for his turn at bat. I can picture him picking grass or watching for planes in the outfield. And with this in mind, I wish football was an option for the young kids here. Baseball just requires too much attention.



And then there's the other aspect of it. I have to go and be social with other moms. Gasp! Because in my eyes, I am Mom Extaordinairre. I do the best I can for my offspring, and they are both happy and healthy. This has to have something to do with me, right? But then I go to a function with stay-at-home moms and I realize that while I am patting myself on the back that my kids are clean, fed, and smiling, I really am inferior because the other moms manage all of that while managing 4000 sporting events and recitals a month while simultaneously baking 100 dozen cupcakes without the box and managing to have perfect hair, nails, and makeup. All with a baby on their hip and a toddler tugging at their pants leg, no doubt. And so I start to think to myself, "Self, you really do suck."



I hate feeling like I suck.



Of course I am thinking all of these things when my little free issue of Baby Talk magazine comes in the mail today, complete with an article on how moms lie. Seriously? They lie about perfect marriages and genius children. The article says they mostly do it to avoid criticism and unsolicited advice. I think they do it to keep up appearances. I'd like to find the one who started it all. The perfect Suzie Homemaker with her perfect appearance who lied about how perfect her life is and how she rocks at being a mom, which made her circle of mom friends feel inferior and precipitated their lies, which led to their friends feeling like they had to lie, and so on. I want to find her and wring her neck. Parenthood is tough business, and instead of being a competition, it should be a sisterhood. Your kiddo doesn't sleep through the night yet? Well, even though mine does, I think he is an anomaly, and instead of me gloating to you, let me instead offer words of encouragement and offer up any service I have to offer that can make your sleep-deprived life a little easier. Your kid hasn't reached a certain milestone yet? Well, instead of bragging to you how my 6-month-old is on the verge of curing cancer, let me focus on the adorable and amazing things your baby is doing.

And while I'm on the topic, I think the socially acceptable thing to do when interacting with other busy moms is to wear the appropriate Mom uniform: sweatshirt (with or without the stains), jeans, and gym shoes. If you have time to be flawless, I don't want to know about it, after all. It's not that motherhood means you have to let yourself go. It just means you should not try to out-do the rest of us. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the rest of the motherhood world goes around in 4-inch Manolos and head-to-toe Prada, and I am infact the abnormal one who doesn't have the time for such crap. I doubt it, though. I think I'm on to something with this competition thing, because I know some pretty extraordinary moms out there who do extraordinary things. They shape young minds as teachers. They keep us safe as police officers. They serve our country in the military. And on their off time, they rock the Mom uniform along with me.

I guess I'll let Evan do the baseball thing. And in my own mind, I'll continue to be Mom Extraordinairre. And I'll try to not feel inferior. And if the competition gets too stiff for me, I can trump the perfect coifs and delicious from-scratch cupcakes and stories of childhood ingenuity with some stories of my own: last night, while they got their beauty sleep, I kept about 10 people breathing who wouldn't otherwise be doing so and was actively involved in the resuscitation of about a half a dozen more. So excuse my stained sweatshirt and faded jeans and lack of baked goods. I was just a little too tired to give a shit. Now let's watch my kid score a winning run.

How Evan was Maimed

So a couple of days ago, Evan was being Evan. He was throwing a tantrum over homework. Silly homework that would've taken him all of 5 minutes to complete. And he threw a stack of dvd's in the midst of it. I threw them back, telling him to put them away. And one hit the edge of the entertainment center and bounced and hit his left cheek. I felt horrible and cried more than he did, I think.
As if that wasn't bad enough...
John had gone out to warm up the car for our trip out to run some errands, and Evan followed him. I heard John tell him not to run, since there are still patches of snow and ice in random spots on our driveway. The next thing I know, John is bringing Ev's DS in, saying it's over. What's over? The DS, apparently. I'm thinking Evan did or said somethig horrible and John meant he was confiscating it for good. In hindsight, I should've known better: Evan was still supposed to be grounded from it anyway, so how he had it in the first place is beyond me. But nope, John meant it's gone. Broken. He had it all of 6 weeks. But that isn't the worst.
Evan was running when he dropped the DS on the concrete. And he slid on ice. And went down. Hard. Bringing the casualty count up to one DS, one coat, one complete school uniform. I was pretty upset. If he would've been listening in the first place, none of it would have happened.
So I go to work and come home. And then I see it: Ev's little elbow and knee are banged up so badly from his fall that I don't know how it is that he managed to not cry to alert us that he was hurt. I mean, he's not a toddler and is fully able to verbalize this to us! And me! How could I fail to check him out thoroughly after the fall???
Plus, where the dvd hit his face, he had a fricken shiner. Seriously. Poor kid.
So the black eye, the road rash on his knee and elbow, the bruise under the road rash where his bone hit the ground, the broken DS...Poor Evan. I won't say "I told you so".
In the meantime, he's going to school in the morning and other people are going to see this. I swear, people, we don't beat our kid. Though it is quite possible that we should. Just Kidding. I think.

