Meet my alter-ego – The Iron Uterus. Enjoy this post from the past as my Halloween Treat to you!

In third grade, while all the other kids wore their store-bought, lead-based
painted mask and tissue-thin plastic tunics with superhero abs imprinted on the front, my mother promised me I could wear my precious First Communion outfit, complete with embroidered lace floor-length gown, a lily of the valley bouquet and a tiara headpiece with flowing veil. I was ecstatic. I was going to be The Most Beautiful Halloween Bride EVER!

Until my mom stole my headpiece and flowers for her bowling league party.

She needed them because her team planned on dressing up as a shotgun wedding posse. Her attempts to appease and salvage my costume included a crocheted bedspread to drape over my head and some dusty fake tulips she pulled out of the attic. She handed them to me and said “You’ll be fine.”

I was not fine. I cried through the entire candy gathering ritual, presenting my tear-streaked face to each lamplit door and wailed “Trick-or-treat” pitifully.

People called me a jilted bride. I thought “jilted” was seventies slang for “your mama dresses you funny” and sobbed even harder. My pillow case overflowed by night’s end with candy people shoveled into it out of pity.

When I became a mom, I vowed never to put my children through such horrific, tear-filled Halloween torment. This mama wasn’t dressing her kids funny. Hell no! I’m the mom all the other moms secretly hate. I have created elaborate and authentic masterpieces with my sewing machine and glue gun skills. For my children, Halloweens would be happy!

For my beloved firstborn son, I had created a multi-patterned and detailed clown costume that would put Ringling Brothers to shame, complete with authentic face paint and hand-sewn juggling bean bags. And my reward for hours of back-breaking stitch work? Mother Nature had the freakin’ audacity to SLUSH ON ME!

You heard me. It wasn’t raining. It wasn’t snowing. It was slushing outside in below thirty-degree weather. Heavy, thick, ice blobs of slushie pelted the ground from the skies above, mocking me. This does not make for a Happy Halloween experience.

Like any good mother determined to let her kid beg candy from strangers, I strapped a see-through trash bag over clown boy and proceeded to drive him door-to-door in my iron uterus. I’d march his circus-bound fanny up to ring the bell and await with great anticipation the envious reaction of jealous
moms as they filled firstborn’s hand-made drawstring treat bag with chocolate
joy. Oh glory! Oh happy! Oh Halloween!

By the third house, firstborn’s face paint had melted to his belly-button, he was slushing wet from his pom-pom pointed hat to his lovingly stuffed and bow-tied Bozo shoes, he’d dropped his precious treat bag into a frozen puddle. . .

. . . . and he was crying.

That was the day I finally learned that despite the best laid plans, we are all destined to become our mothers. There’s no point in fighting it, so why even try? A mini-van is simply a tricked-out station wagon. Our mothers were the original Iron Uterus Generation. Their failures have taught today’s moms to strive harder for perfection, which in turn, our failures will scar the next generation for years of therapy to come.

Ain’t life grand?

Happy Halloween!

**Do you want to see more of “The Iron Uterus?”  Let me know, and I’ll throw a post in once in awhile.