Hellboy It Is! (Never thought I'd say that!)

As Brandon says... Winnah Winnah Chicken Dinnah!

I actually hate that he says that.

Its very annoying and I'm very irritable.

But Peyton agreed to be Hellboy tonight!!

I don't particularly like Ron Pearlman.  

(Can't forgive him as Clay Morrow)

But this little Hellboy at ComiCon is A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E.

And if I can't beat him I may as well aspire to be his mom.

JUST SO YOU KNOW

THIS IS NOT FINISHED PRODUCT

THIS IS A RUN THROUGH

NOT EVEN A PROOF!!!

But it was enough to convince Peyton that...

#1 Hellboy would be "easy". (aka quick)

#2 It's presentable.

Also he liked the red face.  

I told him that we'd do prosthetic horns for halloween and he insisted that these were fine.  

(They're not.  We'll do prosthetics.)

And here is my 8 year old boy being 8.  :)

And here is my 8 year old boy enjoying the things that are dressing up.

Didn't get pictures of this but he actually doesn't mind Almay.  

Just saying.  

Boys google "Almay".  

OK 

I know that Peyton thinks his resignation to be Hellboy 

frees him from my nightly painting of his face.  

But he's wrong.  

Now I have to perfect the sideburns and the horns and figure out how to find a 

Youth Large faux cowhide trench coat.  

Might have to make that.

Norman moms do a pretty good job at Halloween and I don't feel that I won with Olaf last year.  

Gotta redeem myself this year.

THIS. This is why you have children.

Who might have thought that Peyton's and my first real argument would be over a halloween costume?

... probably anyone reading this blog...

I knew that one day I would have to give up control of Peyton's halloween costumes but I didn't really think it would be this hard.  

full disclosure:  I HAVEN'T given up control.

Peyton decided in July that he wanted to be Five Nights at Freddy's Golden Freddy for Halloween.  Problem.  I had NO clue what that was.  But I was up for the challenge.  

THIS is Freddy

I actually didn't have a problem with dressing my son as a psychopathic animatronic bear.  

I DID have a problem figuring out how to do it.  

So this last weekend I finally broke it to Peyton that I didn't think I could pull of that costume.  It was a sad confession.  I had scoured our local stores and semi-scoured (quickly did a search) on Amazon and I really didn't find a Youth Large Golden Freddy costume or anything close to it that I could alter.

Its helpful (and by helpful I mean enabling) that my husband is on board with my costuming problem.  He was there when I tried to convince Peyton that we needed to go another route for halloween this year.  

Me:  I just don't think I can make a Five Nights at Freddy's costume that looks right.

Peyton: Thats okay.  Just try.

Brandon:  Peyton.  Your mom is going to spend a lot of hours and too much money working on this and you're going to look like a teddy bear.  Pick something else.

That's Brandon.  Just keeping it real.

So I took to the internet to find a costume that might satisfy Peyton's flair for the unusual and my need to "win" halloween.  

I suggested about every superhero I knew.

I suggested the obvious.

(Brandon told me I couldn't do Jack Sparrow.  "Everybody does Jack Sparrow.")

Nothing.

So finally I MADE him go to a costume store to get ideas.  

He did not seem to enjoy perusing fake blood and shiny wigs and a bin FULL of scythes like I expected.  

Until he found this.

Peyton:  (shoving a thick plastic bag full of brown velvet in my direction)  I want to be this!

Me:  No.  You cannot be a turd for halloween.

Sidenote: These things retail for SIXTY FIVE DOLLARS, y'all.

It was at this point that I realized that Peyton had sorely misunderstood our costume store outing.  (Also, I might have a problem on my hands.  He chose a POOP HAT.)

Me:  Peyton, we aren't here to buy a costume.

Peyton:  (blank, slightly annoyed stare) (when we tell this story in the future, we'll refer to this as the moment when my son should have realized that something was off with mom)

Me:  We are here to get ideas and then I'll make something better.  (obviously)

Peyton: can we just go home?

So, defeated, we headed for the door.  

BUT ON THE WAY OUT, Peyton found his dream costume.  

No joke, he hasn't stopped asking to be Slenderman.  Again, I don't know what this is.

On the plus side, I can totally buy a $54 costume and be done.

There is zero creativity here.  Anyone could have bought that costume.  Its a leotard onesie.

So I decided that Peyton just couldn't imagine himself in character.  That was the problem.

So I made him a deal.  (He LOVES deals.)

I won't choose his costume for him and he will let me paint his face a different way every night until we agree on a character.

(Pretty sure I just used his tactic of annoying me until I cave against him.)

(Mom win!)

I decided to go with the look that hooked me for our first attempt.

It was quick enough that he sat still for one eye and most of the mouth.

(no close-ups because it was actually more Heath Ledger's Joker than 16th century's Harlequin.)

See him scrunching up his face in the mirror!?!  There may be hope for him yet!

More pictures to come!  This MIGHT be my favorite halloween!

Perfect Sunday afternoon

One boy is watching football.  One boy is playing video games.   It's raining outside.  The crockpot is going.   The laundry is in the washer.  My stars are aligned this afternoon.  & now I lay down for a late Sunday afternoon snooze.  

The Summer of Allison Comes to a Close

Well.  Tonight is the last night of the Summer of Allison.

Tomorrow I will drive to Longview to bring a load of Brandon's things back to Norman.  (And see him.)  I'll get home late (LATE) Sunday night, go to work on Monday and, when I get home, Mom & Peyton will be home.  (YAY!)

