Zen And the Art of Shooting Lasers Out of Your Eyes

I'd like to think that most of the time I'm a pretty zen mom.

I didn't totally freak out when I caught my teen trying to make a super powered water gun out of the leaf blower and a bucket of water.

No one compliments my dinner? Water off a duck's back.

And when I see that someone has tracked mud across a clean floor, I take a deep breath and count to three before taking a shoe print analysis  and recalling the offender for clean up duty.

One* thing, however, makes me so insane, I'm pretty sure that if I really focused, I could shoot searing laser beams out of my mad, mad eyes.

All anyone has to do to bring me to this state of psychosis is to reply to my request for help cleaning up, putting something away, or being responsible for a basic household chore with the following phrase:

"But I didn't do it."

Because I didn't get mud all over those pants, but I just washed them and folded them anyway.

And I didn't eat lasagna off that plate, but I just put it in the dishwasher anyway.

I certainly didn't pee on the floor and leave those skid marks in the toilet, but I just wiped, scoured, scrubbed and sanitized the floor and toilet anyway.

I have no tolerance for the "I didn't do it" excuse and am frankly surprised my kids have tried using it more than once.

I think I need to work on my laser beam eyes.

*Okay, two things.  I also pretty much go ballistic if someone spills lemonade on the floor.

Doctor Who? A Halloween Costume Primer

There are a geeky few who watch the British TV show, "Doctor Who," and my boys are among them. Not only do they watch it, they love it. So this Halloween, they wanted to be the Doctor.

There are different versions of Doctor because he is 900+ year old alien with two hearts who regenerates every so often. This is a handy little plot device that takes care of any actor drama, or fan malaise that may occur. Current actor not working out? Just get a new one and have the Doctor "regenerate."

Anyway, Jonah chose to be the 11th Doctor and Isaac is the 10th. Just so you know this isn't an isolated trend, there were three 11th Doctors at our trunk or treat, and I saw friends pictures of Doctors in Sacramento and State College, PA. So, it's not just my kids who love this show.

Here's how I made the costumes:

A good friend clued me into the women's suit section at Goodwill. Finding a boy's suit at Goodwill would have been a miracle, and men's sizes were just too big. But Women's small was almost perfect. Definitely workable.

Isaac is wearing a size 10, ladies brown pin striped suit. I sewed along the outside edges of the pants to make them fit his waist and left the coat alone, although it could have used a little taking in. I just left it as it was. He wore a blue shirt, a Goodwill red tie, and a pair of Dollar Tree reading glasses. The sonic screwdriver was purchased from Think Geek last summer. Oh! And the red Converse: also a Goodwill find.

I also mussed up Isaac's hair, but it just wouldn't stay mussed for long. But I think he still looks pretty good.

Jonah has a corduroy woman's jacket with elbow patches, white shirt, braces, and mostly red bow tie. The fez was a one episode costume accessory, but we decided to throw it in anyway. We found some boots that were blue and spray painted them black. The sonic screwdriver was from Think Geek and also purchased last summer.

Isaac ended up with 11 pounds of candy and Jonah had 8. I think I will suggest some homemade DQ-style Blizzards in the coming days to use of some of their stash. In the meantime, we have Snickers coming out of our ears.