How To Humiliate A Toddler

Cake Ball "Ghosts"

One of the big reasons Mr. C loves Halloween is because it involves doors.  He just LOVES to knock on doors and ring doorbells, so Halloween sends him into apoplectic fits of delight, seeing as how it combines one of his all-time favorite activities with the retrieval of sugar.  Unlike last year, we were able to make it all around our block and the next before Mr. C wore out and begged to go home.  In fact, he was enjoying himself so thoroughly this year (and we were getting such high-quality candy) that we made the decision to drive him over to S.B.'s mom's neighborhood and continue trick-or-treating there.

I figure we were just spreading the wealth.  People seemed genuinely pleased to have Mr. C knock on their door, patiently wait for them to open it, and (in a very polite and angelic voice, if I may say so) wish them a "Happy Halloween."  He'd choose his piece of candy, and often wait expectantly until they gave him permission to choose another.  Then he'd say, "Tank you," and the grateful homeowners would thank us for stopping by and wish us a happy Halloween.  See the sunshine and happiness we spread by gathering tasty morsels from the townfolk?

Of course, it wasn't all smooth sailing. 

It took Mr. C a bit to get over his shyness and deliver his lines without our prompting. Also, due to his excitement over the whole process, he was usually already turning his back and loudly asking where we were going next to get candy long before the current homeowners had closed their door.  But, hey, they'd served their purpose: what more could they possibly want from him?

Thanks to someone who shall remain unnamed (you know who you are) and their evilly innocent suggestion last month that we do a 'family costume', Bee, S.B. and I decided we'd all be characters from Austin Powers.  S.B., with his luxurious brown curls, was a shoo-in for the International Man of Mystery himself; I would be Frau Farbissina, Bee would be Number Two (mostly because it didn't require much of a costume), and Mr. C would play the role of -- who else? -- Mini Me. 

Props

It was a lovely idea and all, but this meant I now had to create four costumes instead of just one, since no one else was into it enough to actually come up with a costume on their own. And I wasn't willing to put a lot of money into outfits we were only planning on wearing for a few hours.  However, I think I did a passable job of pulling it off, thanks to the resources already available to me at home and my new-found love of thrift stores.  I found a black faux-leather coat for 25 cents to pair with my other black clothing to make me Frau-ish.  I made an eye-patch from leftover scraps for Number Two.  The piece de la resistance was a horrid pair of paisley pants for Austin that I found for $1.88.  And, due to a lovely buy-one-get-one-free coupon, the pair of scrubs I bought for Mini Me's costume cost me zilch.

And, ahh, what a tragedy of a costume it was.  I bleached the scrubs to be a more-appropriate Dr. Evil-grey, then set about hacking and sewing them to create a toddler-sized set of pants and tunic. Martha would be rolling in her Egyptian-cotton 700-thread-count complimenting duvet-set were she aware of the travesties I committed with scissor and needle. The original pants I cut were too small in the waist, so I added a triangular patch to widen them. One sleeve was attached to the tunic higher than it’s mate. It was too small to wear over the necessary warm sweater, so I had to cut the top down the back and literally glue Mr. C into his outfit before we set out.

Thanks God he is only three, and too young to be humiliated.

As we stepped out the door, it was still a toss-up as to whether he was going as Mini Me or as a recently-escaped insane-asylum inmate.

Adding to the challenges against my artistic vision was the fact that S.B. wasn’t feeling well that evening and decided he needed more layers in order to accompany us trick-or-treating. Which – I’m not sure why – he decided he could get better by being Number Two. But, without our Austin Powers, there really was no way anyone would ever deduce Mr. C was going as Mini Me.

Bee, however, came to the rescue, happily stepping up to cover Austin’s shaggadelic role. He squeezed into the ladies’ paisley pants I’d bought, found a deep-purple shirt in the dark recesses of his closet that I firmly hope returned there after our evening, and put on his most Danger-Is-My-Middle-Name swagger. Which is fine, and all; but all the mojo in the world will not channel The International Man of Mystery when one has a receding hairline. We had no sixties-style hat for Bee to wear, so he just donned his usual skull cap; not to mention a disconcerting pair of yellow puffy gloves to keep his hands warm.

We were a rag-tag bunch as we set out that night, particularly since our title character somehow managed to look disconcertingly like Chicken Little on LSD. However, we had prepared ourselves for the inevitable “And what are you supposed to be, little boy?” question that we were sure Mr. C would get over and over by training him over the last few days to put his pinky up to his mouth and say, “Throw me a frickin’ bone!”

Gauze glued around an old shortening tub

It would have been adorable, too, except not one person asked what he was. One homeowner did call him a mummy (probably due to the mummy trick-or-treat bucket I’d made him), and one – strangely enough – announced he was a dragon. And, by the end of the evening, when he was wearing Bee’s skull cap to keep warm, someone guessed he was a convict. However, most people were content just to shove candy at us and send us on our way, never questioning what look we were trying to convey. With Mr. C’s tattered top, my slicked-back hair starting to go limp, S.B.’s weary eye-patched shuffle, and Bee’s . . . well, you know . . . had anyone guessed we were just looking creepy, they really wouldn’t have been far from the truth.