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Cakes and Costumes
Each fall I begin to feel like an inadequate mom. Before I had kids, I was positive that I would be a mom who sewed homemade costumes for her kids each Halloween and decorated beautiful birthday cakes for their parties. But as much as I try, those are just two things that I will never successfully be able to do. With my daughter's birthday and Halloween four days apart, I am served with a double whammy of mommy guilt in late October.
When my daughter was a year-old, I bought a pattern for a costume and borrowed a sewing machine. After several frustrating weeks, I ended up ordering a really cute puppy costume online and have not touched a sewing machine since. A few years later, I decided to try a different approach that didn’t require any sewing. I spent many late nights and way too much money trying to re-create an adorable butterfly costume from Family Fun magazine. The result was something that resembled a dead moth and I found myself in the party store on Halloween morning trying to find her a costume.
My attempt at cake decorating didn’t go much better. The train cake that I made for my son’s second birthday ended up looking up like he made it himself. In fact, that was the story that I told everyone at the party to keep from embarrassing myself. And I won’t even begin describe the scary looking bunny cupcakes that I made for an Easter party.
Every so often I get another brilliant idea for a costume or cake and the end result is always the same. I have come to the realization that I will be buying my kid’s costumes and cakes for the rest of their childhood. Although, I read to my kids, make messy crafts with them, and play tag football in the yard, I beat myself up much more for these two things that I don’t do than giving myself credit for what I do. One of these days I will be able crumple up the invisible list that I made for myself before I was old enough to vote and be able to proudly pick up the cake from the bakery.
But for now, I will admit that my daughter looks really cute in her Candy Corn Witch outfit, even if it is a store bought costume.
Jennifer appears Mondays on TriangleMom2Mom.
From Trike to Two Wheeler
Jennifer Gregory left Florida almost 11 years ago to escape the heat and enjoys living in a place where the seasons change. She lives in Youngsville, N.C., which she usually refers to as north of Wake Forest, and has been married to her husband for almost 10 years. As the mom of two kids and three dogs, her house is filled with lots of joyful noise and barking. Her daughter (7) is convinced that she will be a princess when she grows up and her son (5) has aspirations of being the next Dale Jr. After years of writing software documentation for various companies, she "retired" when her daughter was born to become a stay at home mom. Now that her kids are in school, she has finally figured out what she wants to be when she grows up. She spends her mornings as a freelance writer and her afternoons hanging out with her kids. The only things she misses about living in Florida are her friends and family, Publix fried chicken and going to Florida Gator football games.
Comments
Jennifer, you've touched on my deepest shame-- inability to be crafty. At least you have a sewing machine in your house. I don't even try anymore. In fact, I'm hoping that this Halloween, we can put candy on the front porch and sneak off to the movies, thus avoiding the whole costume drama!
LOL, I don't own the machine. I actually borrowed it to try to make the costume.
Jennifer, If you would like, I will volunteer to help you make a cake and/or a costume. It will not be perfect, but pass-able. The key to these things for people of ordinary talent and ability is to know a few tricks that produce results that are "good enough". Now I must confess that my mother was an expert seamstress. I am more of the "anybody who looks that close needs to be slapped" school. Considering your article, I suspect that you want to do this just once so that you feel competent. I've ordered plenty of "store-bought" cakes myself. But I know that one baby was forceps, and the other was C-section, and I felt like a failure for not ever having pushed a baby out. Not enough to go for a third.... But with cakes and costumes you get a lot more chances.