Some Pig

Hard-Wired

I have bad news for all you parents of young female-type people out there.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  And if you're not in the mood to be afraid, skip this post for awhile until you are.

The good girl/bad boy paradigm seems to be hard-wired into their little brains from a very, very young age. 

For those of you who don't recognize this paradigm, let's say you are the parent(s) of a girl.  You have spent countless hours trying to get her to play well with others, finish her milk, use "please" and "thank you," and basically behave like a fully evolved human being instead of a wolf-child.  You have spent even more hours shepherding her around to dance lessons, soccer lessons, birthday parties, family vacations, and school events, all populated (you hope) by the offspring of similarly concerned and involved parents so that your daughter will grow up surrounded by peers who share your (and you hope, her) values and outlook.  All seems to be proceeding according to plan until roughly eighth grade, when, BLAMMO!  Who becomes the object of her infatuation?  The rudest, dirtiest, nastiest boy she can find.  You wonder, how could your little pigtailed angel could grow up to tolerate this - this - contradiction of all your hopes for her?

Well, don't beat yourself up over it.  The roots run very, very deep, my friends.  How deep?  Well, India is two, and Warren and I already have our concerns.

"DJ" is a little boy in India's day care classroom who seems rapidly headed for bad-boy status.  If you're in the room and you hear a loud crash, chances are 90% that it's followed by a call of, "DJ!  Don't do that!"  DJ ends the day looking like he did a waltz with a whirling dervish for eight hours.  DJ puts Fisher-Price Little People in his mouth after specifically being told not to.  DJ throws things inside.  DJ winds up in the time-out seat a LOT.  And my daughter is fascinated by him.  One of her favorite pasttimes is re-enacting "Scenes from a Daycare" with her dolls while I'm making dinner.  "DJ!" she scolds, "you hit Donovan!  You have a time out!  DJ!  You need to sit on your mat!  We don't hit our fwiends!"  After exiling one of her dolls to a chair in the kitchen for an indefinite period of time, she gathers all the major players around her and does it again, replete with finger-wagging and a disappointed tone in her voice.  It sounds for all the world like she's acting out a slightly altered version of Shirley Jackson's short story "Charles".  Does she show the same level of interest in Donovan, the polite, quiet boy in her classroom who plays nicely and keeps his shirt tucked in?  No, of course not.  If India troops in twelve years from now dragging some kind of Neanderthal specimen in a dirty sweatshirt, I may be disappointed, but I tell you, I won't be surprised.

You Need a License To Catch A Fish, But...

I don't know how far afield this story has made it in the national news, but it has been quite the buzz round these parts.  Apparently a pair of drug addicted parents, hopped up on liquid cocaine, according to one radio report I heard (gotta keep the citations coming - don't want to end up browbeaten on the Oprah show), ran into the woods because they thought the police were coming after them, taking their two small girls under the age of two with them.  Then the dynamic duo managed to get separated from each other AND the girls, at least one of whom wasn't wearing shoes.  As a result, the two girls were left in the woods overnight, by themselves, in January, until they were found after an enormous manhunt.  Various reports have mentioned that the older girl was found lying on top of the younger one to keep her warm, and that the girls didn't want to go with the rescuers because their mother told them to "wait right there" for her.

I first heard this story driving to work and I nearly ran right off the road.  In my life B.I. (Before India), stories like this shocked and angered me, but after a few harrumphs about the stupidity of the species, I went on.  Now stories like this one make me feel a sense of visceral anger, the depth of which can be frightening.  I remember looking in the rearview mirror at India gazing out the window from the triple-buckled confines of her car seat, thinking, Someone left a child this age in the woods!!  Overnight!!  Someone MY BABY'S AGE was in the WOODS OVERNIGHT!!! I actually had to make sure India was still in the car, so vivid was the mental picture of my baby, cold and alone and crying in the dark.  An adrenaline surge of indignation rushed through my limbs, and if I could have gotten my hands on this mother, I would have pummelled her senseless, yelling "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS??"  Even hopped up on coke, how could you do it?  Even under fear of arrest, how could you do it??  I'm as lazy and self-absorbed and short-sighted as the next person, but I know to the core of my soul that if I had to make a choice between being slammed in the local pokey or risking my daughter's life and limbs in the winter woods, I would happily don those handcuffs and march out to the squad car in a New York minute.  How could any mother - any mother - put love of a drug above love for her children? I just don't get it.

