Making the costume, making the memories

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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Ok, so Halloween is just around the corner. My daughter will turn 2 in a little over a month and a few weeks after that (if not before…) we’ll welcome a new family member into our house and our home and our hearts.

And so, as you probably guessed, I’m feeling a little panicky at this point. There’s not much time left to get my office cleaned out and made into a proper baby’s room or make the “plan ahead” schedule for the work that needs to continue to move forward while I’m in my post-baby fog. Running my own business means I don’t technically get maternity leave, so it’s up to me to get prepared if I want some time off. So far I’m not prepared.

At all.

But I could be working on being prepared, except there’s too many other fun things to do, like hit up the pumpkin patch in the big town this weekend, force Edie out of her prairie dress and into one I’ve had in the closet for six months and make her pose for her “almost” two year-old photos and, of course, most important of all, get to working on her Halloween costume.

Which is what I did a few weeks ago when she was at her Nana and Papa’s (instead of working on the office/baby’s room like I planned.) I found this adorable idea online and ordered the supplies and sat in front of Netflix and got to work.

Buy this costume from lauriestutuboutique on Etsy. Or try to make it like the fool I am…

When the tutu was done I was so excited at its poof and fluff and pretty certain my frilly daughter would find it suitable and wonderful and whimsical just like I imagined. I couldn’t wait to show it to her, to try it on and finish up adjusting the straps before hanging it in the closet to await the big day of Trick-or-Treating. I could just envision her delighted smile and giggle. I felt like Martha Stewert and super-mom and the winner of Project Runway all combined into one emotional, pregnant mess.

And then she got home and crushed my dreams. One look at the brown, orange and yellow tutu sent my toddler into a physical reaction of distaste and disgust. And then, because she’s a good talker, she followed up the sour look on her face with the following words, spoken as she pushed the homemade costume away from her before turning her head

“Don’t like it. That dress is gross.”

Cue a mother’s heart breaking in half. I had to go into my messy office/baby’s room, papers and baby decor scattered from wall to wall, and sit with my failure, my unnecessary hormonal tears and the “gross” tutu I had created for my baby who clearly isn’t a baby anymore.

She followed me in there then, and with the same disgust on her face, removed the tutu from the bed, placing it outside the door and out of her line of sight, and then climbed up beside me.

“Mommy cry? Don’t cry mommy,” she said as she leaned into my shoulder. And that made me laugh and shake my head, realizing I was watching a strong, independent girl who knows what she wants develop right before my eyes.

But what Edie doesn’t know is that I’m a strong, independent girl myself and I am working on ways to win this battle, the same way I won the battle of the dress this morning and managed to get her to smile for the camera in that adorable denim frock just the way I envisioned, dammit. It took an hour, some tears and a gramma intervention, but it happened.

I won.

This time anyway.

I’ll keep you updated on the Halloween costume situation. But if she’s going as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz this year, it’s because we just might be able to pass the dress she’s currently obsessed with off as a costume, all it needs is some ruby slippers, a basket and a Toto.

Happy costuming parents and friends. Enjoy this “From the Editor” piece for this month’s Prairie Parent, where I explain why I even try. And while you’re there, read more from our amazing contributors on traditions and why they matter in our families.

Making the costume, making the memories
Prairie Parent, From the Editor
October 2017

Passing the Halloween torch

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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It’s Halloween. And true to my nature I stayed up late last night gluing Edie’s gumball machine costume together and cursing myself for waiting until the last minute, because, EEEK! I ran out of little pom-poms and I live a good hour and a half from the nearest 24 hour Walmart.

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Why couldn’t I just order her a costume from Amazon.com for crying out loud?

Why? Because it looked like an adorable and easy idea a month ago when I found it.

And I think I like to make stuff. Even if I procrastinate the shit out of the process.

Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays because of those two things, because I rarely make plan until the last minute and apparently I like the thrill of creativity under pressure.

Some of my best work has come a good hour or two before our last minute plan to attend a Halloween party.

White Trash.

Bacon and Eggs/Before and After

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But it’s been a few years since we’ve hit up a bender of a Halloween party. Last year I could have gone as a blimp and I wouldn’t have needed a costume.

This year I spent the weekend obsessing over staining the house. And in case you’re wondering, it didn’t go well. I mean, #1: Who in their right minds designs a house that needs to be re-stained every few years? And #2: Who makes that house so tall even their tallest ladder can’t reach the top?

It’s a Halloween worthy nightmare that will last our entire lives. (Or at least until we make enough money to buy ourselves out of DIYing…)

This is the short side of the house, so who needs a ladder? I call it Redneck Renovation (Innovation?)

