the trouble with Lola

Last year, Lola decided to be a princess for Halloween (rejecting the painstakingly made Tinky Winky costume I had saved from when Iris was her age, a costume so good a little child followed Iris down the sidewalk and into her Kindermusik class, saying in awe, "Tinky Winky! Tinky Winky!"). I made her a fancy pink princess gown with medieval veiled hat.

This year, she said ahead of time that she would be a princess again. That was fine by me, as we had two suitable princess gowns, extremely elaborate gowns sewn by me (one so difficult to make that I now feel qualified to sew the girls' wedding dresses should they ever marry, assuming they'd allow their aged mother to be their couturier). I figured I didn't need to lift a finger. Iris's costume of choice was to be her cat, Frowstomatic the Immortal God, and later she decided to add a cape reading "Super Cat" and be Frowstomatic the Immortal God & Super Cat. She already owned a black cat cap, courtesy of our friend M's Bunnywarez, so instead of sewing her a catsuit, I lazily bought her a black turtleneck, black leggings, and a black marabou boa, which I shortened to tail length. (This was the first year I didn't sew her an elaborate costume, and I feel ashamed).

Then, after we had assembled Iris's costume, Lola changed her mind. She wanted to be Al, her semi-retarded scrawny orange tabby (poor Al's natural idiocy is demonstrated on a daily basis). I couldn't just put this costume together so lazily (have you ever seen an orange turtleneck, size four year-old?). She stuck to this Al idea quite firmly, although I tried to convince her to be a fish,as I fell in love with a fish pattern. I ended up buying a pattern, yards of orange fake fur, and so on. After I'd cut out the fake fur pattern pieces, Lola announced she'd changed her mind and she was going to be Sleeping Beauty. I said, "Hell, no! You are going to be Al! I can't use that fake fur for anything else now, and I am NOT going to make another costume!"

She went back to thinking it was a good idea to go trick-or-treating as her cat.

The orange fake fur was terrible to sew, a frustrating fabric, but I finished the costume in a timely manner, and the fit was great (I'd altered the pattern pieces to ensure a good fit). However, Lola was in tears last night. I probed as to the reason, and it turns out that she felt she couldn't be a cat for Halloween because she is a vegetarian. I suggested that she could be Fashion Kitty, the vegetarian cat with super powers and a flair for fashion and helping others. This soothed the sniffling child. (We love "Fashion Kitty" and are eagerly awaiting a sequel).

God, I am ready to resign my role as Halloween Costume Creator. Needless to say, with all the sturm und drang over Lola's costume, I had no time to make myself anything decent. I picked up a cute Venetian mask, and I'm going to wear a formal gown and my black Venetian mask and be myself, but at a masqued ball in Venice. (I did once go to Venice, but not to any masqued balls, alas, and I need to return. I love Venice, and also due to constantly climbing all those little bridges over the canals, I returned with thigh muscles of the gods, which sadly atrophied the next month when I was put on bedrest for premature labor).