I need at least another week to get ready, OK?

So this is the weekend my father is coming.

I am a little stressed.

I've been working all week on getting the house clean, but for some reason it doesn't seem to have made any difference. It looks at the moment like a tornado has swept through.

As my mother always used to say, "If everyone in this family would just stop eating and wearing clothes my life would be a lot easier!"

Of course, I keep thinking about all the things he could find to criticize me about. Dad's way of expressing love is to tell you how you don't measure up to perfection. He thinks of it, I'm sure, as helpful to let us know how we are failing. I suppose that's why I'm such a perfectionist. I'm just glad that Dad is visiting on a weekend that the husband is off. I'll need the support!

I'm also trying to work on Halloween costumes. Arielle has decided that she wants to be a ballerina, which is a relief, because for a while there she was saying she wanted to be Spiderman. I am in no way able to make a Spiderman costume! (She's never even seen a Spiderman comic book yet, so I'm guessing she got that idea from someone at preschool.) I have decided that Gabrielle will be a garden fairy, mostly because we already have wings and a wand. All I have to do is put together some kind of flowy, fun-to-wear, dress-like thing.

I need to make them some costumes just for play, though. We were over at a play date the other day with a boy who has about six different dress up costumes. He had everything from Shrek to a puppydog to Buzz Lightyear. The girls loved it. They ran around in the different outfits and had a complete blast. So I've been thinking. I've got some black fleece I got at a fabric stores going out of business sale that would be great for some kind of animal costume. I could easily pull together some sort of generic hero costume I'm sure.

I wonder if Halloween costumes will go on clearance November 1?