By way of a disclaimer, I recognize that I am focusing on only one parent and there were TWO at fault here.  However, since I'm not a father, I don't feel the same gut response to his actions that I do to hers.  Also, let's face it, we gals are hard-wired to do the Mama Bear number and protect our cubs while the he-bears are out somewhere prowling the back forty.  Also, I know that addiction is a horrible disease, and obviously if she were in her right mind she never would have done it, blah blah blah.  But I don't care.  I don't care because once you have a kid, your right to make excuses for your fucked-up behavior ends.  I don't care because once you have a kid, your first priority has to be making sure that kid is physically and mentally and emotionally okay, even if it means you get stuck in an unpleasant situation like jail or Gymboree.  I'm not saying we all have to be SuperMommies flying around in tights stained with organic applesauce (says she, typing while her daughter wanders aimlessly around the office pulling sheets of paper out of the printer). What I am saying is that, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, your right to be a bonehead ends where your child's life begins. When you're flying solo, feel free to smoke 40 a day, drink to excess, read Danielle Steele novels, and eat all the trans-fats you want.  As soon as there's someone strapped into the passenger seat next to you, well, it's time to put on your seat belt and be a grown-up.

The fact that I have had (and am continuing to have) such a difficult time conceiving and bearing children, and the amount of time I spend reading infertility blogs, definitely plays into my reactions as well.  As I was reading this, I couldn't help thinking about Julie's recent posts exploring her longing for another child, or The Naked Ovary's enervating wait for an international adoptee to become available.  Here are these wonderful, funny, well-educated, thoughtful women, just dying to have children they can lavish with love and affection and proper grammar, and the Fates see fit to give two lovely girls to a pair of complete muffinheads?  Circumstances like that sure don't make me less agnostic.

***                                                        *** 

PS In my righteous fury, I forgot to finish telling you how everything turned out for the girls at the center of the story.  Fortunately for all involved, we'd had a freak warming spell for a week prior to the girls' being left in the woods overnight.  Initial reports came out that the girls had frostbite on their extremities and that they might lose some fingers or toes, but later in the week the reports were revised to light frostbite only with no loss of digits.  The girls have been placed with their maternal grandparents, who apparently are well-put-together people who have been waiting for the shoe to drop, so to speak, around their daughter and her habit.  And I got all this info from an unimpeachable source, that being teacher room scuttlebutt.  As for Mr. and Mrs. Bonehead, they are facing criminal charges for attempting to evade arrest, but the child endangerment charges only count as a misdemeanor.  Don't even get me started on that.

Let's See How We've Done So Far

Here's my performance on the New Year's promises:

Two minutes into my work day, I spilled my coffee.  I dropped the f-bomb out loud in the teacher's room and thought it about 7,000 more times before the day was over.  I was annoyed with my students all day.  I sucked at teaching all day too.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the window and boy, am I chubbing up.  I snapped at the kid who comes up to ask me 11 million questions every day when he came up to ask the 11 millionth and first question.  I had a big chunk of chocolate cake at lunch because I was totally stressed and annoyed with everything and everyone that had crossed my path since 5:31 in the morning.  I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for 3:15 that didn't actually occur until 4:00 so India was in day care the better part of ten hours.  When we came home I did NOT watch Dr. Phil!  I watched the last episode of "Family Bonds" on HBO instead. 

That's about par for the course for me and resolutions. See why I don't bother?

