Halloween facebook blues

  Halloween approaches, as of this writing. I am knee deep in the costume preparation process for our not so little princess. This year we are approaching the realm of cosplay with mom's creativity being pushed to the limit  What is cosplay?  My best guess is that it's Halloween for grownup nerds. People make costumes modeled after comic book, sci-fi, or video game characters and every so often leave their parents' basements to have conventions. It also means that my daughter wants to wear a costume that you can't purchase online without a second mortgage.
    Just when things were going reasonably well, enter Facebook to really louse up your day! I have mentioned before that I have a love hate relationship with social media. Mostly, I'm in it for the dog memes. The problem for me this year hit when I happened to see a post with my daughter's best buddy in their Haaloween outfits, worn a bit early for a school dance. It bugged me because one of the girls wore my daughter's first choice of costume and I have no idea how they found it without selling stock. These three kids typically go trick or treating together, so now what?
   It's raining guilt! We should have had another kid. I should find her more friends. We should have bought an expensive outfit online. My poor kid is a third wheel. Here's where a bit of perspective comes in handy. My daughter knew this was coming. I knew I was disappointed but I wondered how she felt. Boundaries are quite helpful, aren't they? By the way, we are only talking about one night. When I mentioned that I saw the picture, she took it just fine and said she would just be another creature from the game. Yay offspring!!!
    My daughter surprised me by handling this better than I did. Nonetheless, I felt like some sort of gauntlet was thrown. My mommy ego decided that she was going to be the best looking creature I could make her. This is just the latest in a long string of projects in which my creativity gets pushed to its limits. I've been lucky in that so far, I've been able to find most of what she requires through our local Goodwill, dollar store, and stolen ideas from the internet. Mostly, like everything else I stress over, this will fly by and in the end, it's really all about the candy.
   Happy Halloween, dear reader. I don't even want to think about her costume for next year. I think I'll go out as a drunk.

More adjustments

  Welcome to Summer, yay! or something. This is the first summer in recorded human history when both of us are home. It is wierd and in a good way, mostly. My routine hasn't changed too much except that I am getting more help now and I admit I'm  enjoying it. I also need to remember that this is temporary and not let myself get "too spoiled". Fortunately, school is still in session, as of this writing, and my spouse now gets to see the "joy of homework". He also gets to remember how much is involved in taking care of our yard, another reason mommy curses. I still can't wrap my head around the idea of gardening as a "pleasurable hobby". Who are these masochists?!
   This from a person who gets up stupid early in the morning to go to the gym. I guess we all pick our poisons. It's going to be a busy Summer to be sure and for once I  won't  feel like I'm dealing with running most of the show myself. It won't be easy picking priorities since we don't know how long this two parent home thing will last so I want to make the most of it. Mostly, I'm glad to have more access to double teaming our stubbornly addicted video game addict on an as needed basis.
   Some things aren't that hard for Daddy though, which makes me a bit jealous. Our daughter gets up in the morning for him a little better than mommy, for example. I wonder if she's just showing off for him, but that's probably a grown up concept. Getting up in the morning was never my forte, anyway. We are currently expecting Daddy to be only home for the Summer, give or take, so he did dodge the majority of the homework nightmare. Our daughter will still have to get up for camp but when it's not school, we get a little more cooperation. Notice I said a "little" more.
   Daddy also gets to find out how much there is to catch up on around the house. We've been in our home for over ten years and there are projects around here that were so low on the totem pole, they fell off. My window treatments, for example, could best be described as "almost groovy". I have hopes that we can get some much needed things done while we still live here. The last house never looked so good until it was listed. Still, these are also the family time years, we will plenty of time for painting after our daughter wants nothing to do with us.
   The trick is being smart enough to make time for that, too. UNO, anyone?