A Halloween Costume Explanation

There she stood, on the crossroads of a decision that could ultimately decide a big chunk of her fate. The decision was either or, one or the other. An unmistakable line was drawn between one side and the other. One side sparkled, the other, held promise. It was her second time in this place. Confusion and desperation engulfed the time sensitive matter. Based on several factors, once the decision was made, there could be no going back. It was absolute. 

Have you found yourself in this situation? I sure have…it’s called the costume isle at the store.  You might recall from my earlier post that I have been enjoying gender neutral bliss with my child. The store however is designed to deconstruct my happily constructed gender neutrality. It’s a dangerous place.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that Emma is old enough to pick out her costume this year (after all she is certainly capable of voicing her opinion whenever she gets the chance.) So I  took her to the costume isle a few weeks back, picked up a few choice pieces, and “gently held them up for her to inspect” read: dislocated my shoulder from fist pumping colorful cloth around in the air like a fabric obsessed lunatic screaming “look at this one sweeeetie!” (This is how I roll through life so hopefully my kid can deal with it!) Emma was having none of it. In fact, she was more excited about not being strapped in her stroller which she celebrated by running off. The second time yielded similar results only instead of running off, she was more enamored with the Christmas displays (I knooooow). She grabbed a huge (expensive) fluffy white bear and was pretty pleased with herself for scoping out such a treasure. Thomas and I convinced her to put the bear “back with her family” on the shelf. So, a $40 impulse buy was diverted but we had no forward movement in the costume selection department. 

I kept asking Emma what she wanted to be but I didn’t get much of a tangible response. She would just kind of look at me sideways like I’m nuts (which, well duh) but still I needed some sort of answer! I finally came up with a costume theme for myself and Thomas this year so I racked my brain for something I thought Emma would enjoy wearing, like really enjoy. I want her to get that childhood skip in her step, that twinkle in her eye, that evil look of “if you dare think of taking this off me I will cut you” when she put son her costume. There were only two costumes I thought would meet all of those criteria. One was a dinosaur costume, one of her new favorite things, the other….an Elsa costume. Yes, yes I KNOW! the sparkliest dress ever. I seriously endured way more anxiety over the decision than was necessary. I knew if I chose the Elsa dress what I would be…an enabler….that before you know it I would be dressing Emma up for Toddlers in Tiaras, swigging go-go juice, and eventually shelling out 20 grand for a wedding dress like those crazy parents do on tv! <--this is how my anxieties play out in my mind if you were ever wondering. 

After much more debate and several hundred requests to watch Frozen over the past few weeks, I caved…my child will wear a Halloween costume this year with ZERO originality but I think she just might be ok with that.