No More Handmade Halloween Costumes.

I am certain I have used this vehicle as a platform to proclaim my strong disdain of store-bought Halloween costumes. I am as passionate about this as most are about political beliefs. Those who really know me know where I stand and I know bringing it up in mixed company would be deemed uncouth.

This immutable view took hold in college when my roommates and I needed little more than a glue gun, felt or fabric, pipe cleaners and duck tape to create our Halloween alter egos. We missed the memo that every other girl on campus received stating this holiday was for unleashing our inner punishable Catholic school girl or naughty nurse and, instead, took pride in making magic from common big-box store items.

One year, we were the Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf. What were we really? Three girls in white shirts with pink felt wraps at the waist, hot glued with felt "Pig 1," "Pig 2," or "Pig 3" letters and a menacing wolf in a brown dress, brown tights, brown clogs, and an oval piece of light brown fur pinned to her stomach. There were also pipe cleaner ears and tails and store-bought snouts in case our felt-on-felt costumes didn't make our ensemble clear.

A few weeks ago, my roommates and I had a chance to get together and spend a solid 15-30 minutes regaling a new boyfriend in the mix with our Halloween stories.

"We could do anything with felt and a glue gun!" one of us shouted, still proud of the truth in that statement.

Last night, my husband and I aligned on our son's Halloween costume. He will trick-or-treat as Bob the Builder because he loses his shit when he espies the inept handyman and Elmo just feels so trite and commercial.

Before the conversation was over, in my mind's eye, I was running down the aisles of Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and Jo-ann Fabrics filling my cart with Bob the Builder raw materials.

My husband's stern voice broke my virtual craft shopping spree.

"I need verbal confirmation that you WILL NOT make this costume."

"What?!" I said, surprised that he had followed me on my journey but sounding like I'd been caught with a pipecleaner hot glued to my back.

"Say it, Ann," he continued leaving the "ie" off my name which meant business. "You will not make this costume."

"Why?" I said buying some time to peruse my brown and yellow felt options and wonder what aisle would hold a hard hat.

"I swear to God, if our son has a felt toolbelt pinned to him, he's not leaving the house."

"But it's fun!" I shouted back.

"Fun for you. 15 years ago. Not fun when your son is the little boy in the felt costume. Buy it."

Defeated and misunderstood, I texted my college roomate with my husband's ultimatum.

"PINNED?" she wrote back, mocking my husband's knowledge of felt costume-crafting, "I think he means HOT GLUED! If the belt's off the table, make the tools!"

And there my friends, is the loophole. Like Sandra Lee, we will have a semi-homemade Halloween.

Let's All Agree To Stop The Absurd First Day Of School Pics.

The first day of school is several years away and I'm confident I won't live up to the expectations.

I am sure my son will be dressed in a clean, cute outfit. Ok, that's a lie. He's a boy. It will be cute but it may have some dirt or maple syrup on it.

I am also sure I will take a picture. Using my phone. The badass camera we bought in preparation for parenthood sees little play time. The vision of us as a camera-toting couple, using magical settings that make childhood look like a wispy cloud-filled fairy tale, hasn't quite come to fruition.

I'm fairly confident he won't be holding a sign with the date and his grade. Now, in theory, this is a good idea, but then again, so is Communism. I don't want to embarrass my son during the wedding slideshow when his first day of kindergarten pic pops up and the date is written in black Sharpie on the back of an open gas bill envelope.

I thought I'd found my out.

In late August my facebook feed filled with photos of children holding pinterested-out handmade signs declaring the first day of school. My initial horror receded into a dull annoyance only when I realized it was my Southern friends crafting Chevron striped, faux French Provinicial chalkboards and hiring talented baristas for the delicate scroll. If this is a Southern thing, I will gladly play my Northern card and pass on the antebellum ritual.

My horror returned today when moms in Upstate NY joined the shenanigans.

Ladies, let's stop the madness. I understand the pride in the first day of school but we are glamourizing an event that will happen 13 times and, quite honestly, looks like a pain in the ass. School supplies, early mornings, clean outfits, nourishing breakfasts, and the four years leading up to it that were filled with flying puzzle pieces and crushed Kix do not deserve a plaque.

