As far as holidays go, few make me feel as inadequate as a mom as Halloween. I want to embrace Halloween with arms wide open, but unfortunately, those arms are supposed to be attached to hands that can sew fabulous costumes and make homemade caramel apples and create cleverly decorated cupcakes that look like witches or ghosts.

Those arms are also supposed to be connected to a very creative brain that can come up with fabulous Halloween costume ideas that can be slapped together with a cardboard box, some pipe cleaners and tin foil. 

I want to be that mom with those arms -- I really do. However, I am not.

I am the mom that desperately hopes my children will want to be something we can buy at The Disney Store or Target, even if it isn't cute and makes it hard for my child to breathe through the plastic mask. I'm OK with that, really. Just don't ask me to sew something because I promise you that I can't.

So it's with some trepidation that we enter into October each year. I hate to crush my children's good costume ideas just because I am so inept.

Imagine my delight when my 12-year-old daughter announced this weekend that she's too old for trick-or-treating, so she's just going to hand out candy at home. She might wear a wig or something while doing it, she said, but no costume is needed. 

Whew! One down.

A few hours later, I figured I'd better ask my 9-year-old son about his Halloween costume dream for this year so I can figure out whether I can make his wish come true or if it's time to start steering him down another, less complicated path.

"I'm going to be a zombie Ryan Braun," he said, in the heat of the baseball playoffs. "Dad said we can get me a Braun jersey and a hat and then he'll do my makeup to make me look scary."

What? It's been discussed, it's decided and it's done? Dad's doing everything? 

A little pang of feeling useless crept up my spine, and then I realized this is actually my Halloween dream come true. One doesn't want a costume and the other is handling it with my husband.

As for me? I'm out. 

Oh Great Pumpkin, thank you so much.