The Happiest of Hallowe'ens

Two posts in one day! Yay for you, my beloved readers!

F didn't want to trick-or-treat last night (he decided this on Wednesday after his Halloween party at preschool), so we decided to lay low - thank goodness! I was up before 5 am to bake a blueberry croissant puff for our office Hallowe'en breakfast AND I wore a tutu and my excitement over this really took a lot out of me. That and F was a real ghoul all day and I had to carry him kicking and screaming into his daycare provider's home, where she then had to peel him off of me so I could actually go to work.

Sigh. Parenthood is so, so, SO unglamorous - even when you're wearing a tutu.

I got the idea in my head about halfway through making my tutu last weekend that I should start making them and selling them. One of my good friends pointed out that I'm probably the only adult who'd be into wearing tutus every day, but there may just be a market for little ones. We'll see where that goes. I really enjoyed making this one!

I think it turned out pretty well and I was especially impressed with my hair - considering it was day 3, after sleeping on it two nights in a row and I managed it at 5:30 am in only a few minutes. Hooray me. It was significantly less pretty this morning when I woke up on day 4, with a bird's nest that an osprey could have homed in.

Here's a couple of photos of my get-up!

The tutu, before tights!

My hair!

Legs and nude heels!

In my old pointe shoes!

Hair - from the front!

I realized yesterday, while standing in my office lunchroom just how amazing the people I work with are. I had the warm and fuzzies all day, after laughing and sharing in some good times with everyone. The awesomeness of the day was only improved by snuggling with F last night while we watched the Magic School Bus in bed! I somehow doubt this is how we'll be spending our next Hallowe'en.

Happy November, friends!

Good Enough

I've already said that I'm skipping the whole New Year's Resolution this year, but I still have high hopes and many goals to accomplish in 2013. Some of these goals will come to fruition mostly on their own, and some will take work and I know many more will take shape as the days, weeks and months come along. Even though I have no idea what lies in store for F and I, I know that after 2012 he and I can take on just about anything.

Like F turning three, for example. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was laying in the maternity ward of the hospital, flipping through my What to Expect When You're Expecting book and wondering what the Hell I was about to get myself into. The book prepared me for a lot of things, but there were many more "surprises" I was totally unprepared for. I'm not sure if anyone or anything could have prepared me for the sense that I'm never going to be good enough as a Mom.

I know I'm not alone in this. Mommy guilt takes over our lives before we've even given birth. It's the matter of whether or not we followed a certain diet and exercise plan while we were pregnant, if we had an all-natural, drug-free labour or a Caesarian, to the decision (or necessity) of formula vs. breastfeeding. It only gets worse as time goes on, from the music we play for our children, whether they co-sleep (GUILTY!) and what we feed them.

I'm sure there's a large community of mothers who would say I'm an awful Mom and I'm equally sure that there's a large community of mothers who would say that I'm a great Mom. Meanwhile, I'm on the fence.

I breastfed F until he was 18 months old and would have continued to do so only that he lost interest, but I supplemented with formula for eight months because it was too hard to pump while I was in class. I fed him the baby food from the supermarket because he didn't care much for my homemade variety, and quite frankly, a lot of the time I didn't feel up to making it for him. He slept with me from the get-go, and continues to enjoy sleeping in Mommy's bed. He stays up too late, sleeps in and eats junk food every once and a while. Sometimes, to avoid a fight, I'll even let him go to bed without brushing his teeth.

But he's happy and he's loved.

If I don't accomplish anything else in 2013, I want to overcome the feeling that I'm never getting it right. I don't have time to listen to that nagging voice in my head any more. I'm tired of comparing F and I to the mother and child pairs we see at the grocery store or the park. It's useless, and the truth is that she's probably thinking the exact same thing.