Mia was the first to pick out her costume. We were at Costco right after school started. There was a long row of princess costumes, but she set her eyes on the pink Power Ranger and that was it. She greeted the boys when they got off the bus that day with one foot cover on and one fist held high.
Evan said he wanted to be a skeleton. I said that was fine as long as I could find one that glowed in the dark. I have this thing about my kids not running around outside in the dark of winter while wearing all black. While I love our neighborhood, we don't have sidewalks or good lighting. But I needn't worry about Evan. Last week I dug out our costume box for a birthday party and Evan decided he wanted to wear Owen's old raccoon costume.
Owen declared he was not dressing up... again. For some reason he thinks it is acceptable to go door to door asking for candy without a costume. He's 8. And, of course, I "won't let him be anything scary anyway." Well, most scary things are black, so he has a point there. Plus, he has a 4 year old sister and some of our neighbors are elderly. Anyway, two night ago we finally came with a compromise. I said he could go as the Grim Reaper if he let me put reflective tape on the back of his robe. And although Mia has croup, I ran to three stores today trying to find a black robe and a scythe. I'm sure he will not appreciate that until he's at least 30.
Once I got his make-up done, he got kind of excited. He wanted to ring door bells and stand in front of the door completely deadpan. Eric, our neighbor and friend from college, didn't mind, but we had to put the kibosh on it when we got to less familiar neighbors.
About an hour into our trek, Jim had to take Mia back to the house. She is still pretty weak from the croup. I think Owen was getting tired too because he started declaring that next year he was not going to wear a costume. Out of the dozens of kids we saw with cool costumes, most who were older than my kids, there were two teenagers with ambiguous costumes. *sigh* Well, I don't have to fight that battle again for 364 days. Until then, who wants to trade their Milk Duds for some Dots?
