Halloween and other Holidays I Fail Miserably At

Three and half years ago I had high hopes about my super-mom abilities. 7 months pregnant and mid-bar study I had already completed Stanton's entire first year scrap book - minus the pictures. Each page for each holiday had been staged perfectly and just awaited the soon to come pictures and treasures to fill the empty spots. The nursery was laid out to perfection, all the clothes had been washed in Dreft and were folded neatly, ready for his arrival. I could do this. I envisioned myself with that pleasant, giggling three month old at Halloween, dressed up for an evening of trick-or-treating and showing off his adorable costume around the carnival. Instead, what I was met with was a Halloween week from hell when he came down with RSV. By the time it came to dress up, I was an unintentional walking zombie (no kidding, I looked like hell) and he was the fussiest Pumpkin ever. He wore his costume for about .2 seconds in the house and then we changed, cuddled up on the couch and spent the rest of the evening watching tv and ignoring trick-or-treaters at the door.

In three years, not much has changed. If anything, I've learned holidays and special events just don't ever turn out how I anticipate. I might as well find the humor in it all and move on. But it is so hard to not keep trying, especially after seeing my magical mom friends and how effortlessly they pull off that ideal I wished I could be. You see, my mother was one of those moms. I have fond memories of her baking gorgeous cookies for me to take to my classmates at school and delicious pies to take to my teachers for the holidays. Most holidays she even made adorable personalized goodie bags for me to hand out to the class complete with perfectly curled ribbon and bows. 

You're probably thinking, "oh Paige, you can't be that bad." Oh but I am. Since Stanton has started going to day-care, it is more obvious than ever how much I suck at the Betty-home-maker side of motherhood. For each holiday party, a list is set out for parents to sign up for food and drink items. For the Valentine's day party this past year, I boldly signed up for cupcakes. I could handle that. Shoot. . .  I've been making cupcakes since 1995. But when I showed up the day of the party, cupcakes in hand, I realized it would never be just "making cupcakes" --- apparently someone else had signed up for cupcakes too and had also secretly worked for the food-network's "Cup Cake Wars." Good lord they were amazing, decorated with fondant hearts and flowers and displayed to win. My cupcakes felt so inferior they sortof just shrunk up on their tray. And that's not even the worse part. Because I had to run back to work for a few hours, I didn't hang around and just showed up later for the actual party so I could sit with Stanton. Walking in I realized the worst, my cupcakes had not been set out. They were left in the back kitchen area, still covered and remained untouched the rest of the day. That afternoon I picked them up with my pan and left. I felt like a failure.

The next few parties I tried to sign up for something easier. Chips, drinks. Blah blah blah. But because it had been a few months since a school party, I felt like trying again. So on the Halloween party sign up sheet, I wrote my name under "cookies" -- oh crap.

So of course, in perfect storm fashion, yesterday, the day I planned to leave work early so I could bake, turned into my busiest day yet. I actually got stuck at work past five, picked up Stanton late from school causing him to miss gymnastics. Mom fail.  To top it off, It was raining and my straightened hair had turned into the ugly humid waves and I looked a mess, but I didn't care. I had to get to the store and get what I needed to bake with. Dragging Stanton into the store with me, we found a sugar cookie bag mix and a bag of powered sugar for the icing. I knew I had a pumpkin cookie cutter somewhere in my house and was determined to make cute pumpkin cookies, orange and green icing and all.  Getting home I set to work, and with only an hour before I had to be at church for my CCE class, I flew around mixing and rolling and patting and re-rolling because I kept messing up, all while fussing at Stanton to stop climbing on the table and then again for him to stop throwing flour into the air (yelling snow over and over again). My kitchen was mayhem. Finally, I had pumpkin shaped cookies. Yes there was also flour and powered sugar everywhere, icing dripped all over the counter ( I had run out of wax paper) and dirty dishes mounded in the sink, but I had pumpkin shaped cookies.

I iced a few and then left, dropping Stanton off with my mother and rushed on to church. By 8:30 we were back home and after settling Stanton down in bed with clean sheets (he had an accident the night before) and the shortest bedtime story book I could find, I was back in the kitchen finishing up.

B walked in a little later, took one look around and asked what was I doing. From his face I could tell he was trying not to laugh. "Kicking ass"  was my answer. Because I was. Despite the mess, I actually had 12 cookies survive and iced decently and I felt so proud. He just laughed. After I finished up and cleaned the kitchen and had sat down with B to watch the baseball game, I pulled up my Facebook to check out my newsfeed. And there they were. The most perfectly iced "magic mom" cookies a friend of mine had made, all laid out in perfect neat rows on super clean cookie racks, displayed on FB for the world to envy with 50 likes and counting. There wasn't a drip of icing or cookie dough anywhere. I felt defeated. Damn it. Mine looked like ugly step-sister cookies compared to those.

At least our kids aren't in the same day care, so mine won't have to sit next to those, I thought. B saw the picture and laughed, trying to reassure me (through his laugh) that my friend had had all day to work on those. True, but still. "You're cookies are alright." Gosh I hope so.

I don't want to be a competitive mom. I'm super proud of my friends who are amazing at all that Betty-home-maker stuff and wish I could have an ounce of their talent. But just keeping up with the laundry and dishes and house cleaning is mostly all I can manage. And I'm okay with that. All I really want is to just be at least at a level Stanton can be proud of.

I just want to make something okay enough to be set out at the parties. The Halloween party is in thirty minutes and all I can worry about is that my cookies were decent enough for them to serve. Crap.

So for the inquisitive minds who are wondering how mine turned out . . . here are a few pictures mid-baking. Please feel free to laugh. I did. 

<------   The mess.  Yikes!