Celebrating Halloween without much enthusiasm and "I don't like it"

I am so sick with the most rotten cold I've had in years that this Halloween was more of a chore than anything. I carved the least creative pumpkin I've carved in years, didn't decorate much (I always decorate the day of), handed out candy without much energy.

Such a bummer to be sick, I have so much to do and had no energy whatsoever to do it. Somehow, by the grace of God, I still managed to accomplish a lot: grocery shopping and other misc. errands, laundry, laundry sorting and folding, tidying up, the aforementioned pumpkin carving and Halloween decorating, washing cat litter pans and washing the bathroom floor where the cat litter pans are kept. (This is in the basement, where my present foster cat family is kept: Mama and 6 seven week old babies who make a big mess, because, well, they are just babies!)

Today I am amazed at myself for doing so much. I was basically on auto-pilot.

At least I didn't have Halloween costumes to sew for little ones. I remember one Halloween staying up all night to finish not one but two costumes. You see, having 2 girls, my younger one would generally wear the older one's hand-me-down costumes, but at 3 years old, it seems the only words she knew were "I don't like it". She'd take one look at what I had cooking for dinner, and even if it was something she had never had before, she'd say "I don't like it". So when she saw the witch costume I had for her to wear that year, she said: "I don't like it". Also, back then I felt that I had to sew the costumes to be a good Mom. So off to the fabric store we went, we looked at patterns and she agreed to a clown costume. I started on a fairy princess costume for my oldest and the clown costume for my youngest. I was working full time back then, so I ran out of time and had to sew late into the night before Halloween. As if it wasn't enough I was working under pressure, the fabric for the fairy costume kept ripping up, getting me more and more frustrated and tired, my nerves more and more frayed. However, I did finish both costumes and I felt accomplished. The clown costume turned out so nicely. And all within budget! I couldn't wait for the girls to get up and see their costumes. My oldest loved her costume, but the little one took one look at hers and, you guessed it, "I don't like it". Overtired, I burst into tears. I told her she was wearing it anyway.

Funny thing is, she let me put the costume and the make-up on without a word and toddled off to preschool without so much as a protest. This is when I realized that perhaps she was using that stupid "I don't like it" comment without really knowing what it meant or without really meaning it, in a way that only 3-year olds can do!

Believe it or not, this didn't deter me completely from making more Halloween costumes.

Well, enough time has gone by since then that I can laugh at the whole thing with my youngest, now that she's 16 years old! (Besides I know that some day, hopefully, I'll have my revenge with my grand-children!)