Dec declared early on: Vampire. No, not dracula, a VAMPIRE. And store-bought, preferably. No problem! Went down the block, across the street to Winn Discount, and bought that baby. One costume done. Yessss.
Eva also declared early: Dragon. Oh, jeez. Okay, sure, ummmm. There was no way I was making a whole suit type deal because for one thing I KNEW miss-I-hate-to-wear-anything-on-my-body was going to freak out and not wear it and then I was going to have to kill her. But I couldn't find a store-bought one that would work, either, and so I was pretty resigned to trying to make some kind of hooded cape-y thing with blue points down the back, and pairing it with a green hooded sweatshirt of her brothers and some green pants. Luckily, the night I began I tried the sweatshirt on her and GUESS WHAT?
She freaked out. "I'm NOT WEARING THAT" and insane wriggling and screaming trying to get it off. Then angrily, resentfully sticking her thumb ("fumb") in her mouth and sulking on the couch.
"No problem," I said, how about being a ghost, or a witch?
"A witch," she said, her eyes lighting up.
Did I mention that this was the day before halloween?
So I made a quick run over to the Brooklyn General Store, where I found the perfect perfect witch dress fabric and some black flannel and grey cotton for the cape. Then I ran to run the new mother's group and then ran back home to cut out a simple dress shape, a simple cape shape copied from Dec's vampire cape, and ran back to the store to use one of their sewing machines. This is reason # 798,054 why it's good to have a friend who owns a yarn and fabric store, btw.
So anyway, I quickly sewed up the dress, not finishing around neck, arms, or hem (she's a witch, after all) and quickly sewed up the cape, adding a hot pink ribbon around the neck to tie it, and then daddy glued a scary grey spider shape to the back. Some black nail polish, dark eye shadow, and a witches hat finished her off. Instant cute witch! Another Halloween Emergency averted! Okay, so I never really made a costume for the baby....I just pinned a little of the witch dress fabric to her shirt and lamely dubbed her "a witch baby" but you know what? She's got a lot of great costume years ahead.
This year we were lucky enough to have Aunt Pat and Uncle Larry (actually, great aunt and great uncle pat and larry) AND Aunt Tara along with us, too.
And then we did the usual: went up and down the main shopping street after school, getting candy from all the shopkeepers and admiring the parade of costumes and running into friends, and then we went home for a brief time-out and some dinner, and then we went back out in the dark and trolled the brownstone stoops, admiring the spooking decorations. Finally, we went back to our own stoop and gave out our candy.
A boo-full night, indeed.
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