Yeah, Whatevs, We Didn't Make It

I don't even think I mentioned this but...

A little over a month ago,I got seriously frustrated with my fam. Now before I make it sound like John is my bitch, let me explain that I work very, very long hours while John is home. I also make concessions because I am pretty OCD about the house and Martha-Fricken-Stewart could not keep a house to my specifications. So while I have all of the faith in the world in my husband, I know he can't keep me happy on that front. But seriously.

There was one day where I came home from work and Evan's dirty boxers were on the windowsill in the bathroom. And I was beyond grossed out. And so I talked to John about it. And Evan, because, face it, Ev is old enough to know where his dirty skivvies go. And I thought they got it. And then I came home the next week to garbage all on the floor around the garbage can, but not actually in it. And when I confronted my beloved boys yet again, the response was just that it was so difficult to keep up with Zach and clean at the same time. He almost had me feeling kind of bad for him. Almost.

Then I started to think of the Ergo carrier I bought for that purpose, because John refused to try the MobyWrap. And then I thought of how Zach has to be the easiest baby on the planet. During the day, he needs not much more than a few diaper changes and a few bottles. And at night when I'm at work? Pffft! Zach goes to bed no later than 8 PM and doesn't wake until I come home in the morning.

And then something clicked in my brain. And I realized that while John and Evan couldn't possibly clean because Zach kept them too busy, they sure had enough time to be able to report to me anything and everything that had happened on television that night. So-and-so beat You-know-who on WWE Raw. Snooki's pouf was exceptionally big that night. MerDer had the sweetest moment on Greys. And Guess who's hubster was sleeping with what's-her-name's on Desperate Housewives. But the garbage was on the floor around my garbage can.

And I swear, I cannot believe I didn't catch on sooner. I mean, really? And so I thought deeply on the matter. Okay, not really "deeply". I thought for about 15 minutes. And then I cancelled out cable. Ha! Hahahahaha! Read some books, you brats! Take that!

Only it kinda sucked. And it didn't work. Instead of being more productive, they would just drop me off at work and then go and rent stacks upon stacks of movies. Evan's homework still suffered. The house was still a mess. The only difference was that I couldn't watch anything either. Me! I did what my mom always told me not to do: "Andi, don't cut off your nose to spite your face!" Well after that, my face had no nose.

So yesterday, the cable man came back, in the snow, to hook the cable back up. We are sad. We are pitiful. We cannot live without the television.

Bathtub as a Think Tank

Okay so I decided, in the middle of the night, to take a hot bath. I lit scented candles and took my book in there. I got a hot cup of coffee. And I soaked. The last time I did this, I was doing so in an attempt to get raging contractions under control, and did so with heart palpitations from Brethine and a near-coma from pain meds. It's been too long. Honestly, what provoked me tonight was Boobs from Hell, but I talked about that in my previous post. I actually managed to lay on my belly in the tub and read while my hair soaked in conditioner and my boobs actually felt pain-free from the warm water. Ahhhhh.
And then I started thinking.
I hate when I do that.
I thought about how my hair is about 5 or 6 inches from being down to my waist and I really think it is time for the Mommy Cut. If you don't have kids or this is your first one, not all moms do this, but I will go out on a limb to say that most women who have babies end up cutting their hair off at some point in that baby's first year. It could be hormones. It could be provoked from a lifestyle change. It could even simply be to keep small fists from grabbing hold and yanking. But I call it the Mommy Cut. I think I need to do it. My hair is always in a bun anyway. But to do so would mean I have to find the time, and it seems the only time I have is in the middle of the night. If there were a salon open at that hour, I don't think I would trust them. Seriously.

I thought about how the book I was reading could possibly have been lowering my IQ as I read. Okay, I mean no offense by this. But. On my monthly trip to Half-Price Books (love the place and leave there each and every month with a stack of books to read for about $20 to $30) I decided that I was going to tackle the Sookie Stackhouse series from Charlaine Harris. I know plenty of people who read her and actually were fiending for the latest book when it was released. There had to be some merit to that and so I bit (haha, no pun intended). And they are very entertaining and distract me, which is sometimes what I want in a book. And sometimes not. Sometimes I want what I am reading to provoke thought or teach me something, whether about myself or some topic of which I had no prior knowledge. This book was not one of those. But it was entertaining enough for me to continue with the series.

Then I thought of the grammatical errors I found in the book and was peeved. Seriously, where was the editor???? I don't have perfect grammar, and I even intentionally use incorrect grammar on this blog (Helloooooo, incomplete sentences!), but I am not editing a bestseller to be mass-produced! C'mon, now.

