Halloween Preview

AKA Why you should not ask your 2-year-old what they want to be for Halloween.

As you may recall, I mentioned several weeks ago that we were still undecided as to what Jadyn was going to be for Halloween. Since Jake had voiced his desire to be a race car driver, I decided to see if Jadyn wanted a say in her costume this year, something Jake obviously did not get a choice in until now. We thumbed through a catalog and looked at images online and she confidently declared that she wanted to be a princess. I found this to be an interesting choice being that she had not willingly wore a dress for at least 5 months now. We went to the store and I showed her a very cute but simple princess costume and she broke down in tears, "I don't want to be a princess". Someone had suggested I could dress her as Jasmine but atlas, that idea did not pan out.

Flash forward to the beginning of October as I took all of our Halloween decorations out of the boxes and starting placing them around the house. The kids peered at them excitedly and asked what they were. I explained that Halloween was a celebration of all things that are spooky and creepy, but that it was all in fun and not at all scary. I showed them witches, pumpkins, monsters, ghosts, black cats and spiders. Then I asked them if they remembered trick-or-treating and I reminded Jadyn she still needed to decide on a costume, to which she animatedly replied, "I want to be a little monster!".

She ran around the house all day repeating this like a mantra, " I want to be a little monster", " I am a little monster". I looked online for a monster costume that was suitable for a 2 year old girl to no avail. I showed her all things Halloween-y again, trying to lean her in another direction and finally convinced her that a pumpkin was also a good choice but when I showed her the pumpkin costume I had in mind, she protested, "I don't want to be a pumpkin". Other choices for that day included a lady buy (my idea) and a monkey (her idea).

Finally after an entire day like this she said, " I don't want to be anything!". I then explained to her that if she didn't dress up she could not go trick-or-treating. Her response? "I want to be Halloween!".

We finally had a breakthrough when I realized that if she saw an actual picture of something like a ladybug or a monkey, she would warm up to the idea of dressing up as it BUT if she saw a picture of a child dressed in a ladybug or monkey costume, she immediately shut down. When the ladybug costume arrived, she was ripping off the wings and antennae before I could finish dressing her so that helped in making the decision. In the end, I pictured her as something more feminine but at least she is WEARING a costume, NOT crying and it is something she thought of and picked for herself.

So without further adieu, here are the kids at the flashlight candy scramble at the community center Saturday night. It was a fun event. The kids enjoyed hunting for candy in the dark with the flashlights and the older kids were courteous and gracious. It was a great kick-off to a week of spook-tacular Halloween activities!

And since for the last 2 years the kids costumes have coordinated, I will give anyone a $10 Starbucks gift certificate if they can come up with a politcally correct way to relate Dale Ernhardt Jr. and a monkey.