Thank Goodness It's November 1st

I'm not big on Halloween. I know it can be fun to dress up or create fabulous costumes for your kids, but it's also so much work. And is it just me or does that work take all the fun out of it? This year, I was pretty much done with Halloween before it even started.

Elizabeth said she wanted to be Snoopy. We saw no cute Snoopy costume that was reasonably priced, so she and I looked online to determine if we could make one. Well, you know, I don't really sew, so we got nowhere fast. After a while I said, "Would you mind picking something that is human?" I'm never excited to disappoint my kids or crush their dreams, but that's what that felt like. Darn you, Halloween, and your forced festivities.

As for Matthew, he couldn't decide what he wanted to be. He jumped all around only to settle on being an Army guy for the second year in a row. To make matters worse, his cub scout pack has an annual Halloween party in which everyone goes overboard. I mean that. As proof, his leader's wife was a double major in drama and costume design. Geez oh man! You haven't seen anything like it, and she and a few of the other seamstress mothers had been discussing their families' costume plans for months. Frankly, I was already embarrassed. Until....

It was Friday afternoon, and Matthew and I were waiting at Elizabeth's bus stop after school. I was looking through Facebook and found a photo of some kid in New Zealand dressed like the Jake from State Farm guy--red polo, telephone headset, name tag, and the mandatory khakis. I laughed, Matthew laughed, and we finally decided on his costume less than three hours before his party. Luckily, his costume doubles as his school uniform. 

Back to Elizabeth, she and her friend from school decided to go to the school dance last week as nerd twins. Thank goodness nerds are humans! She wore one of my old business shirts, and my tank top fit her like a vest. She donned thick glasses with a band-aid in the middle, pulled up some knee socks, and off she went with friends to her dance and then trick-or-treating. What another spot of luck.

How did it go? Well, Matthew didn't really enjoy the notoriety of his costume. People went crazy over him, and he isn't much of a talker. He complained, "I had to say 'khakis' like two hundred times!" That number might not be off because no one could resist asking him, "What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm?" However, he did win the Funniest Costume trophy at his cub scout party. I celebrated by silently screaming, "Suck it, overachieving moms!" Just kidding. And just kidding about just kidding.

Overall, I count this as another Halloween success. It's usually touch and go around here--even as late as three o'clock the day before--but somehow we always pull it off. Perhaps we should start planning next year's costumes tonight.