Milestones

My son is turning 21 today.  This is not only a milestone in his life, but in mine as well.  He is my baby who arrived 7 years after his sister, just when we thought there would never be another child in our lives.

Aaron was, and still is, a very special person in our lives, especially in my life.  He quietly forged ahead with that beautifully sly smile of his that could melt anyone’s heart.  He was our little comedian who loved to join in playtime with his older sister. We have lots of fun photos of him dressed in hysterical outfits with masking tape mustaches and tissue box guitars, or wearing his pirate bandana behind the boxes painted like bricks that he and his sister used as their fort.

Aaron in my Halloween 'Bookworm"creation

Pirate Aaron in his fort

Aaron loved to wear a toolbelt like his dad and follow behind him with his toy lawnmower as he mowed the lawn.   As he grew, he loved fishing with his dad, camping,  playing baseball, soccer and basketball, and swimming every day during the summer at our swim club.

Aaron during his canoe trip to Canada

He even spent part of his summer during high school canoeing from Minnesota to Canada!  He is a true outdoorsman.  In high school he played lacrosse and threw the shot put.

Aaron began his artistic “career” in elementary and middle school when he won 2 art contests.  He always amazed me with his drawings, although he says he can’t believe he ever thought his work was good. As both his mom and an art teacher, of course, I disagreed with him!   He continued to follow that path in high school taking art classes, but as a very technologically savvy person, he was immediately drawn to Graphic Design taking as many computer art courses as he could fit into his schedule, ending with an independent study in Graphic Design his senior year.

His sister had majored in the Visual Communications in college and went on to become a graphic designer.  He is headed down the same road, at the same university and with the same major. I guess my genes won out over my husband’s in this area!

Aaron is going to be a senior in college in the fall.   This time next year, hopefully, he will have recognized his dream and will be gainfully employed as a graphic designer.  There is no doubt in my mind that he will be successful.

He has inspired me, even giving me the name for my crafts business when he was in elementary school.  In the past few years he has helped me with the newly developed graphic art courses I teach at my high school.  He has given me suggestions, ideas, shown me his work, and the work of many graphic designers.  He keeps me thinking, creating, dreaming.  The tables have turned, I started out being the teacher and ended up being the student.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Aaron on his 8th birthday with my version of his favorite Pokeman character

The best words of advice I can give to Aaron at this point in his life were written by Henry David Thoreau,“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”  Happy 21^st birthday to my baby!   Aaron, I hope you experience the joy and love in your life that you have given me in mine.  Thank you for being my inspiration!

Happy 21st Birthday, Aaron!

Halloween Traditions

I loved Halloween when I was young.  But then, what kid doesn’t enjoy dressing up as their favorite character and getting free candy?   As a child I loved dressing up and wearing makeup once a year and dumping out my treat bag after a day of trick or treating and counting and categorizing all my goodies into neat piles of bars, coins and the things that went in a bowl for my older brother and sister.  They were 6 and 7 years older than me, so because they didn’t go trick or treating anymore, they sat like vultures hovering over my candy stash waiting for my rejects. 

When I was young, Halloween was a big part of my year, not only because it involved dressing up and scouring the neighborhood for treats, but because it was always tied in with my birthday which happens to be the day before Halloween.   My mom always had my birthday party on Halloween, and all my guests came dressed in costume and after cake and ice cream, we headed out for an afternoon of trick-or- treating.  Back then, our costumes were thrown together with whatever we happened to have lying around the house.  Although the costumes fell a bit short of the wide array of costumes available to buy and rent today, we were very happy concocting our very own creations.  There was something very creative and special about digging through the attic, basement, dresser drawers and jewelry boxes in an  effort to create the best ghost, gypsy, pirate, jailbird, witch or baseball player ever.  True, these were your garden variety costumes, but the creativity involved in putting together those costumes was fun and memorable because we created them ourselves.

But as I grew older, Halloween took on a different dimension.  I saw it through different eyes when I became a mom.  There is something magical about a little one in a pair of feety pajamas with a little makeup painted animal nose and a pair of floppy ears atop a tiny headband that sets my heartstrings in overdrive.  I’m just a sentimental fool for things like that.

 My son as a fish in a barrel

My daughter as a  candy bag

So when my children arrived, I wanted to recreate for them, the magic that I experienced as a child with creating my own costumes.  Not only that, but the artist in me wanted to create something very unique for them.  My daughter arrived on the scene first, so all my creative efforts were concentrated on her.  I started out small, making a bee outfit out of black felt and yellow fake fur with an antennae headband.  Then came a unicorn with pink tights, a pink sweatshirt and a unicorn horn with multicolored yarn for a mane.  Then I really stepped it up.  Our town has a Halloween Parade and contest each year the local elementary school.  When my daughter entered kindergarten, the fun began! She was a cat from “Cats”, then a sandwich with an olive hat, a tree with a hanging swing and bird’s nest hat, a candy bag complete with cellophane wrapped candy and a chocolate kiss hat ( I also won a prize at our local fabric store for that one!) She was a cat in a tuna fish can, a mouse in a piece of cheese and a piece of birthday cake.  Then she grew up and created her own costumes.  The torch was passed.  We won a prize every year and I tried to outdo myself with each passing year.  I don’t know whether she had more fun wearing the costumes or I had more fun creating them.  She loved every minute of wearing those costumes and when I cleaned out my basement and threw them all away, I had to fight back the tears.

Enter my son, seven years later.  He began his first Halloween experience as a lion in Noah’s ark (of course I had to come up with something he could travel in).  He was a bookworm in a fairytale book, a fish in a barrel, and a cup of cocoa.  Although his costumes were also winners, he didn’t seem to enjoy the whole dressing up in Mom’s creations for very long and soon reverted to the pirate, the ghoul, a werewolf, then onto masks and hairy hands.  Maybe it was a boy thing, but however short the creative spurt lasted, I had a wonderful time creating those costumes for him.

My daughter has already hinted that when she has kids, that she wants me to create their costumes and keep the Halloween tradition alive.  My son is not quite in that traditional frame of mind at this time in his life, but maybe someday.  Even if my future grandchildren rummage through a box of old clothes in search of the perfect pirate, princess or monster attire, I can rest assured in the knowledge that Halloween traditions really haven’t changed all that much since I was a kid.  It’s still about dreaming, imagining and pretending, oh, and lest we forget, candy munching, the stuff that childhood is made of!

My son as a lion in Noah's ark