Anyway, I’ve never spent a Halloween with our baby, so I’m planning on doing what we can do for the holiday with an almost-one-year-old. I’ll find mom’s witch hat and we’ll head to town this afternoon to hang in her store and hand out candy. Then I’ll make the rounds, say hi to some neighbors, show her off and likely, spend most of my time putting the bubble gum hat back on her head.

Don’t worry, they’ll be pictures tomorrow, you know you can count on it:)

Oh, and if you don’t yet, follow me on Instagram for photos on life out here.

And because this baby and my Halloween crafting project makes me nostalgic, here’s this week’s column on the memories I have of trick-or-treating along the country roads.

Coming Home: Princess of the frozen tundra passes the Halloween torch
by Jessie Veeder
10-30-16
Forum Communications

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I was a princess once.

It was a long time ago in a faraway, mysterious frozen tundra called North Dakota. I was beautiful. My crown was made of glittery pipe cleaner, my dress a hand-me-down from my fair mother, shoulder pads for dramatic effect, taken in at the waist with 37 safety pins, and it swept (drug) on the ground ever-so elegantly, collecting fallen leaves, dirty snow and candy wrappers the way every magnificent princess ballgown should.

I addressed my kingdom in a short, 1990s camcorder clip featuring a stunning and dramatic speech littered with impediments because I was a princess who couldn’t quite say my “R’s” correctly. And before I headed out the door to survey my territory, I pulled on my baby blue, puffy winter coat and well-worn snow boots, even though I fully intended on a mink shawl and glass slippers, because it was Halloween in North Dakota, and when it comes to parents, there are some arguments even a princess can’t win.

Yes, I was a princess once.

And then I was a clown in a hand-me-down, red and white, homemade zip-up suit and hat, complete with rosy cheeks.

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And once I was Pippi Longstocking, and I made my braids stick straight out and wore my dad’s lace-up work boots. And long ago, I was a ghost with spiders in my hair, then an old woman in a lace dress taken from my great-grandmother,

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and an alien with neon-green hair and a tinsel dress that my mom wore in a 1970s production of “The Wizard of Oz” in which she played the Tin Man.

Yes, ’tis the season for goblins and mermaids and 7,000 Ninja Turtles and “Frozen” characters to start gearing up for an evening of a make-believe parade down city sidewalks and doing the things that children do on a holiday that was invented to keep us young and full of imagination.

But my Halloween memories don’t include those sidewalks, because we didn’t have many on the miles of gravel roads connecting us to our “next-door neighbors.” Our trick-or-treating rituals looked more like dressing up in homemade costumes my best friend and I had been planning and perfecting for weeks, standing in front of dad’s deer horns hanging on the wall to pose for a photo next to my little sister who was dressed as a pumpkin and then piling into the minivan with the neighbor girls while our dads drove us through the 10-mile loop so we could unload and load up again at all seven houses.

One year my best friend went as a picnic table, to-scale and complete with at least two table settings, so you can about imagine how that car ride went.

But we didn’t care; you could have piled six more kids in that minivan, and we would have never wished for a sidewalk or streetlights. We were convinced us country kids had the best Halloweens. Because at that time, we were some of the few, we were special, and our neighbors were expecting us. So at each of those seven or so houses, we loaded up on handfuls of candy, treat bags complete with pencils or pinwheels, full-sized candy bars, bags of popcorn and a chance to take our time, show off some tricks and model our costumes, strutting and showing off what we worked so hard to put together.

And at the end of it all, we all we unloaded at the final house, dragging pieces of our costumes behind us, disheveled and tired and ready to dump our pillowcases full of treats on the carpet to sort through while our parents visited in the kitchen.

Today, in my kitchen, the supplies for Edie’s Halloween costume sit in a box on my countertop, and I just realized the torch has been officially passed as I turn from back-seat princess to minivan driver. But my friend up the road has four kids, so if we want to ride together like we did in the old days, we might need to see where we can get a small bus … especially if anyone plans on going as a picnic table this year.

This costume idea brought to you by breakfast.

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Well, Halloween’s officially here, though we already celebrated the shit out of it last Saturday at a house party down the road.

This costume idea brought to you by Saturday’s breakfast. It’s sort of an educational effort, a farm to plate demonstration if you will.

Just doing what we can to promote the agriculture industry, working hard to keep it as realistic as possible.

And, although it’s hard to believe, I’d like to tell you that not a stitch of sewing went into any of these creations. I mean, you wouldn’t guess it, the way those wings look like they could just take a floppy, chicken flight at any moment.