As a hard-wired introvert and a true MOTY, I never look forward to trick-or-treat with the same sepia-tinged nostalgia as I do the other holidays. I’m never going to make homemade costumes. I’m never going to enjoy talking to hoards of people I don’t know. I’m simply not going to like sharing polite smiles with other parents as I pretend to think their kids’ costumes are just the sweetest ever. But I do love my own children, breathlessly, and I like the idea of trick-or-treat, if not the physical experience of it. I like how – from a kid’s perspective – for one night only you can be whatever you want to be and go wherever you want to go and come home with a sack full of candy. So we go.
Only this year was one of those perfect storm years where aside from the unseasonably pleasant weather, everything seemed stacked against us. Halloween fell on a Monday. A Monday! My husband had a night class he couldn't skip, so I had to leave work an hour early and drive my hour commute home to pull into my driveway just as the first trick-or-treaters were arriving.
My oldest daughter was already gone. It was her first year trick-or-treating with friends, and I was feeling all sloppy-heart sad about it. She’d been invited at the last minute, and I didn’t really have a reason not to let her go (Can I say no, because my heart feels tender and sad? Is that socially acceptable?), so I said yes. And didn’t even get to see her in costume other than the pics that other moms were posting on social media all night.
My 4-year-old declared he had been a penguin all day (and we all know what hard work THAT must be) and so abandoned his adorable brand new penguin costume (that I suppose at least I should be grateful he wore to preschool) to instead be a dinosaur. Only his dinosaur costume was a birthday gift last year and therefore was filthy, had torn feet, was missing its head piece, and was too small and kept riding up his little man bits all evening.
At the same time, my 2-year-old was waking up HARD from the afternoon nap we are desperately trying to cut out of her routine and she just full on screamed loud, guttural screams for 25 minutes before we could even approach the topic of a costume. When she finally agreed to get dressed, she insisted she was going to be a ghost, despite the fact that all I had for her were two different pumpkin costumes and a monkey suit. She angrily retrieved a blue oversized hand-knit shawl and threw it at me.
“GHOST!” She hollered.
Now, I am just about the most relaxed mom I know. To a fault, really. To the point where I have occasionally put my kids in danger and where I have frequently been embarrassed by their rotten behavior. But this was a line I was absolutely categorically not willing to cross. There was no way in suburban hell I was going to take my kid around our lovely neighborhood to people’s decorated homes and ask for candy – NOT wearing a costume. That would be trashy. That would be humiliating. And to make matters worse, she wasn’t even wearing a cute outfit. She was wearing a weird mismatch of clothing that didn’t fit her but had been in a stash of clothing left at my parents’ house for when she had potty-training accidents. She had on capri-length white leggings, for crying our loud…that were supposed to be full length!
And she refused to pee. Or put on a pull-up. It was Insane Ghost Shawl With Almost Certain Pants-Wetting. Or nothing.
These are the moments, mamas. These are the moments when we make decisions, when we choose who we’re going to be. As mothers. As families. As the makers of memories. I thought about my big girl out in the trick-or-treat world all by herself and how I ached for one more year of watching her skip from house to house. I looked at my dinosaur with his sweet smile and perpetual crotch wedge that really indicated – what? – he’s growing, growing. I looked at my toddler with her fierce glare and her unwavering insistence.
I looked at the shawl. I squinted. Cocked my head to the side. I tried to see it through her eyes, willed it to flow like a flimsy, hauntingly beautiful ghost costume. These are the moments.
So we went.