atomic mama

Last year, I started obsessing about Halloween costumes as soon as they hit the store shelves. We were tantalizingly close to becoming parents; to getting on that plane to meet our baby. Every little miniature costume I saw reminded me that I, too would one day get to dress my daughter as a lion or a bagel or as one of Satan’s helpers.

Now that I actually have the child, things are a bit different. My sister called on Saturday to ask what Lina would dress up as for Halloween. “I’d better see some pictures!” she ordered on the voicemail message she left. Thank god I wasn’t home to pick up the phone, or she would have learned that, on Saturday, I still didn’t have a costume for my only child. I had two hundred million pieces of candy for the throngs that will pound on the door of our home (located in one of those “friendly” neighborhoods), but no costume for my own kid.

Last year, I had visions of the handmade costume I would design and make for her. I imagined myself stuffing it with fair-trade organic cotton, using just the right shades of green. I’d make a little pea pod. She’d wear green tights and have a little green cap with a stem on the top (handknit merino, of course). Her hair would be clean and shiny and she’d have no boogers in her nose. Or on her nose. Or anywhere, really. She’d be booger-free.

Fast-forward to this year. Today is the day before Halloween.

We got the costume yesterday, at the consignment store. As Shane and I hurriedly rifled through the slim pickings on the costume rack, our daughter wandering around the store unsupervised, I whispered to him, “we’re the worst parents in Ballard. We’re those parents.” “I know, I know” he muttered, and then held up a fleece pumpkin costume that was size 3-6 months.

We ended up with a really cute horse costume that makes her head sweat like mad. She wore it around the house last night, and by the time I took it off, all her hair was plastered to her head. Oh well. Luckily, we’re experiencing a cold snap in Seattle right now. A few weeks ago we bought Lina a pricey little down vest at REI, all pink and puffy. Now I think this horse costume will get her through the harshest of winter weather. Move over, snowsuit. I’m not sure we really need anything else. Ever.

So tomorrow we’ll be making the rounds with our sweaty, booger-covered daughter, who will be convincingly costumed as a horse. She doesn’t need to be dressed like a pea pod to be my one and only sweet pea. And while booger-free children may actually exist out there somewhere, I’ll happily tote my little green-nosed monster around on my hip. I hardly even see the boogers anymore. I certainly don’t care about them. She is my little girl, walking and talking and calling out for her mama when she needs me. Happy first Halloween, little pumpkin. (And happy Samhain, too. We’ll teach you about that in a few years.)

This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 15:36 and is filed under stephanie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.