Or sleeping angels?

You decide.

My day today.

Got up to gorgeous Texas weather….blue skies, 70 degrees.

Took the kids for a walk on the nature trail around our neighborhood. After a few minutes of fighting, they were able to agree on a name for it, The Amazing Full Moon Forest. I almost burst with pride, the words “stupid” and “Jeez” were only used once or twice. And we were off…

There were trees to climb…

And sticks to find….

Oddly enough, this particular time the sticks were not used as weapons of destruction between Mr. C and Miss G…they were used to make “leaf snow”. One stick bearing child would hit the branch of a tree of his or her choice while the other one stood under it and leaves fell all around them giggling with delight.

After an hour or so, it was time to head home….

Whatever is in the Amazing Full Moon Forest needs to be bottled up and sold in the open market because I have never seen two such well behaved children. And especially not mine...

Last night marked the official start to the Halloween weekend in the Stiletto house and that can only mean one thing…time to carve the pumpkins! The kids carefully selected the designs they wanted and then we went to work. And by we, I mean me and The Man because beyond picking the designs the kids didn’t really want much to do with it unless it involved very sharp tools which we generally find to be a bad idea. We were able to momentarily enlist the talents of Miss G who really enjoyed digging the guts out…

…and there are no pictures of Mr. C because he was more interested in watching Total Drama Island and popping in and out ocassionally to supervise myself and The Man.

Almost two hours later with sore arms and covered in pumpkin guts “the kids” had finished their pumpkins.

Not bad, huh? And it was all worth it too, because now I am a hanging with the cool kids over at Sprite’s Keeper in her weekly Spin Cycle. Happy Halloween you guys…hope it is a safe and happy one with lots of treats and not too many tricks!

When I was in first grade, I went to a Catholic school where we had to wear uniforms every day. One precious day a year, all the kids were allowed to wear whatever they wanted for the grandest day of all…picture day. One boy? Got to wear a turtle neck and LOVE BEADS . He was totally the coolest 6 year old in all of 1971. But not me, nope….my mom put me in an itchy green dress with an ugly scarf to go with it. I did have some pretty rockin’ white patent boots though so it offset my otherwise middle aged attire just a little bit…but not much. It didn’t help that I was sort of a chubby kid with no athletic skills that people picked on.

I got to school on picture day and after enduring an awful lot of laughter over my stylish dress green polyester frock, I looked around and realized all the “popular girls” had bangs while I did not. My mom prided herself on not having given in to cutting my bangs despite my begging her…I had long wavy brown hair that she could do all sorts of things with to make me look even more like a middle aged 70’s housewife. (And not that there is anything wrong with housewives, but honestly, do any of you want to look like your Mom did then? Hip and cool were so not in vogue then in middle America…)

Well, I showed her a thing or two. Everyone, please meet Stiletto Mini, the 6 year old version of The Stiletto Mom.

See those crooked bangs? Yep, those were clipped by yours truly in Sister Mary Catherine Francis Angelica Margaret Elizabeth Anne Catherine’s (bc you can’t have too many Catherine’s) class with a pair of little kid safety scissors. Look at that uneven line…but more importantly, look at that evil gleam in my eyes. VICTORY! I may be dressed all wrong but man…I showed her….I totally jacked my hair 5 mintutes before pictures…take that! Also? While it looks like I have a missing tooth? I don’t…it’s a SPIT GAP. Ok, so let’s put all this together, chubby kid, dressed like a 1970’s polyester wearing forty year old, uncool hair plus spit gap equals??? You got it, six year old meltdown with safety scissors. Granted, it could look worse but there was a good four minutes spent trying to make them appear even for the picture with tremendous amounts of nun spit and I believe Elmer’s Glue…though I can’t be sure.

When my Mom came to pick me up that day, the nun stoically marched me out to the car and handed me over to my horrified Mother. I’m not sure, but I think they could hear her scream all the way up in Oklahoma, “OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR????” And what did I say? “I fixthed it Mommy.”

So when Oklahoma heard these very words come out of my mouth some 37 years later this weekend, they should not have been suprised. None of this should be a shock to me either because Miss G is a carbon copy of me. (Wanna know what she looks like? The picture above, with blonde hair….evil gleam in eye is the same)

Keeping in mind tht Miss G’s circumstances are totally different…she has a the tiniest bit of a spit gap, is very fit, wears super cool clothes and is generally popular, the thing I learned this weekend is bad hair happens to all of us.

Apparently, it went down like this. She had a headband and put it in her hair. Her hair, however, did not want to cooperate and would not form the perfect swoopy on her forehead. So doing what any logical 6 year old girl birthed by me would do…she got out the scissors and went to town. While she did not create the full bangs like I did, she managed to take a huge chunk of hair out of the middle of her face and elected not to tell me but to tuck it into the headband (you know, because I’d never figure it out right?)

Well I did figure it out. While I was on the phone with my cousin (who knew my mother all too well) all of a sudden Oklahoma heard from a crazed Catholic Mom from Texas one more time…“OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR????” And what she say? “I fixthed it Mommy.”

Well, of course you did. And now, Miss G, you have bangs just like Mommy did in first grade. You enjoy growing those out honey.