Yes, I know your old friend from work quit her job and started a photography business and is now posting somewhat annoying photos 2-5 times a day with her logo on the bottom and making you feel incredibly inadequate with your camera roll, but what no one is telling her is that the sunswept, filtered, professional sign filled photos are dorky. Friends think it when they're posted and in 13 years your child is going to wonder why all her childhood events had props.

So, let's start a new trend. Change is hard, but it oftentimes begins with a small group of passionate people. I think we are it and I think we are needed.

Screw the sign and pin some mimosa recipes. Mix a giant batch. Bring this giant batch to the first day of school and take photos of you and your friends toasting yourselves for reaching the day with minimal puzzle-shaped scars marring your bodies. Shun anyone with a sign. In fact, make a sign that says, "If your child has a sign, you cannot have a drink."

By the time our first day of school is upon us, the mimosa trend will be all the rage and I will know who to thank. In fact, thank you in advance for your social activism. It's people like us who can truly change the world.

The Perfect Ending To A Long Day.

Yesterday was rough. My son wasn't particularly cranky, tired, or disagreeable, but rather, acting like a typical twenty-something month-old and testing every limit.

I told him not to hit the wall with his toy golf clubs. He heard me, lightly touched his putter to the wall and gently dragged it down the hall with an innocent look of someone who knows they've discovered the loophole.

Five minutes after naptime began, I heard his little voice screaming for water. The "I'm so dehydrated I'd take my chances with cutting open a cactus" trick is his latest to delay sleep and it's GENIUS because no parent will ignore a cry for water. Begrudgingly I brought it upstairs and was promptly told, "No water. I wanna get out."

He asked to go to the park and wanted to leave three minutes after arriving. I tried to stick it out. He started walking home. We left.

He demanded milk, juice, and ICED TEA at lunch but then decided water would be best. (Sidenote: It was not I who introduced him to iced tea.)

He wanted to go upstairs and then proceeded to throw blocks over the railing and chase them down.

He asked for a wagon ride and decided he'd like to pull the wagon himself and fill it with rocks.

Perhaps this all would have been fine if not for my 15 week-old beer belly which is wreaking havoc on my jacked-up back. I can't pick him up and when he asks and I say no he responds, "Oh. Back hurts." So you see, I have only my brains and no brawn in the fight. I'm losing.

Oddly, I decided cooking dinner would make me feel better. So I did. I made up a recipe for Spinach Stuffed Chicken wrapped in Pancetta, turned on Elmo and went to work. It almost felt like those wonderful days before parenthood when I would come home stressed out after work and cook to calm down. Back then, I was usually in workout gear and a little bit sweaty after an intense workout. Yesterday I was in the same gear and sweaty after a day of thinking about working out but never actually doing it.

My husband was running late so I sat down with the smallest piece of chicken to feed my son. Upon his first bite he said, "I don't like it."

Awesome.

Not believing it wasn't delicious, I took a bite and fell in love with myself. I proposed to myself. It was GOOD.

I watched him push it around his plate for 20 minutes requesting cookies and then gave up. "His loss," I thought, "this is good." I was excited for my husband to sample the day's domestic triumph.

With the boy cleaned up, I went into my room to brush my teeth as I was heading out with some friends as soon as my husband appeared. Mid-stroke, I heard a tiny little voice, "Mommy?" It was high-pitched and uncertain.

"Yah?" I mumbled over my buzzing brush? My response was a more urgent, "Mommy!" I dropped my brush and ran sure the boy had somehow wedged himself between the cupboard and the wall on a quest for a cookie.

What I found was worse.

My 100 pound Golden Retriever was ON THE TABLE and the CHICKEN WAS GONE.

I don't know what happened next because I blacked out. When the dust was settled I saw that I'd somehow hurled the dog off the table and out the door.  I'm pretty sure I told the dog I was definitely going to kill him in the near future.

I saw my son searching for "Mommy" where The Hulk now breathlessly loomed and calmed right down.

