By mid-September, I started pushing Punky to decide what she wanted to be for Halloween. I wanted to avoid the last-minute, desperate search we had last year. If it were up to me we'd skip celebrating the holiday entirely, but being a good mommy means sucking it up and pretending to be excited about costumes, pumpkins, ghosts, and going to strangers' homes begging for miniature candy bars. Okay, I actually enjoy that last one. The chocolate, not the strangers.
Her first choice for a costume was a mouse. Not Minnie. Not Mickey. Not even Jerry or Mighty. Just a plain, ordinary mouse. Why, you ask? I have no clue. She has no mice stuffed animals. She never talks about mice. We haven't had mice in the house. I have no idea how she came up with the idea but it sounded simple enough. Surely I could find a mouse costume somewhere, right? Easy-peasy.
Wrong. I spent hours web surfing every costume site I could find and came out empty-handed. Most didn't have any mice, and the ones that did were sold out already. Apparently rodents were very popular this year. If you have an inkling as to why, please fill me in 'cause I definitely feel like I missed something.
Punky was disappointed but she quickly forgot the mouse idea when she saw a witch costume at the store. She truly had no interest in being a witch for the sake of being a witch. I mean, witches are scary and she doesn't like scary, but this particular witch costume had lights sewn into the fabric and she was captivated by their twinkle. In hindsight I should have bought it and been done with it, but I wanted to think on it a bit. When I returned to the store a week later, it was gone. And so, I had to disappoint my child once again.
Choice number three left me just baffled as the first two: a pig. She wanted to be a pig. Again, not Miss Piggy, not Olivia, and not even Peppa. Just a plain, ordinary pig. I found myself back on the internet in search of the perfect pig costume but, as it turns out, pigs are almost as elusive as mice. I found plenty of adorable pig costumes for babies, but only two for kids Punky's age and they were just about the ugliest pigs I have ever seen. How could I put my beautiful, little girl in an ugly pig costume? It just didn't seem right.
When I broke the bad news about her third choice, I seriously think she wanted to punch me. I wanted to punch something, too. I was beyond frustrated and I needed to put an end to it once and for all. For the next hour she sat with me in front of the computer as I bounced from site to site showing her the options. There was no giving up. I was determined to order her a costume. Something. Anything. I think I would've agreed to a cardboard box at that point. I just wanted it done so I didn't have to spend any more time and energy on the great costume hunt of 2012.
We managed to find a handful of really cute costumes, but getting her to make a final decision was like pulling teeth. All of a sudden she morphed into a shopping diva and my patience was running dangerously low. She was getting tired, hungry, and bored, and I had to pee so bad I was about to explode, but nobody was moving until I had something in the cart, dammit. It was a battle of wills, I tell you, and mommy wasn't caving.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we had a winner:
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