You know, every year my definition of “scary” changes. Back in the good ol’ days I was scared of simple things like, “the dark”, “monsters” and “ghosts”. These days it’s more like “bikinis”, “exercise” and “healthy eating.” And every year, getting the kids ready for Halloween gets scarier too.
Historically, I have always loved Halloween. There’s the candy, the costumes, the fall weather – or at least that’s how it used to be. Over the past few parenting years the bloom has come off the black rose, if you will. When I first had children I vowed to painstakingly create each of their costumes by hand. That lasted for about 2 seconds after the debacle of Halloween 2002. I labored to for weeks to create a “Blue” costume for a baby Weston and a “clue” costume for a 2-year-old-Hayden. This involved much spray painting and glue gun-ing. On the actual day, Hayden acted like his clue costume was made of rusty nails and baling wire, so as we trick-or-treated, I had to endure the following exchange 10 kajillion times:
Scene: Any front porch. Doorbell rings; door opens.
Homeowner: “Oooohhhhh what an adorab…..” (now realizing that Hayden is wearing a blue onesie and nothing else) “Um…what are you supposed to be?”
Me: Holding up the discarded clue costume in a hand covered in glue-gun burns. “He was SUPPOSED to be a clue,” I’d explain. Then I’d thrust Weston(dressed as Blue) towards them. “His brother is Blue. You know, from BLUES CLUES?”
Homeowner: “Oh. I see. But wait — isn’t Blue a GIRL?”
Cue the consolation music: wah wah wah WAAAAAHHHHH….
How the @#$% was I supposed to know that Blue was a girl??
After that, I forced myself to turn a blind eye to all the other moppets dressed up in home-spun costumes, and set aside my aspirations for costume glory. But it’s been hard, y’all. For real. I mean, is everyone’s grandma a freaking Broadway costume designer or what?
Just like in a Dickens novel, it’s been the best of times and the worst of times over the past few years where costumes have been concerned. Last year, I lucked out and all four children were costumed cleverly and there was even some “handmaking” involved. This year? Not so much. In fact, with days left before Halloween, 3 of the 5 kids were without costumes.
My oldest son at first deemed himself “too old/cool” for Halloween, but then he and his friends held an emergency caucus to discuss the situation. They evaluated the pros and cons, factored in the percentage of anticipated peer participation; debated the merits of various costume options and finally came to the conclusion that for very little effort they could exit the holiday with a whole lotta loot. It was settled. My son would live to trick or treat another year. The caveat was that he could not be photographed, so insert here your own visual of a pre-pubescent boy wearing an Abercrombie hoodie and a $3.00 hockey mask from Wal-Mart and there you have it. Irony in all its frightful glory.
My middle son decided to buy a bagged costume from a “temporary” Halloween superstore. I have to ask — who runs these things??? Because listen — after 7 years our government still cannot seem to overthrow an impoverished third world country, yet SEASONALLY thousands of these Halloween retailers manage to sneak into town under the cover of darkness, take over our abandoned buildings, and then force us to turn over our money in spades before seamlessly slipping back out of town. HOW do they do it? HOW? Whoever they are, the government needs to find them and put them on the whole “war on terror” thing. It’d be a reciprocal pairing, really, because in return for their knowledge, the government would be MORE than happy to spend millions of American dollars on soldier “costumes”. There. I’ve just figured out world peace. You’re welcome.
As much as it pains me, here is my child wearing his outfit of choice.
“Sorry we have no food this week. Your brother wanted a store-bought costume.”
Earlier in the season I bought a sparkly dress for $3 at the local thrift store. I actually repurposed it into a Tooth Fairy costume for my daughter by adding a glittery tooth appliqué and hand-making a necklace of molars out of Sculpey clay. It turned out fabulously! However, thanks to our crappy and mercurial Midwestern weather, Halloween day was 35 degrees and W-I-N-D-Y. Here’s that fantastic costume that I worked so hard on.
You’re right - the beauty is in all the details.
For actual trick or treating she donned a fleece Kermit the Frog costume from the dress up bin. Score another point for the manufacturers.
Here’s Larissa. When you look at this picture, blink once as fast as you can. That’s how long she wore her costume. She was teething and feverish so we opted to leave her at home during the festivities where the average wind chill wasn’t minus 8.
Is this a fever-induced hallucination or am I in fact, dressed like a rabbit?
Last, but not least….Kellan. I found his costume at the resale shop and was astounded at the hand-made quality of it. I was tempted to try and pass off the work as my own, but then I feared someone around here might want me to sew a button on a shirt or something and then I’d be buried under my pack of lies. Really though – whatever grandma or (Hollywood costume designer) made this…I bow to you. It’s fantastic.
“You may have seen my costume designer’s work in “Lord of the Rings”, “Shakespeare in Love” and “Twilight”.”
It got even better, though. Kellan LOVED the costume too. My husband and I victoriously paraded him down neighborhood streets and clapped our hands with glee over our adorable little dragon.
It was even better from behind. The “dragon”, I mean….although my husband’s rear view isn’t half bad either 
Oh wait. Did we say dragon? Yeah. Scratch that. Because we are dumb-asses. Straight up. We were walking past a group of high schoolers when they all FREAKED OUT. “Omigod!” they shrieked. “That is the cutest Pokemon guy EVER!!”
Uh…Did they say Pokemon guy?? This is a dragon costume! Isn’t it???
We went to the next house where a middle aged dad opened the door.
“Hey!” he cheered. “It’s Charmeleon!”
Son of a gun, he was right. Person after person confirmed it. This was no dragon, it was indeed this guy.
My husband and I have shelled out a small fortune on Pokemon cards. They practically line every corner of our older boys’ room. Yet, none of us, not even the older boys themselves, realized that our baby was costumed as a Pokemon character.
Scary.
Tags: Halloween
