A Halloween Story

Last week I took the kids to The Great Pumpkin Farm, an activity that has become an annual tradition for us since we moved to Buffalo. (Only, apparently it is not an annual tradition for us to share pictures of that event because I never blogged last year's trip. Which was cute. Sorry.)

Anyway, the kids did the usual pumpkin farmy related stuff.

Posing for photos:

Playing on the wooden train:

And feeding the animals:

(Actually, only Grace fed the animals. After insisting that I purchase a 25 cent handful of dried corn, Sam realized he didn't want to risk getting licked by a goat. Grace had no such qualms.)

We also picked out little pumpkins for Grace and the new baby. (And just so you won't believe his claims of favoritism and neglect, Sam had already picked a huge one at a local farmer's market, and a second on a kindergarten field trip to a farm.)

Then we headed into the big barn store to pay for our pumpkins and choose a treat. True to form, the kids opted for candy, and pointed out their choices from the bulk candy jars on display. As usual, Sam was very specific, right down to choosing individual red gummy bears and mallow creme pumpkins. (The clerk cheerfully indulged him, and put just the right selection of candies in his little bag.) Also as usual, Grace was much easier to please. Candy flavored? Dump it right in?

Sweet teeth satisfied, we browsed the gift shop, which happened to be running a 50% off sale on all their Halloween crafts and decor. I had an eye on a few little things myself, and to make the minimum purchase requirement for the deal (20 bucks, which was really 10 bucks), I was willing to let the kids pick out something. At first, they both set their sights on a stupid witch lawn ornament, and though I dragged them through the store to find something better, nothing else would satisfy. With resignation, I gathered our purchases and set them on the checkout counter. Only then did Sam see the display of Halloween head wear that changed his life: A pirate hat headband! And a floppy pumpkin beret for Grace!

I was good with that. Both choices were cheap. Even better, Sam declared that he'd rather be a pirate for Halloween than a ghost, thus saving me the trouble of inventing a portable levitation device.

So we left with the pirate hat and the pumpkin hat, and happy plans to complete the costumes with little bits of this and that at home.

I should interject here that I'm probably more opinionated about my kids' Halloween costumes than I should be. I like to have a family costume theme, and usually try to convince them to wear something we can all work around. But as my children have developed their own ideas about what they like to wear (the nerve!), I've become less convincing.

I'd resigned myself to random costumes this year, but in the spirit of faking a theme when you can't make one, I observed that pirate and pumpkin both start with "P," and that maybe we could all be a "P" word. (Think you know where this is going? Not there, you bunch of pervs!) Sam was intrigued but skeptical. "Like what?" He wanted to know.

"I could be a pregnant lady." I said.

"But you already are." He said. "So you can't be that for your costume."

I could see his point, but still. "That's why it's a good costume. It's easy."

"No, that won't work." Declared Sam. "Maybe a popsicle."

(The truth is that through all of this discussion, I fully intended to not be pregnant when the time came for donning costumes. I'd either be in the hospital having a baby, or cheerfully holding a new cherub after a fast and painless birth. My real dilemma was whether I needed to come up with a "P" costume for the baby too.)

But my plans did not go as planned, and so I donned a cop-out costume: a glow in the dark skeleton onesie pinned to my belly. It was cute(ish), and more importantly, easy. And although I generally subscribe to the idea that a pregnant woman can pin pretty much anything she wants to her belly and call it a costume, the reality is that mine fell far short of the truly great (with child) preggo costumes I've seen. Like this one executed by my friend Ben for his wife FoxyJ; a much more elegant version of the idea I was going for, I'm sure you'll agree. Or this one my friend D wore to a party last year. She's smiling because she just ate Grandma. Oh yeah, and stole her clothes. And I have to mention this one from my friend Erica, possibly the best preggy costume of all time, and not just because it includes the belly daddy in frighteningly authentic Pee Wee Herman attire.

But, as I said, easy especially important to me this year, so despite Sam's objections I went as a pregant lady. Coach was a paparazzi photographer.

Which means we got some pretty great photos out of the deal. Like this one:

And this.
Arm yourself. I think this is some kind of ninja-jedi-pirate attack on its way.

And candid shots like these.



And since it's taken me more than a week to publish this post, I might as well include the shots that didn't make it in before the Halloween deadline.

Like these.

My costume looks way better on him, I promise.