A Day in the Life: Great Great Grandma's Sweater

Happy Halloween everyone!

I hope you're all having a great time stuffing your faces with candy and getting creative with pumpkins! And ladies, please try to get creative with your costumes too. One of my all time biggest pet peeves is when girls use Halloween as an excuse to walk out their front door wearing lingerie. Adding a pair of cat ears or devil horns doesn't mean you're wearing a costume. It means that you're dressed like a trollop and you have bad taste in accessories.

Just saying...

Ok that was kind of harsh and I apologize. But I really do appreciate it when a little thought and creativity goes into a costume. It's been a while since I've been able to celebrate Halloween, but the last time I did I dressed up as The Paper Bag Princess. I love this story! It's a kids book by Robert Munsch about a Princess who plans to marry the perfect Prince Ronald. But a dragon drops in, destroys her kingdom, kidnaps the Prince and burns all her clothes forcing her to wear a paper bag. Long story short the princess sets out to rescue the prince from the evil dragon (you go girl!) but the douchebag prince is pissed that she's wearing a paper bag and looks like crap. So she dumps him and walks off into the sunset to live her life as a happy, independent woman. Here's a picture of my Paper Bag Princess costume:

That was a fun night. But I couldn't believe it when I ran into about 8 other Paper Bag Princesses that night....all of which had somehow managed to cut and tape together 'sexy' paper bag dresses, and had perfect hair and make-up. Did they even read the book?!?! Clearly not. I did feel a little sorry for them later on that night when it started pouring down rain. I'm sure their paper bags disintegrated and they all had to walk home in their underwear. I brilliantly thought ahead and completely waterproofed my paper bag with packing tape.

But then again maybe they did think ahead since 85% women were dressed up in their underwear anyway....they probably had cat ears or devil horns in their purses just in case...

Anyhoo, tonight was a big night for me.

I went to yoga!

That means I had to be away from Eleni for the first time ever. It was hard, but I did it.

The class started at 7pm so I asked Yia yia to come over at 6:30 so I could show her where to find everything and what time to give Eleni her bottle etc. She of course arrived at 6:20, which if you know Greek people this is hilarious. Greeks are always late. ALWAYS! But when it involves their grandkids, they show up 10 minutes early and catch you in your kitchen, in your underwear, eating nutella straight out of the container.

Or something like that.

So anyway, Eleni had her first babysitter and Mommy had her first time away. It went alright. The class was great, it was nice to see everyone and it felt great to stretch everything out. I did notice that by the end of the class though I couldn't concentrate anymore because I kept wondering if everything was ok back at the house. When I got back to the house Popou was here too and Eleni was wide awake and crying her eyes out. They of course assured me, with the biggest smiles on their faces, that everything was fine. And it was fine, it was just that they didn't know her bedtime routine and Eleni is not a fan of straying from the routine. I did try to explain the routine to Olympia before I left but she just kept saying "don't worry about it Tara, don't worry about it"...I wasn't worried. I was just trying to tell her what to do so Eleni wouldn't be wide awake and crying her eyes out when I came home. Maybe next time things will go a little more smoothly. But overall I was proud of myself for not having a panic attack and leaving yoga early because I'd imagined every possible thing that could go wrong while I was out.

Here are some pictures from 2 days ago of Eleni wearing a sweater that her great great grandma Mabel made. Grandma Mabel passed away quite a few years ago now but my great aunt Lowie was cleaning out a closet this summer and found this baby sweater that grandma must have made forever ago. How crazy is that?! So she sent it along with my mom and dad when they came to visit. I'm so happy that Eleni gets to wear a Grandma Mabel Original just like everyone else in the McClure clan has.

You'll notice that she's crying in every one of these pictures. I swear I didn't do anything to her, she just really hates it when people try to take pictures of her...but even her pissed-off face is cute as a button!

Actually she's not crying in this one...this must have been the first picture I guess

I love this little hat on her...she however, is not a big fan of hats. Hats and cameras. And breaking her routine. And beards. What can I say, the girl knows what she likes and won't put up with anything else. I have no idea where she gets that from....