I used to be really crafty. As in arts and crafty.  I have a closet full of drawers filled with glitter, pipe cleaners, googley eyes, buttons, construction paper, markers, and yes, I own a glue gun and I know how to use it.

I have always loved holidays of course, because they are such crafty occasions. Especially Halloween. There are endless outlets for creativity.  So I was surprised at my reaction yesterday when I heard about my sister in law’s Halloween party and all the amazing things she did for the kids. Here’s an example: She took a donut hole, put a dollop of cream cheese on it, and a blueberry for the iris to make it look like an eye, decorated it with red frosting to make the veins, and stuck a toothpick in it and froze it. The kids had eyeball lollipops. How cute is that?  It is very cute! You’d think that I’d race out to the nearest donut shop, hit up Michael’s and get started.  But not so. What I thought was, “I’d rather stick toothpicks in my own eyeballs than deal with any of that.” WHOA! What? Me? But…I am CRAFTY!

Have I lost it? What is happening? Here’s what’s happening…I am a mom to a 2 year old and a 4 month old baby. I’m all tapped out. Halloween is in a few days and I can’t even deal with putting much effort into my kids’ costumes. I bought (yes, bought) a monkey suit for my 2 year old and for his baby sister, a banana suit. I didn’t make them, but they sure are cute. I was planning to dress up in safari gear and complete the theme. It only took my son three minutes of wearing the monkey suit before he threw it off in a tantrum, refusing to ever go near it again. The banana suit is insulated for a tundra and my poor baby girl sweats buckets before I get the peel zipped up. So that’s a bust. The crafty girl in me wants to make something unique, but what is probably going to happen is that I am going to put my toddler in skinny jeans and a hoodie, blow dry his hair forward and boom…instant Bieber. Babygirl can be a Bieber fan and so can I. Done.

I hope this is a phase and that someday my craftiness will find it’s way back to me. I’d like to think it has not left me, that it is just dormant. The fact of the matter is that I am in toddler/baby phase and these days I just don’t have it in me to be super creative. The thing is, there’s nothing my son would rather do with me that sit and make pretend food out of play-doh. And my baby girl? Well she just wants me to hold her, make faces, talk to her, smile and laugh. I can do those things all day long. Some moms can pull it off. They are rock stars and I envy them. Ten years ago, I may have been able to do it all, but for now I am keeping it simple. I will leave the glittery googley eyed pom-pom pencils to the preschool teachers.  They have their job and I have mine. And I gotta say, right now, I love my job! It requires more hugs and kisses than glitter and glue, but I'll take it.  Now if you’ll excuse me, my son’s purple clay burger is lacking pickles.