Nobody Puts Baby in a Tote Bag

Every once in a while - not often, but every once in a while - the universe offers me validation.  This time, it was proof positive that yes, there is such a thing as being TOO organized.  On behalf of those of us who can barely get out the door in the morning without forgetting something, I always appreciate it when over-organization goes awry.

A little back story is in order.  India has a baby doll whom she calls, strangely enough, Baby (or Bee-bee, in her toddler voice).  Baby went with us to visit friends over the weekend, but did not make it home.  Warren SWORE up, down, and sideways that he packed her.  I SWORE up, down, and sideways that I took all the luggage out of the car and there was no Baby to be found.  Meanwhile, India kept looking around last night and calling out, "Bee-bee?" in a hopeful-yet-puzzled tone that would melt the heart of an ogre.  I was considering invoking Adam's Law, or Megan's Law, or whoever's law it is that would allow me to stop cars on the highway and search them at random for missing children. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this law applies to a child made out of plastic.  But we can call off the sniffer dogs and breathe a huge sigh of relief, because I just got an email from my better half:

Baby has been found.  My mother has her.  Somehow, baby made her way from India's toy tote to the toy chest.  Next time, I will not consolidate toys two hours before we leave.  It would appear there was some unauthorized de-consolidation going on.

Serves him right for packing TWO HOURS before leaving!

Anyone else have any good lost-item stories?  Do tell!

Too Tired to Think of a Clever Title

I am so tired right now, I can barely focus my eyes.

India didn't go down tonight until 8:30, a full 90 minutes later than usual, even though she was at day care an extra hour today so I could get some correcting done.  Usually that extended visit knocks her on her tushie and it's off to beddiebye she goes without a peep, but not tonight.  She is still in this weird pattern where she gets overexcited, overwound, over-wakeful, and she won't - can't - let herself calm down.  Only this time instead of waking up at 3:30 am, she just stayed awake at 7 pm.  And awake.  And awake.  But since she was tired, everything set her off.  Happy, crying, happy, crying.  Mumma won't read "Hush Little Baby" the seventieth time?  Cry.  Mumma picks me up?  Happy. 

What really scares me is how my patience and tolerance diminish along with hers.  I get short with her, grab things from her, refuse to pick her up.  Warren was out late tonight, walked in the door five minutes after I finally got her to calm down at 8:30.  And even though I know he is a great dad, a great husband, I resent it when she's difficult and he's not there to help carry the load.  I hate it when I'm standing there wondering which sleep protocol from which book I'm violating now, and she's just awake, awake, awake.  And I'm alone.  And she's yelling. 

Then again, even in the worst bottom of the barrel losing it times, it's so gratifying to hold her.  After she finally calmed down, I sat and rocked for an extra while, just to enjoy the feel of her head in the crook of my neck, to look at her little hands clinging, clenching, releasing, as she finally dozed off.  I do love this kid.

Postscript:  India woke up again at midnight.  The only way we could calm her down was to bring her in bed with us.  She insisted on sleeping on my chest all night - very cuddly but not at all sleep conducive.  So now I am in an even bigger sleep deficit than I was when I wrote this.  Is there a limit to how overtired one can get before sanity diminishes?

What the &^%$#?

I am looking at the little clock in the corner of the computer screen.  It is 5:17 am. 

Let me repeat that. Five friggin' seventeen in the a of m.  Oh!  Now it's 5:18.  And I am up.  And India is up.  And in fact, we have been up since, oh, roughly three-forty-fiveish.  And no, it is not by choice, at least, not MY choice. 

India is a kid who needs her straight twelve plus a two hour nap to be human, if not civilized, since we know toddlers aren't civilized.  However, lately she has fallen into a pattern of waking up crying at about 3 am.  If I go in and hold her in the rocking chair, she falls back asleep, but as soon as I even THINK of stirring toward the crib, she wakes up howling.  "Muuuuh-MUUUUUUUH.  Muh-MUUUUUH!"  Why?  I don't know why.  Maybe she's cold.  Maybe she's hungry.  Maybe she's worried about how much longer America can afford to let Asia finance our debt by buying T-bills (that one keeps me up, too).  All I know is, she's up, and then three hours later she turns into a beastly miserable subhuman shrieking monster who cries at the slightest provocation.  As do I.

