Esther:
I wrote four thousand words today and that doesn't count facebook, forums, blogging or emails.
For some people that may be totally normal, but for me it means...

- My living room has been turned into a fort containing (or built out of) every pillow, blanket, and couch cushion we own, and is furnished with the contents of my entire kitchen.

- My kids ate cold cereal for dinner out of square tupperware because all the bowls are dirty.

- I've consumed roughly around two frappes, four cups of spiced black tea and a renegade cup of green tea here and there.

- I stared at my husbands empty pants and wondered where the heck he was.

- I was possessed by a sudden and unstoppable need to put the bathtub mat in the laundry.

- I started jumping at and correcting anyone who used an adverb in a spoken sentence.


I've lost it.

In this delightful world where nothing is as it should be, Jamie decided he didn't want to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween anymore. He wanted to be a dragon. A deadly nadder to be exact.


It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him no. I probably should have told him no. I mean, he already agreed to be Buzz Lightyear and we're coming down to the home stretch with reformation day/fall festival/all hallows eve/halloween/whatever-you-want-to-call-it just around the corner. But as the word "NO" was on its way out of my mouth I suddenly recalled that dragons have wings. I had hitherto counted my life hopelessly devoid of wings because I have boys and I can't really dress boys up as the dreamy little fairies I imagine. But it dawned on me with stunning clarity, that dragons are like fairies for boys. They can fly, and do magic, but they're way more badass and can breathe fire.

The truth of the matter is, I can never pass up an opportunity to make a pair of wings no matter how silly or nonsensical it may be, and thus we threw bedtime out the window and constructed a pair of preschool crafted, adult assisted dragon wings.


Step 1: Hanger.
Unravel and bend in wing like position.


Step 2: Dragon shoulder blades.
Use one of the slightly less dirty bowls in your dishwasher and draw two circles on cardboard. Connect the circles and cut out with a straight knife (scissors work in a pinch).


Step 3: Perform Frankenstein surgery on shoulder blades and wing bones.
Use masking tape, duct tape, floral tape, electrical tape or any other sort of tape you have to slash the wings onto the shoulder blades.


Step 4: Breathe life into the bones.
Have preschooler paint bones with the color of his choice.


Step 5: Surgically graft on skin.
Plug in the hot glue gun. And perform some good old fashioned hot glue surgery to something that probably should be sewn (in a perfect world). I used cheese cloth, but you could use whatever wispy, flowy fabric you have on hand.


Step 6: Add pigment to skin.
Re enlist preschooler into painting skin. Dip their fingers in contrasting color and let them have at it.


Step 7: Hang on door to dry and send preschooler to bed.
Ta daaa! Genuine dragon wings made by the loving hands of a 5 year old under the guidance and supervision of his harrowed mother.

*rest of the costume forthcoming.