Today's Forecast: 6 - 12 Inches of Snow

There are many things that fill a mother with fear. Some are major. Any woman who even contemplates motherhood can sense them, although she cannot realize that upon actually entering motherhood they will become too intense to even steal a glance at for a second. Those are the big things... the fear that something really bad will happen to my children, the fear that my children will become seriously ill, the fear that I will become seriously ill and unable to care for them. Then there are fears that a mother doesn't anticipate until faced with them. They include a fear that vaccines may actually harm my children, or that the school I send them too won't actually be a nurturing environment or that letting them drink non organic milk will cause them to enter puberty at six. Finally, there are the fears that no sane woman would ever register on her radar before motherhood and would actually mock any woman who dared speak of them.

I am facing one of those fears today.

Within the past three weeks, I have gotten back in contact with one of my oldest, dearest friends and roommates. We lived together in our early twenties. We were crazy young reporters who worked in offices filled with men. We were just learning to navigate the world - drinking wine we bought 3 for $10 at the grocery store, throwing theme parties on the roof of our apartment that anyone could join if they cared to crawl out the bathroom window to get to them, and acting generally shocked when married men twice our age hinted at going out for drinks. (I recently found one of the skirts I wore to work in those days. I see now, I should not have been shocked). We were young, innocent and having fun. It was with this same friend that I booked a $400 ticket to Paris. We landed, navigated the train station and spent the night in a luggage car filled with other twenty-something-year-olds, and woke up in Italy. When I stepped out of that train, I knew love. I was in love with Italy. I loved every moment of that trip. I loved everything I saw. I loved everything I ate. I loved every thing I drank. I loved looking around every beauty-filled corner for love. To me, Italy is still synonymous with love.

And so, when she told me in an email that she would be in Italy for a few days, my mind went back to that place. That place of being twenty-three, in Europe for the first time, unattached, alive with possibility. Filled with all the knowledge that being a twenty-three-year-old reporter who "practiced" for Italy by saying, "Ciao!" whenever possible and drinking $3.33 bottles of wine can bring. I read the email shortly before going to bed last night. As the light started to break through my window this morning, two beautiful Italian men were still following us down the street chanting, "Bella, bella, bella!" much to our young delight.

And then an urgent voice rang through the darkness.

"Mommy. Mommy. How many more days until Halloween? Is it really only three? Only three days, Mommy? Do I have school off because it is only three days? Mommy, what about my costume. Mommy? Mommy, don't you think we should make my costume?"

Ciao, bella.

And that brings me back to my fear.

It has been snowing here the entire day. That alone should cause me fear, but that is not the source today. The fear, the deep-rooted fear, comes from the costume. Alex wants to be a shark. Last year it was a pirate, which seems simple enough, except that he wanted a belt. Not just any belt, but a GOLDEN belt. He alone knew what this belt should look like and when two trips to the Salvation Army and calls for help to every grandmotherly/ friend type person who might have worn a golden belt in the 1970's failed to turn anything up, we hand painted a belt to just the golden hue he had in mind.

And now he wants to be a shark. As adults, we recognize that the possibility of transforming a human into a realistic looking shark is slim. As a five-year-old boy who not only likes sharks, but can recite the book "The Shark-abet" and pick a megalodon out from a shovel-nose guitar shark, I am not sure the line between fantasy and reality are all that clear. Add to this that the same boy has major concerns about how things feel. He wants them cozy. Not awkward. He hates bike helmets. The possibility of creating some giant paper-maiche creation for his head would be a waste.

And so I spent the entire snowy morning carefully constructing a shark costume from the only fabric he likes - sweatshirt material. I have cut fins and teeth and flippers from felt. I've made the teeth glow-in-the dark. I am still working on the eyes. Steve walked in at one point and said,"That looks great. You know he is going to hate it, right?"

And that is my fear. I could chalk it up to a fear of time and money wasted, but I think the real fear is in disappointing a little boy. I know his expectations are probably unrealistic. I know there is a slim chance that any costume I create could resemble the shark that resides in his mind. I almost feel a little bad that I have completely deprived him of superheros and that he can't just go buy a pumped up chest and a cape at Target and run around with unharnessed delight.

If worse comes to worse, maybe we can turn him into a shark superhero. Aquatic life that flies through the snow-filled streets helping people in distress.

And if that doesn't work, I'll pour myself a glass of $3.33 wine, put my fear in perspective, get out my 200 page photo album entitled, "Italy" and forget about the snow swirling around three days before Halloween.