Where, might you ask, is Warren in all this?  Well, usually we take turns trying to mollify her, then one of us (meaning me) caves in and gets up with her.  But Warren is out of town this weekend, so I get to have all the fun.  Bastard.

So I tried to get India to go back down as best I could.  I got her a drink of milk.  I found dropped binkies.  I rocked, and she dozed, and I moved toward the crib, and she screamed.  In desperation, I took her into bed with me, hoping that she might doze off for an hour or so, but no go.  Let me tell you, I don't know how those co-sleepers do it.  India has terrible bed-sharing manners.  Personally, I prefer bed partners who don't blow raspberries in my face, thrash around nonstop, bonk me in the orbital socket with their noggins, or sit up and say "binky binky binky" at odd moments.  But I'm funny like that.  Obviously I am going to have to have a talk with her before she reaches the hook up age of fourteen the night before she gets married.

And what, might you ask, is the little cherub doing now that allows me to blog?  Hmm, let's see.  She is standing next to me, busily sucking on her binky (generally verboten outside the confines of the crib, but I'm making a big exception for MY sanity), taking little message-sized pads of paper and tearing all the pieces off, or, alternately, coloring on them with highlighters that I hand to her at random.  In her attempts to cap the markers, she has managed to create a Jackson Pollock-like effect on her pj's and hands.  I am sure sometime in the next week a big study will come out definitively proving that the fluorescent ink in highlighters causes precipitous loss of IQ points and then I will really be grumpy.  Er.  Grumpier. 

Well, I think I have stalled India as long as possible.  She keeps toddling over to me with paper and marker outstretched, begging me around her binky to pay attention to her, dammit.  Oops, she is trying to highlight the cat. 

Only an hour and a half til the Sunday Times arrives.  Can I make it that long?  Sigh. 

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

I am suffering from pangs of guilt.  No, make that paroxysms of guilt.  Seizures of guilt.  A veritable San Francisco Earthquake of guilt.

I dumped my kid at daycare today and am having a child-free day.

What kind of non-maternal beast am I?  Shouldn't I want to spend every free moment possible nurturing my child in the bosom of her family?  Shouldn't I delight in the prospect of reading "Hop on Pop" approximately 27,000 times in the next eight hours?  Am I really cut out for motherhood if I don't revel in every opportunity to spend hours and hours and hours entertaining a small human being who has the attention span of a fruit fly?  If I don't carefully monitor and enrich every critical moment of brain development RIGHT NOW WHEN IT COUNTS THE MOST, does this mean India's doomed to go to (gasp) A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY????

As penance, I am going to go do chores instead of doing what I really want to do, which is to lie on the couch and read the New York Times without interruption.

And The Winner Is...

Well, it's a clean sweep.  I have not won a Nobel Prize, a MacArthur Genius Award grant, or Maine State Teacher of the Year.  I guess I will not need the huge sunglasses I bought so I could go around incognito.

I already knew I was a shoo-in for not winning Mother of the Year for 2005, or 2006 for that matter.  India has made it very clear recently that she has endured my inexpert fumblings for the better part of 18 months and she has reached her limit.  Yesterday we took a family trip to a Large Well Known Outdoor Outfitters (name changed to protect the guilty) and India was fine, just fine, until she wasn't.  She went from 0 to tantrum in 6.2 seconds, and it was the full deal (arching her back the stroller, contorting her little face, piteous wails interrupted by sobs, the lot).  And what did I do in response?  I bribed her with food.  Yes, yes, I know I am teaching her to associate food with comfort, and that thirty years from now she's going to suck down Oreos instead of expressing her feelings in a healthy and honest way.  I'm not proud of myself, but I did it and it worked.  I will just have to live with my shame.

