So then (after Part I where they inform me that they want to be pumpkins), I spend my evening looking up pumpkin costumes and trying to find cute ones that are also masculine enough for a boy.
Most pumpkin costumes look like this.
Here’s the cutest (and most masculine) one I could find. (It was also $100.)
I show them my picks the next day, and Julia tells me, “I want to be a bunny.”
So then I spend hours online finding bunny costumes so she can look like her beloved stuffed Pink Bunny.
The bunny costume I picked out
Not the bunny costume I picked out
And the next day they announce they want to be doggies. Must refrain from throttling...
The Search for Doggy Costumes
About now I want to kill them, but they seem resolute in their desire to be doggies, so I spend many many hours finding and ordering dog costumes online as well as some cute felt doggy ear headbands on Etsy. Then I discover their preschool Halloween party is a full week before Halloween (even though they’re at school on October 30th!), and realize those costumes aren’t coming in time. In fact now no costume can make it in time.
The costume I ordered but had to return
I end up having to shuttle the twins around with me one morning to four stores, and finally find two costumes at Target. Thankfully James and Julia are troopers. When we get home James announces, “Sometimes we go to four costume stores” as though this happens all the time.
Target’s doggy costume
Putting Together the Doggy Outfits
I’m relieved that the costume buying is done. And then the next day when it’s time for James and Julia to try them on they want nothing to do with the dog costumes. The costumes they chose! They won’t even wear them when offered a bribe of cookies. They think the felt dog ear headbands they tried on a few days earlier are enough to make them doggies. Which at this point... whatever. One day I will be happy to show them pictures where they are wearing t-shirts and jeans and costumes that just consist of a headband with ears. I purchased one set of ears in tan to match James’s blond hair and one set in brown to match Julia’s, but of course Julia insists on wearing the other pair.
These are the doggy ears. I loved the little brown nose so I bought face paint to replicate the photo but James and Julia wouldn’t have anything to do with that.
I bought the ears in tan for blondie James.
After asking for suggestions on Facebook, my longtime friend Wendy gives me the idea to cut spots out of duct tape to put on their clothes. Mark and I spend an evening cutting out spots and affixing them to brown shirts and pants the twins already own. The next morning both refuse pants since they’re in love with jeans, and James refuses the brown shirt as well as any spots anywhere. I happen to have a brown shirt with a doggy on it and he’s happy with that. So even though they got to wear their regular clothes instead of costumes, they still fight me over what they’re wearing. James even argues over which blue jeans are bluer. That’s what I’m dealing with here. And over the next four wearings, the costumes change even more - one time James accepts brown pants instead of jeans and another time Julia refuses to wear her brown shirt (she really doesn’t like her shirt with spots either) and insists on donning a blue sweater with a doggy.
I stay up late putting doggy spots on the twins’ clothes.
I’ve spent at least 16 hours on this whole enterprise and their costumes look like I threw them together in 5 minutes.
Next time: Part III: Preschool Parties, Googleween, and Playgroup Party
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