"Oh sweetie," I said, "it's ok. He's just a very bad dog (emphasis was on bad). He ate daddy's chicken. Now what will daddy have for dinner?"

Without a second of hesitation his little eyes, full of disbelief that I didn't know the answer, found mine and he answered, "hot dog."

I hugged him and glared at the dog through the door.

When my husband arrived my son retold the story which went like this, "[dog's name here] ate daddy's chicken. Bad Dog! Daddy have hot dog."

It ended up making for a very sweet toddler story and making me aim the day's frustration at the dog, but the dog is now dead to me. My only regret about the whole thing is that the chicken was boneless.

I Almost Beat A Door-To-Door Salesman With A Mop.

Yes, it's true. I almost just attacked a college-age boy trying to sell pest control services. He didn't catch me at my finest moment.

I had decided to clean.

This is rare.

I'm not a model of domesticity, but when I look around and realize the dog could probably survive for 48 hours foraging the scraps and crumbs on the floor, I take action.

Out came the vacuum, the bucket, and the sad excuse for a mop. Needless to say, I believe this was the mop's final mop and it's now on its way to the Swiffer team for the "mop in the garage/attic" casting call. It will NAIL the part.

Now, I don't clean much, but when I do, I give Cinderella a run for her money. Dustballs fly, sticky fingerprints come up, and sometimes I don a 1950s-style housedress to help me stay in the proper fram of mind.

Today, the dog stayed timidly behind me instead of retreating to his position under the stairs. This was lucky, or so I thought as I furiously mopped the area next to the front door and heard a knock on the door.

Looking through the peephole, I saw what I thought was a FedEx man awaiting my signature. Mop in hand, hair flying everywhere, pseudo housedress on, I opened the door and tried to block the innocent package deliverer from my ferocious Golden.

"He's going to run out," I warned the FedEx man, "give me the clipboard fast and I'll sign."

"Uhhhhh," the boy said to the crazy lady in front of him as she saw there was no package in his hand nor truck in the street.

My eyes narrowed, my grip on the dog's collar tightened, and I asked, "Who are you? What do you want?" all the while thinking, "God, please don't let this be a Jehovah! I don't want to waste my cleaning energy on this."

He explained he was with a pest control company.

I explained I was busy and not interested.

He asked if he could come back.

I said no so he kept talking.

I told him I had pest control covered.

He told me my neighbor said the same thing but was willing to give him a chance.

The dog, who usually runs outside with the force of a locomotive, circles the poor delivery man and snarls and lunges like a damn wolf, took this time to wag his tail and ask Mr. Pest Control to continue. "You asked me to eat a bug the other day," the dog said to me with his way-too-friendly eyes.

"I did!" I yelled back, "and then I called Orkin. What are you doing with the friendly tail?!"

As the young boy at my door launched into his company's selling points, I brought the mop uncomfortably close to him and then used it to emphasize the following phrase:

" I. Can't. Do This. Now. The Dog Will Run Out."

Then I shoved the dog back inside the house and shut the door on Mr. Pest Control. As it turns out, the dog, the mop and I are pretty good at keeping pests away.

Morning Sickness Turned Me Into A Charlatan

I love Western medicine.

I am descended from a line of doctors, and while freshman Organic Chemistry slammed shut my misplaced dream of carrying the torch onward, it did not extinguish my love and respect for the modern medical community.

I want to see a doctor; not a nurse and definitely not a PA. Community college and some two year extension school doesn't give one the right to wield a prescription pad or wear a white coat.

I want prescription drugs prescribed and and lab work run.

I want to see the giant diploma in Latin with the initials "M.D" or "O.B" engraved on thick, indulgent cardstock.

I want to know in the event of an emergency, knowledge is being pulled from The New England Journal of Medicine, not the internet or Chinese folklore.

I want to be admitted, I want my vitals taken, and I want my baby birthed in a sterile room with lots of sharp, sterile tools nearby. And for the love of God, I want the epidural.