Of course, if that incident alone wasn't enough to put me on the DQ'd list, the fact that I let India eat paint might have prejudiced the jury against me.   Yep, at the end of one of our many Sunday afternoons of doing chores, I took my eyes off the kid for five minutes so I could do something frivolous like, oh, start getting dinner ready, and what did she do?  She foraged around in the trash, found the sponge I used to touch up the trim, and stuck it in her mouth.  I guess her little arms reach a lot further into the trash can than I had estimated!  "Oh, yeah, paint," said the nice lady at Poison Control, in a tone I can only describe as blase. "Just give her some milk and she might have an upset tummy for a day.  Oh, yeah, and wipe out her mouth if there's any paint still in there."  Gee, if that's the reaction for eating paint, how do other poisons rank?  Arsenic?  Yawn.  Ate a double-A battery?  Ho, hum.  Drank the cleanser under the sink?  These things happen.

To be honest, India does have a right to be somewhat suspicious of my competence as a parent. I mean, look at the really bad  haircut I let happen to her, for gosh sakes.  Warren intended to give India's bangs just a liiiiiittle bit of a trim, which he has done before quite successfully, mind you.  However, things didn't proceed exactly according to plan, shall we say.  The sequence of events, if I remember correctly, went as follows:
        Scissors:  snip!
        Warren:  Oh, shit!
All I can say is, I hope it grows out by Thanskgiving, because we CANNOT take her picture for the Christmas card looking like she belongs on the Island of Misfit Toys!

After all these mishaps, I can't really say I blame India for crying when I come to pick her up at day care.  My daughter is no dummy, and she obviously has figured out that the ever-cheerful Stacey wouldn't let her get a haircut that makes her look like she rides the short bus to school.  Today when I arrived, she ran to Stacey, buried her head in Stacey's legs, and begged, "Up!  Up!"  She did her best imitation of a primate baby clinging to her mother, except that I'M her mother, dammit, and the person she should be clinging to is ME! 

Well, after reading all this, I'm sure I don't need to go into the litany of falls down the stairs, snacks consisting of cat food, and other transgressions I've made against competent motherhood in the past year and a half.  I would just like to thank the Academy for this award, and give a big thank-you to all the little people who have made me what I am today - the Mother Whose Kid Cries When She Shows Up. 

Well, That's a Fine How D'You Do

After a long day in the salt mines with America's Youth, a woman likes to take comfort in the solace of her family.  She imagines them gathering 'round the hearth, bringing her warmed slippers and cold margaritas.  She sees them eagerly absorbing her stories of travail and triumph in the modern gladitorial arena that is paid employment.  And she would be completely delusional.

There was a time when my daughter actually looked forward to seeing me at the end of the day. The sight of me walking through the door at day care rendered her ecstatic.  Neither snow nor hail nor the three month old sitting in the way kept her from her appointed hug.   Yep, Mommy was Da Bomb.  Oh, those halcyon days of September ... I should have cherished them more.  Little did I know I would be kicked to the curb in a big and major way.  And who has usurped my rightful place in India's affections?  Why, none other than Daddy.

Lately I've noticed a certain, shall we say, cooling toward me on India's part when I show up at day care.  At least, that's what I call it when India sees me on the playground and runs away.  What happened to the beaming smile?  The mowing down of younger and weaker babies to get to my arms?  "Oh, hey," her new attitude says, "nice to see you again.  How's it going?  We really should get together sometime soon.  Well, gotta run - you know me, busy, busy, busy."  And off she toddles to do - what?  Drag the baby carriage around?  This is the important activity that supercedes my hug?  Hmph.

Okay, I can handle the idea that my daughter is growing up and asserting her independence.  I can even accept the occasional cold shoulder.  But last week things reached their nadir.  I showed up to collect the kid and make the trek home, and when she saw me, she CRIED.   It is unbelievably embarrassing to have to chase your child around the playroom while she wails in misery at the sight of you.  Yes, I am the only working mother in the history of parenthood who feels guilty when she takes her kid out of day care.

