Through The Looking Glass

A few lovely, creepy, spooky things I have come across today:

Mike Libby’s Insect Lab

Custom Creature Taxidermy

“They Don’t Come Out At Night”

Bat in the Belfry

Halloween Gift Tags and Grave Cupcakes

Graveyard cake by Frank

(Un)happy reading!

I really, really, really want to win a pink Dyson. But I’d also be pretty happy if one of you won. Hurry! The contest ends TODAY! (Via OMSH.)

We have no plans. It’s hard to have a nice Halloween when Daddy works till after dark. I am maybe a little depressed about it.

Another year has gone by and I did not make Sam’s costume again. What is wrong with me? Every year I have said I was going to make it. I even had a plan. But last year we bought his costume and this year we borrowed it. I feel like a failure.

At least I have my Owly bats. Huge happiest thanks to whomever linked to them. (Lots of people have, but I first was directed by somebody-or-other to The Small Object, who wrote about the Bat Pack here.)

On the other hand, I have already begun (gulp) getting ready for Christmas. I think the problem with Halloween is that it seems so far off all summer and then all of a sudden it is October and there just isn’t enough time. Christmas at least is almost two whole months off, with just Thanksgiving (which I love) in the middle. I feel like I have time to prepare.

(The title of this post refers to the greatest store of all time, a button shop in Manhattan.)

I thought I was setting myself up for a serious mess, but Sam was really adamant so I helped him pick up his blocks and put them away, then unscrewed the lid for him. He dumped the buttons out on the floor and is now very carefully putting them back in a few at a time and trying to screw the lid back on. He has also integrated the pens which I find hilarious.

I just started a sweater for Sam to wear on our upcoming trip east. I wantonly skipped swatching for gauge, and now that I am far enough along to check it I am SHOCKED to find that I am spot-on. SHOCKED.

The Mighty Goods Holiday Gift Guide is online. I admit it — I want five gold rings. (A budget version of the list is forthcoming.)

“He can’t even shoot lasers out of his eyes.” How can I — a die-hard Batman enthusiast — really argue with that?

At the playground for Evan’s birthday Sam made friends with a sweet eleven-month-old boy who was sitting in the sand with a shovel and pail. The boy also had a rake, which he was happily playing with, and Sam picked up the shovel and started putting sand into the pail. (He has never done this before and had only briefly observed another little boy doing it earlier. I am not much of a bragger, really, but my boy might be a genius or something. You heard it here first.)

The boy’s parents, who seemed very nice, worriedly said to me, “He has a bit of a cold, should we take that away?” I appreciate their concern, and maybe they are like me and don’t think a cold is really a big deal but know that most parents think it is. Or maybe they are germophobes and would run screaming if I let their kid play with something my kid had sneezed on. It would be their right. (Well, not screaming. That is way overly dramatic.) But I am once again left feeling that I just don’t get other parents. The level of concern for keeping kids shielded does not make any sense to me. If Sam gets a cold, he gets a cold. I really doubt he will.

The real problem is that I do not know how to talk to other parents. I do not feel that I relate to most of them. There is this disconnect, real or imagined I don’t know, and I can’t surmount it. I can’t relax if I think the other parent is worrying constantly about their kid getting a germ or falling down or something else that I think of as totally normal kid behavior. There are always exceptions, of course. In reality I relax all the time. But there are also days like Saturday where a nice interaction turns into me feeling awkward with little to no provocation. Ugh.

I like all of the parents I know and most of the ones I meet by chance. I just don’t feel like we’re in the same club. And I don’t mean that anyone makes me feel excluded by meanness or anything like that. Just that I feel like I am on a totally different wavelength.