I thought that I should send a card to my doctor who was involved in the code the other night at work. I heard that the woman's death hit him very hard. I credit him (and the rest of the practice) with Zach's presence here, and maybe it will make him feel a bit better to have that reminder of the good work he does. But I know I probably won't do it.

And I kind of felt guilty. Guilty for soaking in a tub? I guess with me working so many hours, I feel like I should spend my off time doing something more productive for the family. I don't know what. Organize Zach's Onesies and baby socks? Sanitize all of Evan's toys while he sleeps? To just soak in a baked-goods-scented bathroom while reading my mindless entertainment just seemed too self-indulgent, which made me think how we mothers are a self-denying bunch at times. I know women who have felt guilty over allowing their brastfed baby to have an extra bottle so they could get a mere 15 minutes of sleep. Who fret over sending their children to daycare so they can have some sort of life for themselves. Who worry that they may not have given their children the best start because they had to have an epidural during delivery for medical reasons. I am not above this, as I have been feeling down on myself for the number of hours I work. I do so, of course, for the financial well-being of my family. I know I am doing a good job, as evidenced by the fact that Evan is getting everything he wants for Christmas. By the fact that Zach, who doesn't even come close to walking, has a shelf full of designer shoes. That John didn't get a tie or watch for Christmas, his birthday, or our anniversary, but rather a $18K motorcycle.

And with that thought, the guilt I felt for the soak in a tub in the middle of the night and for the hours I work just ran down the drain with the bath water.

Succumbing to the Pressure

I did something comletely against my religion--if I really had a religion, that is.
Lemme explain!

Every year, I have made Ev a killer Halloween costume. It all started when he was a year old. There was a costume contest, and Ev was dressed in a store-bought costume as a little lion. Not original, I know. But so, so cute because he even learned to roar. And he was little--about the size Zach is now because Evan was such a scrawny baby. So for what we were lacking in originality, we made up for in cuteness. He got zilch! And I took it as a personal attack and vowed never again!

The following year, when Evan was just 2, it became my mission in life to win that stupid contest. What made it especially difficult was that everybody competed against each other for the big prizes-all ages, all costume types....And I had never so much as sewn a button on a shirt before. But, damnit, I was going to find a way to make THE costume to rule them all. And so I bought fabric, buttons, hair dye, face paint, and tights.

And I made Evan into the cutest Oompa Loompa ever. Strangers were asking to take his picture. I did so well And when it came time for the contest and John walked Evan up onto the stage, you could hear everyone saying, "Look at that little boy!" And when it came time to announce the winners, Evan didn't win a thing for his age group. But he did win for the entire thing, beating out other babies,bigger kids, teens and adults. The seed was planted, and I have been making his costumes ever since. We've done french fries, a dinosaur, a bus driver (complete with the bus), and more. And with each passing year, as Evan gets older, it gets more and more difficult to do this because his tastes and interests change. This year? He wanted to be a pilot. Have you ever tried to find pilot-looking clothes for a 9-year-old boy? So it was a no-go. And then we found ourselves beyond the Gates of Hell this week (see next post) and it never dawned on me that Halloween is just days away. And Evan doesn't have a costume. Gasp! At this point my Mommy License is in serious jeopardy of revocation. But I just figure I'll come up with something.

So tonight, we're at the grocery store, of all places, and Ev finds a rack of cheap Halloween costumes. Including an Ironman one. Oh, the horror! Other than the Oompa Loompa, I have this thing about characters. (Technically, the Oompa Loompa was first a literary character and thus exempt from this.) No characters. I just can't do it. My children have received shirts with characters on them as gifts, and I hate it. I have no idea where this came from with me. A perfect example is the shirt Evan got as a gift from John's sister when the movie Cars was all the rage. And it had Lightening McQueen on it. And I really would have been happier if I could toss it into the bin of clothes to be donated, but Evan insisted on wearing it, and I secretly longed for the day when he would outgrow it. I just find it too commercial, too unoriginal, too cheesy. So we steer away in every way, including clothes, toys, and even Halloween costumes.

So back to the grocery store: Evan wants the Ironman costume, and I want to die. I'm trying to come up with arguments to counteract his. But he has some pretty damned good rationalizations as to why he needs this costume. These arguments include my role as Bad Mommy, that he still doesn't have a costume 2 days before Halloween,and there is no way, at this point, that I can make one. That it is the only one in his size. That it isn't tacky, cheesy plastic, but rather good quality. That it is on sale because no other respectable mom waits until 2 days before Halloween like we did. Ahhhhh, the drawbacks of having a smart kid--he could rival the most hardcore, cutthroat attorney out there!

I bought him the damned costume. It kills me. Trick-or-Treat this year is going to be a traumatic experience for me this year, because everywhere I turn, I will see a kid dressed exactly like mine. I imagine myself losing Evan in a sea of other Ironmans on the street. But on the bright side, this is a learning experince for me: never, ever wait until the last minute!