There have been many things that I have failed at as a mother. Two of those failures have been Halloween related. So while most look forward to this holiday with excitement and anticipation, the very thought of it sends me into PTSD related episodes of panic. You'll understand why.
Epic fail #1
Layla was about 7.5 months old for her first Halloween. She attends a very small in home daycare run by Elba, a wonderful grandmother figure who speaks only Spanish. Well, braniac April thinks that because she's so young (has barely started solids, let alone candy) AND the fact that Elba only has about 5 kids on any given day, there is no need to buy a costume, right? Pfft, wrong.
The night before Halloween, as I'm picking up Layla from daycare, Elba greets me with two three words spoken in very broken English. "Halloween, party, costume"? Naturally this new mom, who wants desperately to not disappoint this fabulous woman, eagerly responds "si"!
If moms were men, this scenario would cause our testes to retract, but not having a female equivalent, we'll just say that this should cause you to shudder. We all know how difficult it is to find the perfect costume. Factor in that I refuse to do princess shit and it's the night before Halloween, and I'm resigned to just finding something acceptable on such short notice. The quest lasted about 4 hours from start to finish and ended with an exhausted, pissed off mom purchasing an ugly ass puppy costume and cursing this ridiculous holiday and the evil woman who is throwing a party for her kid to celebrate it.
Whatever, she had a blast.
Epic fail #2, the big daddy of them all
Being a year old (in mom years, that's like 10 years wiser) and more experienced now, I have planned a little bit more in advance for Halloween take 2. Uh, like a week in advance.
But apparently I have many lessons yet to learn. The first being NEVER TAKE YOUR 18 MONTH OLD KID TO THE COSTUME SHOP. Ever. Idiot. We walk into the party store and am instantly blown away by the colors, noise, and sheer number of costumes. Knowing that we aren't looking for a dominatrix or playboy bunny outfit (gotta love party stores with costumes for all sizes), we head to the kids section.
As I'm browsing, the unthinkable happens. From 20 feet away, Layla spots that ugly red fucker strategically placed at kid eye level, shouts "ELLLLLLLLLLL-MOOOOOOOOOO"as she runs over, snatches it up, gazes lovingly into it's dead eyes and gives it the most gentle hug imaginable. Every attempt to distract her from this miserable costume was met with an emphatic "ELMO". Fine, whatever. We'll get the stupid thing.
Naturally they didn't have her size. In fact, nothing even close to her size. Okay, well, they can't be the only place in town to carry it, can they? Um, yep. They sure can. And since it's Alaska driving up the road to another town to find it is out. Enter the magic of the series of tubes known as the internet.
This quest takes a bit longer than the previous year’s. You would not believe the number of Elmo costumes that are available. Each uglier than the last. I finally found one that was acceptable. Now, the cost has been exaggerated at times, minimized at other times, and the true amount lost throughout this telling and retelling of the story. I believe that it was somewhere around $67. But since we’re now a week away from the big day, and live in Alaska, I had to have it shipped two-day mail to ensure delivery in time. Grand total of this costume? About $100.
Fast forward to the date of arrival. All is going well. I pull the costume out. Layla squeals with delight and gives it a huge hug. I let her carry it around for a bit and decide to try it on. I get it on, zipped up and put the hood up. As I stand her in front of the mirror, she FREAKS OUT. She hated it. It scared her. If she was strong enough to rip it off, she would have. We had to practically sit on her to get it off.
Just. Fucking. Great. Now what? We spend the next several days getting her used to the costume and find some success when she finally lets us put it on her again. For a few moments. We woke up the morning of Halloween not knowing how she would respond to having to wear it. Cause wear it, she was going to. I did not spend a hundred bucks on this ugly Elmo costume for her to NOT wear it, whether she liked it or not.
Fortunately she wore it. We have the pictures to prove it, and we survived another Halloween. Barely, and $100 poorer.
So we’re 3 months away from this year’s test of parenting, planning, and patience. But we have 3 months and two kids. What could go wrong?
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