Halloween used to be about me. It used to be weeks of preparing my costume and then going out on the town to party until the wee hours of the morning. It was always about being goofy, dancing, drinking, eating late-night pizza and then sleeping in the next day….boy, times have changed.
Swine Flu & Bird Flu circa 2009 at 1:30am
I am the daughter of a 4th grade teacher so crafty is in my genes. I like to make themed Halloween food, carve insane pumpkins, decorate the house with spider webs, paint faces, make costumes, etc. Simply put, I love Halloween.
This year I got so excited about Halloween I made an inexcusable parental mistake – I asked Josie what she wanted to be for Halloween 4 weeks before the big day. She wanted to be the Hulk, so I ran out to Goodwill and grabbed a used one. While we were there, she saw a Cookie Monster costume that she had to have, and we made both purchases for $10. At that moment I felt like I had won Halloween.
Hulk on horse
After a couple days wearing the Hulk costume everywhere it lost its shine and she was moving on. She PROMISED she wanted to be a Ninja Turtle, specifically Michelangelo, the orange guy. I had been fooled twice, so I toughed it our for 2 weeks of begging and finally caved and bought her a full priced turtle. Josie wore the Ninja Turtle to school and was one of several turtles – but the only girl Michelangelo.
Turtle power!
Meanwhile back at home, Josie unearthed last year’s Curious George costume that Grandma Nancy made. Last year, Josie declared she would not touch it because the fur felt yucky….two-year-olds can be total jerks. Three-year-olds, on the other hand, are cunning opportunists. Two days before Halloween Josie decided that she would actually like to be Curious George so she could crawl everywhere, jump off things, and be naughty but never get in trouble like George. We all got on board and the Ninja Turtle was out the window.
George, Prof. Wiseman, and the Man in the Yellow Hat
The moral of this story is DO NOT MENTION HALLOWEEN 4 WEEKS EARLY TO A KID. We could have saved $50 and 4 weeks of intense negotiation if I had only known that. On the flip side, watching Josie talk like Cookie Monster, Hulk smash, sing the Ninja Turtles theme song, and monkey around in her costume was pretty cute. Being a parent on Halloween is fun, just a different kind of fun.
Parents on Halloween circa 2015 at 7:30pm
Big Sky Bound 