It's American Boy to the rescue!!! He's off to save the day! Let's hope he doesn't get distracted by something shiny.

must find more masculine-type activities for the gifted and talented child

The gifted and talented (GNT) boy wanted to make his own Halloween costume. The problems associated with this? He wanted to sew it himself. He wanted to make it out of gold and silver lame'. Should I be concerned about any of this?

Wait. Stop. Since he is technically a preacher's kid now, shouldn't we be banned from all Halloween related activities? Whatever. Pardon me, we'll just call it a fall festival costume.

After a visit to Wal-Mart (ugh. ick.) during which I explained how sewing and patterns work (like I'm some sort of expert - HA!) I convinced him it would be easier and more comfortable (and shhhh - cheaper!) if we made his costume out of a sweat suit.

GNT wants to be a super-hero. He has designed his own logo. American Boy! We settled on a black sweatshirt and black sweatpants, and I am using fabric paint to paint the log on the shirt. He is going to stuff the sleeves and legs of the sweats with "muscles". We also bought a black cape (uhhhh, he did HAVE to get the black and silver sparkly one) and I am painting the logo on the cape as well.

The good news is (1) this whole Halloween thing gave me something to do, a project to spin-off on! Hurray! and (2) I get to dress my baby up for Halloween one more time!

You see, it's really not about him. It's about my completely selfish need to not have my kid grow up. (Yes, it is always about me.) (Me, me, me.) Every year, I used to dress him up in his costume and I would always have his portrait made in his costume. It was one of our annual traditions. Christmas portaits? No way! Halloween portraits were our gig! Then the whole dissolution of marriage thing happened, and my former spouse decided to take over the Halloween costume for a year. I figured my days of trick-or-treating with Nate were long gone. But we can rejoice... we are dressing up this year and I get to make the costume!

So I painted the logo on the sweatshirt last night. I was pleased by the work I did, after all I free-handed it, and the logo was designed by a GNT nine year old.

The Pastor comes home last night and sees the sweatshirt on the dining room table. Did you do this honey? You did a great job!

Stop. Please stop there. Really. Stop.

He continued. "Is it supposed to be off-center like that?"

Ouch.

Oh, one more thing. If I stay on my diet until Halloween, I could probably wear the old prom dress again.