Finally Stacey, the ever-cheerful Bambino room teacher, hit on the solution.  "India!" she called merrily, "Want to go home and see Dada?"

"Dada!" she replied, and headed immediately for the door without waiting for either coat or mother.  "Dada!" she repeated on the way out the door.  "Dada!  Dada! Da, da, da, da, daaaaaa," she trilled all the way home. 

This is not an isolated incident, either.  I have spent many a recent late afternoon desperately trying to keep a grumpy baby entertained, only to have her turn into Mary Sunshine as soon as Warren's feet hit the welcome mat.

"So how was she today?" he asks, picking up the adorable cherub who had been doing a passable hyena impression mere minutes ago.

"We had some moments," I say tersely, picking myself and a million tub toys up off the bathroom floor. 

"Nnnnooooo," he coos in disbelief, as India giggles and wriggles with glee, "Not this India!  Not this happy India!"  And so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, while India follows him around with slavish devotion.

Of course I don't mind if India has a close relationship with her father.  Naturally, I hope she has good rapport with the most important male of her formative years.  But geez Louise, can I get some credit here?  Who makes sure India gets to and from the day care she so loves and hates to leave?  Mommy.  Who procures her breakfast yogurt, lunchtime veggieburgers, and nighttime meals?  Yes, Mommy again!  Who makes sure she's fed, clothed, and shod on a daily basis?  Why, Mommy, that's who!  And now for our double-point bonus round, who sings silly songs, plays baby games, tickles tummies and goes for walks during the interminable hours between 4 and 6 pm?  Ding ding ding!  Right again!  It's MOMMY!  And what do I get for it?  A crying kid who has to be bribed by mentioning her father, the parent who gets to play with her for half an hour and then put her (already fed and bathed and changed by me) to bed.  I ask you, where's the justice?

However, I have decided not to take it to heart.  I know that, in the long run, time is my friend.  Some day, not now, but some day, my daughter will be a thirteen-year-old girl.  And when that happens, she will want to pretend she came into this world fully formed, like Athena from Zeus' noggin, only from someone much, much cooler than ME.  And what do I plan to do then?  Oh, nothing much.  Just follow her and her little friends around, that's all.  And talk to her.  Loudly.  In public.  In front of her friends.  About embarrassing things.  Like bodily functions.  Or crushes.  Or bodily functions AND crushes.  Mm-hmm, that should do it.  You just wait, little lady!  Yooooouuuuuuu just wait!

Boo! Boo Who? Don't Cry, It's Only Me

Wednesday was India's first excursion in a real costume!  Warren's office holds a huge Halloween blowout for all the kiddos, so I packed up the car and headed down Rte 95 with baby in tow to see the festivities.  It was quite a hoot.  Our girl didn't really grasp the concept of trick or treating very well.  Being a toddler, she certainly understood the concept of "grab what you can while the grabbing's good."  However, she didn't have quite as firm a grasp on the idea that she was actually meant to hold onto that same candy for the duration.  When invited to pick more candy from a different person, she obviously thought she had to turn in what she had, kind of like an even exchange.  She would deposit the wrinkled, sweaty package of candy in the pile of untouched candy, help herself to something new, then happily toddle away while Warren or I fished about the bowl to extricate the old, mangled piece of candy before someone else took it. 

I have to admit, I arrived at the party with some trepidation.  As you can see from the picture, India went adorned in a store-bought costume.  I thought for sure I would be shown up for the slattern I am by myriad suburban moms chaperoning tots clad in lovingly home-made creations.  In my mind's eye, I saw women in sweater sets shielding their offspring from the rank stench of costume corruption.  "Come, Ashlynn!  Braden!  Get away from that child with her machine-made bumblebee outfit," they'd hiss, sidling away from us.  Boy, am I out of step with the times!  If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say 90% of the costumes were off the rack, or out of the box, or whatever the phrase is for 'store boughten' these days.  The era of cutting holes in a bedsheet and going about as a ghost is over, friends.

