Friday, October 31, 2003

Jumping right in with a first blog and no fancy introductions. Have to get it out before the self-pity turns from desire to write this down to desire to dive face-first into the Halloween candy.

My children looked shabby today, in front of everyone. Yes, that is what is getting me down. Now all I need is to hold a Pampered Chef party and I will be a poster girl for Stay at Home Momhood. It's Halloween and the downtown businesses in our little burg have Trick or Treating for kids during the afternoon, so the little ones don't have to go to strange homes in the dark. I arranged to meet up with some friends with children and headed downtown, feeling very proud of my 3 year old angel and 1 year old devil. My daughter's costume was made from a full skirted white dress, to which I added some sparkly felt cap sleeves, gold rickrack, wings and a halo. It turned out to be a cold day, so I put some white tights on her with her white sandals. My red-horned son was wearing a red sleeper adorned with a felt forked tail and red, orange, and yellow felt flames around the collar.

We arrived downtown first, and during the wait, my little devil threw his horns off and refused to put them back on. My angel ran here and there in the cold, making the tip of her nose turn red and her golden hair frizz under the halo. Eventually, our playmates arrived.

Each of them adorned in full Disney Store regalia.

Cinderella was a vision in shades of sky blue, wearing a satin gown with a velvet maribou-trimmed cape, sparkly silver shoes and holding a magic wand that glowed and sparkled at the flip of a switch. The Disney Princesses graced the satin headband holding her golden bun of blonde hair. Stick-on paper earrings completed the ensemble. Her fairy godmother had added shimmery silver and blue eyeshadow to her three-year-old face and a touch of pink lip gloss.

A pink princess wore a high velveteen cone of a hat with a cascade of satin ribbons flowing from its peak, matching pink velvet dress and sequinned silver and pink slippers. Intricately detailed plush dragons, lions, and giraffes abounded, each with a long sleeved plush suit and cozy warm animal-head hood. A trio of Batmen with molded plastic muscle-chests chased Tinkerbelle and a ballerina with real ballet slippers.

Because of the young ages of my children, the sunken-heart moment was all my own. My daughter's game of chase with Snow White had turned her halo about so the white elastic piece I used when I ran out of rickrack was smack in the center of her forehead. My son, with a felt circle covering the holly on his "First Christmas" sleeper, didn't care that his flaming collar made him look more like a Gila monster than a devil, and that the heavy felt tail made the seat of his pants sag unbecomingly.

Now, I am sure no one else cared either. But for me, I was grateful my children were so young, and silently shamed myself for this moment. Give their peers a few years, and the cruelness, the taunting, would surely come. I had my share of shabby moments in my childhood, moments that 25 years later still make me feel like the kid in the too-short wide-wale cords.

Moments like when I was in sixth grade (yes, I told you these things stick with you) and we went on our class camping trip. The mimeographed supplies list we took home to our parents said to pack up our belongings in a duffel bag. So my Mom helped me get my change of clothes, toiletries, pajamas and other necessities and pack them into the cloth drawstring bag she referred to as a "duffel bag". I didn't question it. It was kind of an off-white, perhaps having once been white, with a tiny diamond pattern on it. Not unlike something you might see on your Dad's boxers. The next morning, my Mom dropped me off in front of the school, and I was instructed to put my duffel bag in the large pile being stowed under the big yellow school bus. I was startled to see a mountain of fancy nylon-zippered duffel bags - real duffel bags - in conservative hues of forest green, burgundy and black. They had multiple pockets, hand and shoulder straps, and plastic luggage tags. The sturdy waterproof nylong demurely gave no hint of what might be inside. I dropped my slightly sheer ivory bag, really nothing more than a laundry bag, bulging in embarrasing ways with my personal items, and walked quickly away, getting that unfortunately familiar feeling of being the shabby girl once again.