Now, those who feel just as strongly the other way will understand that one's position is not something that changes. It's not right or wrong; although I don't know how Harvard, Georgetown or Einstein Medical School could ever be wrong, it's just what you believe and part of your DNA.

Recently, however, I've become a ginger-consuming, Vitamin B6 taking charlatan. Last week, in the middle of a meeting, I took out a bag of gingersnaps and had a moveable feast that followed me to every other meeting. Last night, I stowed ginger-ale in my purse lest I not be able to rummage some up at our destination. Today, I started Vitamin B6 to contain this low-level nausea to its lowest point.

The only reason I can do this with any shred of self-respect is because the doctor told me to try these things before we whip out some good old-fashioned prescription drugs.

Ginger snaps, you've got six days left before you get replaced with something less tasty but more effective. Best of luck. I'm pretty sure I know how this ends.

34 & Pregnant.

During high school, college, my early 20s, my late 20s, and well into the first year of my third decade, I knew getting pregnant was a first class ticket to ruin. "16 & Pregnant" may not yet have been a glimmer in MTV's prescient eye, but I knew young motherhood didn't lead to a house on a hill overlooking the ocean.

Realistically, "ruin" was too strong a term to use for pregnancy after I graduated from college, joined the working world, and wed. I owned a home, a car, a dog, a husband, a graduate degree, and a nice little corporate marketing job and still believed  pregnancy would have the same dire effects as it would were I 18.

When I promptly changed my mind, it took the universe almost a year to get the memo about my change in position. My dusty uterus, shut down by management for 15 or so years, quickly let me know that taking direction was not her strong suit and brought my son into the world on her own timetable.

Fairly certain that with a second child, the old dustbag will give me the same run-around, her timetable is being taken into consideration.

Well, isn't the universe a bitch.

Several weeks ago, I walked into the breakroom at my new office where the product we sell covered every square inch of counter space.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed loudly to fellow employees I don't know, "it smells awful in here!"

No one agreed.

A few days later, walking through the grocery store I was struck by a hunger I hadn't felt in over two years. My grumbling stomach fell to the floor as I headed to the pregnancy test aisle.

Perhaps it is because she is a bit of a control freak who still has something to prove or perhaps it's her way of apologizing for the past shenanigans; either way, she has proven once again she is in charge.

In less than 10 minutes, not the YEAR I'd planned for, I got pregnant.

The past 11 weeks have been a discomfiting mixture of nausea and shock. Don't get me wrong; I am thrilled there will be no second round against my uterus, but I hear her laughing and wryly reminding me to adjust to her calendar and erase mine.

In the meantime, I am drafting a pitch for the next hit MTV show, "34 & Pregnant." This unique, true-life series will star moms on the brink of "mature" maternal age who don't understand the consequences of unprotected sex.

Half-Assed Book Giveaway

Well where the hell have I been, you ask, sorely missing my somewhat entertaining posts. I have been on a summer travel adventure trying to disconnect from the world. Ok, that's a lie. My hard drive, on the 50lb laptop my new employer gave me completely crashed mid summer travels, so I've only been connected via phone and an ipad that is best suited to play Elmo's World and run the Fisher-Price "shapes" app 20+ times a day.

Speaking of travel adventures, my little guide is up on Amazon and I'm (self) published!

The Cape Doesn't Work; How To Fly With Your Baby, Supermom

I've read and re-read this damn thing so many times that I can't tell anymore if it's any good, but I do think it's quite helpful and entertaining. Soooo, if you've been missing my posts out here, go get a 100 page fill of me here! Were I tech-savvy enough to understand rafflecopter, which I see on blogs about makeup and fashion, I would do a giveaway and give out some copies.

That's a lie, too. I don't read makeup or fashion blogs. The quest for the perfect shade of lipgloss or the best way to rock a fedora is not high on my problems list.

So, what can we do. Got it! If anyone is interested in writing a review of the book on their blog email me and I'll send a complimentary copy to the first 20 people. Please understand the scope of the assignment: you must read it and then write an honest review for your millions of followers.

Got it? Ok, I'm waiting: annie025@gmail.com.