Now, I realize what I'm about to say next will date me more accurately than a dose of carbon-14 in my coffee, but I remember when commercially made costumes just sucked!  Basically, they consisted of a plastic mask, roughly the size and configuration of a pie plate, and a thin drape of some kind of garbage-bag-ish plastic printed to look vaguely like the outside of whatever character you were impersonating.  The mask had eye holes precision drilled to ensure that you could see with only one eye at a time, and the nostril holes always wound up positioned so that the moisture from your breath would condense in the mask's interior and smack your face as soon as you opened your mouth to say, "Trick or treat!  Smell my feet!"  If you were me, the only place in town to find costumes was at Swanson's Department Store, and when your mother caught you looking longingly at the Cinderella costume, she'd snap, "I'm not wasting money on something I can make myself."  And you know what the crazy part is?  She meant it!  She DID go make it herself!!! 

Now my curiosity was piqued.  What would it take to make a kid's costume today versus twenty - ok, thirty years ago?  I called my friend Karin, the second-biggest Halloween fan I know. (First place award goes in perpetuity to my friends Denise and Greg, who have a blowout Halloween party every year, AND they serve scallops wrapped in bacon at every party!  I love scallops wrapped in bacon!  Holla!  But I digress.)  Apparently her daughter wants to be some kind of fairy thingie from Fairytopia.  The material alone cost nearly $100! "Well, you don't even count time," she said, "because then you couldn't afford it." An understatement, I would say. "You don't make a costume to save money," she concluded.  Well, I guess not! 

I called my mother to find out what she spent in the 1970's to make our costumes. "Well," she said, "back then, a pattern at Swanson's only cost 75 cents.  I always used a pattern," she made sure to note.  "Fabric was about 99 cents a yard, and I guess time and material combined, you'd spend ten dollars."  So what did a store bought costume cost?  "I don't really know because I never got you guys one," she said, in a tone of voice that implied, well, what kind of slattern lets her kid run around in a store bought costume?  "I'd guess about nine or ten dollars."  And what did that equal in today's money?  "Oh, about thirty dollars, I'd say."  So, the cost of store bought costumes has effectively stayed level for thirty years, while the cost of making a costume has at least doubled (by conservative estimates) if not tripled.

That led me to another question.  If the cost of buying a costume was the same as making a costume, why go to all the trouble?  "That's just what we did back then," Mom said. "We had more time to do things like that."  That statement really struck me.  Even if I had the inclination and talent to make India's costumes, which I don't, finding the time to get it done before Christmas would be a challenge.  I'm not going to get all maudlin about how life was better then, because a) it wasn't, and b) I have no interest in going back to a time when there were no styling products that worked in my hair, but I do feel that we lose a little something when all you have to do is go to a party store and pick out a costume.  Part of the fun of Halloween was putting together a costume.  If your mom didn't make you one, you could always wear your dad's clothes, stuff a pillow under your shirt and go as a bum.  Or, if you had a really good costume, you could wear it for the next ten years (one girl in our neighborhood was Mrs. Beasley until well into adolescence).  Or, failing all that, you could use last year's dance recital costume and a bunch of scarves and voila!  You're a gypsy/fortuneteller/Cher! 

So, as my husband the businessman says when I get rambling like this, "what's the takeaway from this, Caroline?"  Well, I don't want India to wind up on the therapist's couch in twenty years, recounting how she had to wear a homemade Mrs. Beasley outfit for ten years because her mother thought it would build character.  On the other hand, I don't want India to think that everything she wants can be found ready-made at her convenience.  I know that sometimes you should get the fancy princess costume of your dreams.  But I hope India will not be above cutting holes in a bedsheet and yelling "boo!" for a Halloween or two, either.