Puppies and Children

This will be a quick one...but this was so surreal that I have to write it down before my memory wonders if this really happened.

Today, I took my car in for its first wash since the boys were born. While waiting an hour and a half for the detail they promised would take an hour, I had opportunity to interact with many of the local community.

The kindest of all was the elderly man with braces on both legs, walking with a cane who insisted on getting up and walking over to open the door for me at Starbucks (in and out of the store).

The strangest occurred shortly before my car was finished. We were back at the car wash waiting area, and I was giving both the boys bottles while they relaxed in the stroller. Another woman came out to wait for her car (Aside - it is 95 degrees out and she was wearing a sweatshirt, shorts and Uggs...and complaining about how hot she was). She saw us and engaged in the standard conversation I get almost daily:

She "wow, you really have your hands full"

me "Well, there are moments, but i wouldn't trade it for anything"
etc etc...until she hit me with the statement that will forever make me laugh on those days when my boys are really acting up. I must say first of all, that she said this with complete sincerity. No sarcasm whatsoever (and for those who know me, you are aware that I have a very refined sarcasm detector).

she "yeah, i know exactly what it's like to have twins. i just got two puppies."

Me "uhhhhh"!!!!!!

Is that Hand-made?

I have a very close friend who has a huge fear of becoming a parent - will she be capable of making the halloween costumes and the costumes for the school play? I, of course, understand that there are many types of parental fears and I certainly think it's fair to include this as one of them. However, I pose the following question - how much of a costume really needs to be hand-made to be considered "hand-made"?

I personally think there is a rather wide continuum. For instance - another friend has a very talented mother. Each year Granny sews an entire princess costume for her young granddaughter. I have no doubt that these are the most exquisite costumes you've ever seen on a 3 year old. And what a labor of love....possibly ending up completely covered in melted chocolate. So if my fearful friend were to buy (gasp!) a spiderman costume from the store and pair of red boots to send her hypothetical little one off as an adorable Spiderwoman, would this "count" or would she be shunned by all of the hard-sewing suburban housewives?

My little princes attended their Halloween debut this year dressed as M&Ms (William's "M" was upside down). I was frequently asked whether I made their costumes and I proudly shared that I did. And I truly believe I did - I downloaded a very tiny m&m graphic, enlarged it and smoothed out the pixels to create a template which I cut out and traced onto some white felt. once the felt was cut out, I sewed each M (or in William's case, "W") onto a green sleeveless onesie (shh...I bought that at a store). They wore the onesies over brown one-piece sweatsuits (again, purchased) which they wore for warmth - very important in San Diego...

Now I will probably win no awards as a seamstress, but one day I hope that my boys will be at least a little proud that their mom "made" their first Halloween costumes. And to my friend worrying about making her own costumes, I just say that I hope she one day has the opportunity to determine her own continuum.