by Patti
Last
year, S wanted to be a thumb for a Halloween. Yes, a THUMB. Instead, because…
THUMB?...she was a spider. And it was adorable.
This
year she decided she wanted to be a weather map, which would have been really
cool if her MOTHER had gotten her act together and figured out a way to make a
weather map. Halloween nearing closer and closer, S dropped the weather map
idea and decided to go all out as a hobo. A hobo cannot get more classic in
terms of Halloween costumes. I mean, who wasn’t
a hobo in the 70’s? I sure was. So easy! Wear some clothes that are too big,
rat out the hair, blacken a tooth, carry a stick: Instant hobo!
But
a mere few days before Halloween, a co-worker overhead me telling another
co-worker how S had wanted to be a thumb, or a weather map, and how she’d had
to take it down a few notches to hobo thanks to her MOTHER. That co-worker
piped in that her daughter had once been a hand for Halloween – not just a
thumb, a whole entire hand - and that she said she was pretty certain she still
had the costume stored away somewhere. I didn’t say anything to S in the case
that hand was long gone, but the next day, my co-worker walked in with a huge
foam hand, complete with jewelry and hot pink nails. Oh, how the kid would
flip.
I
took the hand home and when S saw it, flip she did. She immediately stripped
out of her school clothes and in one second flat became a giant walking hand
with a finger-to-finger grin.
I
remember her first Halloween when I picked up a tiny black cat suit on clearance
days before Halloween (because I will never change). She was just so moldable
back then. But now? She has her own ideas and opinions and ways of expressing
who she is. And this is why I love my kid. She could be a princess or a gypsy
or a witch; instead, she wants to be a thumb, or a weather map, or even a whole,
entire hand, and she isn’t afraid to be different.
Next year she wants to be a picnic. I was a picnic
many, many, many Halloweens ago, and the fact that she wants to perpetuate such
a preposterity is just the coolest thing ever. Life with that kid? Is a picnic.