So as I reflect on 8 weeks of single-lady-hood, I've learned some things:

1.  Its kinda boring
I work, I come home, I watch some Animal Planet, I make some kind of dinner for myself and I go to bed.  Single life (for me) is SO not glamourous.

2.  I miss my boys
They keep me busy but, it turns out, I like that kind of busy.

3.  My roots are Oklahoma summers.
When given the opportunity, I'll (apparently) choose "hot country" ... youngins, Modern Country, or Top 40 Country used to be called that... for my summer soundtrack.  And when I say "top 40" I may or may not mean top 40 from 20 years ago.  (TWENTY!?)

I've driven 6 out of 8 weekends this summer and I always land on some kind of country.

And it feels good.

I remember windmills (the little wood & metal kind - not the giant 3-blade kind), and the smell of gasoline for 3-wheelers and a big ol' garden and the freakin bull snake and wheat fields just before they're harvested and 100+ temps.

The last time I drove to Longview, I took the back roads to avoid Dallas traffic and I drove through countless little Oklahoma ghost towns (that Siri guided me through)  (seriously, I couldn't have made that drive without Siri) and remembered some Waynoka and Alva summers.   It was a good 5 hours.

I wonder if Peyton will have Tennessee summer roots.

And now I'm a wrestling mom

Life has changed in the past year.  

This time last year I would have said "maybe Peyton would get into wrestling later".  

Because his dad did in high school.  And was pretty good at it.  

(and that is the ONLY reason I know that wrestling is NOT the WWF?  WWE?  WWD?  IDK....)  

But 7 year old wrestling was something I knew nothing about.  

and 4 year old wrestling was something I certainly knew nothing about.

(its a thing.  They start at 4 years old and (besides my own kid) those are my favorite kids to watch!!)

But when the flyer came in the Friday Folder for Norman Grappling Club and, it turns out, 

7 year olds are plenty old enough to sign up, we did.  

I told Brandon that I thought it was great that he wanted to get Peyton into wrestling 

(why I do not know... I knew nothing about it)  but I needed him to be the point person for it.  

I could do the soccer mom thing but I didn't know how to be a wrestling mom.  

He said "okay".  And I believed him.  

What was I THINKING???  

Brandon was WAY too busy being a student to be at 2 practices per week.

So I figured it out.  

With some help.

And Mom (MaeMae, who lives in Tennessee) and I took Peyton to his first wrestling tournament in Moore, OK.  And I was OVERWHELMED!!!!

We got there like 4 hours early but I didn't have any idea what to expect, so I needed to observe. 

Organized chaos?

Peyton is down there somewhere.

Brandon was so busy that semester that he was only able to come see Peyton for a few minutes and wasn't there for his first match.  (which he was sad about)

This is called warm up.

His first match was.  underwhelming.

(and SO overwhelming all at the same time)

Turns out it went the way most first matches go.

You'll have to enlarge, but this was Peyton's first roster.

THIS is why Brandon always knows how much he weighed in high school.  Until January 2015, I could never figure out how he knew (to the pound) how much he weighed in high school.  Turns out wrestlers weigh themselves and monitor their weight more than a teenage girl.  

Probably because their mom already paid for their tournament and wasn't going to have them not making weight.  (thats a thing)

Peyton trying on his tournament singlet.

I wonder how many moms know the minute their kid won their first wrestling match.

3:52 in the afternoon!  WOO HOO!!!

I may or may not know the date....

And dad was there to see it!!!

Full disclosure:  

I had no idea what I was getting into and I was super nervous to have my kid wrestling.  

I didn't know ANYTHING.  

Like I couldn't even read a bracket.  

(this is important)

Or figure out what mat he was supposed to be on and at what time.  

(even more important)

Our first tournament was kinda terrible.  But we got through it together.  

And wrestling is pretty darn good for the kids.  They learn a lot.  

(including the value of showering directly after sweating)  

(and that, my friends, is a priceless lesson)

Now I can run a weigh-in like a champ.

I know what a weigh-in is.

I follow wrestling shoes on e-bay.  (because those things are pricey to buy new)

I know that you don't wear wrestling shoes off the mat.

Ever.

And I know why.

I know the relationship between athletic tape and wrestling shoes on tournament day.

I know how to read a bracket.

And that they cost a dollar.

And thats the best dollar you will spend on tournament day.

Here's to TWO match wins in 2016!!!

:)

Losing Teeth and Making Money

In my absence, Peyton has managed to lost several teeth.  

So many that I have lost count.  

But we've documented a couple.

The first one, of course.

We tried to pull it out for a while, but finally decided it wasn't happening that night and sent him to the bathtub.  Where he promptly pulled it out on his own.

His tooth fairy is generous!

Brandon finally had to get a try at pulling out a tooth.  

But it wasn't happening for him, either.

Peyton pulled it out on his own at school that time.

His teacher anticipated many lost teeth from her second graders and had the cutest little tooth shaped keepers to send teeth home.

Moving to Norman

In case you haven't figured it out...

we did, indeed, move to Norman.  A year and 21 days ago, to be exact.

I think it took me most of the year prior to the move to shed the TONS (thats not an exaggeration) of crap we had accumulated over 9 years.  

Several weekends in a row, we loaded up the curb with said crap.  

Usually twice per weekend.

People kept coming along to peruse the crap and take stuff.

Which was GREAT!

Sometimes it was awkward to be working in the garage and watch people take our trash.

If you ever saw our garage in the years right before we moved, this would impress you.

The left side was stuff that went to storage.

Right side went to Norman.  (smaller pile)

And off we went!

Buh bye Edmond!

And here is the cleanest Peyton's room has been all year.

He hadn't come back from his summer with Mae Mae and Paw Paw yet.