The Evolution of a Halloween Costume

Ok so we’re all past Halloween now and into our Thanksgiving (and dare I say … Christmas?!!?) moods, but can I request that we backtrack for just a moment back to Monday so I can share some cute with you?

Yes? Awesome. Here we go.

We carved our pumpkins on Sunday night. This first bit is just for gratuitous cute picture showing. It has nothing to do with his costume.

my pumpkins.

As a first-time trick-or-treating mother of a toddler, I was fascinated at the evolution of my son’s costume desires over the course of October. First all he could talk about was wanting to be a monster for Halloween. Easy enough. But when it came time to pick out an actual costume to wear… things changed. and changed. and changed again.

Anything he saw? he wanted to be. Any costume we picked up and said, “like this?” he didn’t want to be. Oh he’d just said he wanted that one? Doesn’t matter. He’s gone off it now. On to the Next Big Thing. Within a thirty-second time span.

So in the end, Gus dressed up like a little monster in this costume we found for him at Pottery Barn Kids. (Aside: Ask me a year ago if I’d ever buy a kids’ costume from PBK… heck ask me a MONTH ago and I’d probably have said hell to the no. But desperate times, man. Desperate times. And besides, at least it was on sale.)

So yes, he was a monster….

Gus Monster

For about five minutes.  For all the fanciness of his costume, Little Guy pretty much refused to wear the whole thing for longer than it took Masa to grab that picture on his phone right before the preschool Halloween parade (they traipse the kids around to local businesses to get candy. It’s insanely cute.)

After the initial success with the monster headpiece, it was a Dodgers cap:

Half-Monster

And by the time we were home again and ready for trick-or-treating? Full on Dodger baseball player who was walking down the street insisting he was a pirate. And a police man. And a pirate.

*sigh*

Oh well, I wasn’t about to force a costume on the kid for what is supposed to be a fun evening.

trick or treat! thank you!

He got the hang of going door to door pretty quickly with his help of the sage four-year-old from down the street. He even figured out that if he just continued to stand there looking adorable, people would put *more* candy in his sack. I curbed that behavior once I noticed it, but it was pretty hilarious. He’d turn around with eyes like saucers and say, “he gaved me MORE candy!!!”

But overall he was very polite and well-mannered (always saying “trick or treat! thank you!”). Which is more than I can say for the fully grown men and women who came to my door at 9pm after the porch light was out! (I mean come on people is that not the universal symbol of NO CANDY!?!?  Also: go get a job and buy your own damn candy.)

Laura came trick-or-treating with us for a while, and she and her husband joined us for pizza afterwards and we all hung out for a bit before bath and bedtime went into full swing.

We were planning to make Gus trade his candy out for a toy that he’d picked this weekend… but he seems to have completely forgotten about his stash! We’ll give it some time and see if he remembers it.

Otherwise I guess he’s getting a triceratops for Thanksgiving? I dunno.

I hope happy Halloweens were had by all!! Have you experienced this level of committment (for a minute) with toddler costumes too? Or is this just my kid?

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