Welcome to this week’s installment of Remember the Time! Since it’s Halloween and we are big fans of logic, this week’s theme is…Halloween. Have at it, kiddos!
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The main purpose of Halloween, if you don’t already know, is for parents to show off. So the purpose of today’s post is to fill my smug cup. It’s a thing. Don’t question it.
Just subtract the teeth and you’re looking at most toddlers. Source
All parents love their children no matter what they look like, but even the most deluded ones are aware of it when little Dick or Jane pops out and has clearly received a good wholluping by the ugly stick while in utero. This is where Halloween comes in handy. You dress your tot up as a crayon or a box full of kittehs and suddenly the world is swooning at your child who normally garners attention because he looks like Harvey Fierstein. If your self esteem problem is more acute, you make the costume yourself so you can demonstrate that your skills are not limited to making people. It’s really an all-around winning situation. Your kid is adorable for one day in October, and you get to wear unzipped yoga pants until Halloween rolls around the next year.
My mom always made my Halloween costumes when I was a wee one. She was and still is a talented smocker and truly enjoyed fashioning cute costumes for me on Halloween, not because she wanted to shove my cute mug in other peoples’ faces or cover up my massive birthmark that made me look like a recovering leper, but because she actually relished doing it.
Reason Number One Billion why my mom was a saint: she’s not a show-off and was actually motivated by the joy of her hobby and love for her kid. For my first Halloween, she made me a little white dress and then stuck a set of golden wings on the back for my angel costume. (I was an angel because obvious.) For the next five to twelve years, she made me a new Little Red Riding Hood costume each Halloween because I am brand loyal. I wore my cape for the entire month of October without removing it even for mud puddle baths or slumber, and despite the buildup of crud (AKA the patina of childhood) it inevitable acquired, she didn’t make me take it off so she could launder it. Everyone knows that laundry is just something parents do to show off among other parents. No one actually needs clean clothes.
I grew up in this homemade Halloween costume culture, but by the time C was born, it was clear that all my mother’s good intentions to make great costumes for the sake of her child’s innocent smile had been lost on me. I blame Pinterest. That’s the easy thing to do, right? Just blame Pinterest? Yeah, let’s go with that. Pinterest is a handy tool that helps remind us that even when we are doing everything within our power to craft a beautiful childhood for our kids, we still probably could have cooked with more zucchini and glue gunned one more teal pipecleaner to our kids’ Halloween costume. It’s totes fun.
So I decided that I would show off my extensive crafting ability and make C’s Halloween costume. I chose to dress her up as an owl because for some reason owls are really trendy. They are super cute too, but it was the trendy factor that convinced me to hot glue 85 felt feathers to the back of a onesie.
And in all honesty? I think it turned out pretty dang well. I even got my mom’s seal of approval when I posted the pictures of my creation on the blog.
So, in keeping with the long-standing tradition of parents showing their kids off on Halloween, here is the one and only Wee Cee in her Halloween garb for this year. She’s a butterfly, and her costume was super easy to make. Here’s how you can recreate it at home:
1. Locate your partner and make a super cute kid.
2. Purchase a black turtleneck onesie and black pants at the used clothing store. Wash them. (This is one of the few times doing laundry is OK.)
3. Purchase a pair of wings at Target the day after Halloween on clearance because everyone knows that inexpensive Halloween costumes are 1000 times better.
4. Make an antennae headband that child snaps in half and renders useless within five minutes.
Easy peasie. And I didn’t even get out the glue gun. In case you were wondering, my mom approved.
Happy Halloween!
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The Waiting 
This really happened, watching MTV, you know back when they actually played music. But I digress. There was one program where a person was to tell their most humiliating moment and this pretty 20 old year old had a story that coincided with Halloween.
Apparently when she was like 9 or 10, she like had the most terrifying thing that can happen.
.
.
.
.Her parents made her a Halloween outfit and being homemade all of her friends laughed at her.
She was actually crying at this point, and this was her worst moment?
I think she should write a victim impact letter. :( I have nightmares and flashbacks, PTSD is no joke!!!
OMG. I can only imagine how she’d handle real trauma in her life. She might actually die.
I plan on starting on step one in 3-5 years. You should be proud of your craftiness! My future spawn is doomed. My mom used to make my costumes, too, but she didn’t sew, so the construction was always questionable. She did her best.
I have a feeling C will be saying the same thing about me when she grows up. Her costume from last year is already falling apart.
I loved creating costumes but sadly, my son is now past the stage of wearing homemade costumes. Mind you, he’s still open to my costume suggestions. I love seeing the little people all decked out. Happy Halloween!
Thanks! I love seeing little folks dressed up too. It makes me want another one. Shhhhhhhh…don’t tell my husband. Happy Halloween, Holli!
Cee looks so beautiful, Em and so do you in your Halloween garb. My Mom was a master smocker as well. She made nearly all my dresses when I was little. Happy Halloween to you, your hubby and sweet Cee.
Smocking is the best hobby! I could never do it because I don’t really have the time to learn, but my mom kept all the dresses she made for me, and they are in such fantastic condition that now C can wear them too! It’s just the gift that keeps on giving. Happy Halloween, Brig!
refreshing… as always!
Ahhhhhhh! Thanks!
Wow, I’m impressed! Not only did you create an amazing costume, you also created an amazingly cute kid. :) I never made any of my sons’ costumes other than a couple times when the oldest dressed up like a zombie. That was easy and fun. Just torn up old clothes rubbed in dirt and some deathly make-up.
In other words, the way I look a lot of the time ;D Thanks, Carrie!
She’s adorable!
Thanks! She is fairly aware of it.
I’m sure she’s told all the time.
One of my true regrets as a parent? I didn’t learn to sew Halloween Costumes. I pulled together some rather decent ones over the years, but to this day I dream of doing it for my grand kids… dang! Wonderful post, Emily.
Thanks, Dawn! I really hope to carry on the tradition of making her Halloween costumes (although, to be fair I really didn’t *make* her costume this year, but just pulled it together), as it’s something that gets my creative juices flowing. I don;t have a lot of time for other craft projects, but this I can do. Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween! It’s my first time home, not answering the door (because no one has come) in 24 years. First year not making mummy hot dogs. First year in several, not driving a carload of teens to Thriller performance… just sitting at home, with Reeses. ;-) Dash over and tell me what you think about slutty costumes…things are heating up in my comment section!
Laughing my head off and going into cute overload — Emily, you’re killing me here! I’d love to scan all the pictures of me in my (always homemade) costumes — everything from a clown to Madonna to a unicorn — but that wouldn’t happen even if I were well.
However, my fevered brain last night decided I’m going to wear the last costume my sweet mama ever made for me while I’m passing out candy tonight, so you may just have me actually participating in this one. Maybe. If I’m not in the hospital in the next week.
For the record, I’d much rather show off my kids, but I can’t, ’cause, y’know, not my kids. But I could still make it under the “back in the day” wire, I think, because my oldest is about to be 14. I think that’s long enough ago. Yeesh, it certainly feels like it!
(Sorry, I ramble a lot when I have a fever.)
I went as early-80s Madonna one year when I was in college! To be fair, I think that it may not have been a Halloween party but just a sorority costume party, but my costume was freaking amazing. I worked so hard on it and even spent a little bit of cash on of the exact accessories I found her wearing in pictures. I may have to go digging for pictures because there have got to be some somewhere.
Hope you feel better soon! This linkup doesn’t close until next Wednesday so you have plenty of time to write a post if you want!
Love it, and your little girl!!! I feel like having kiddos will rejuvenate my excitement for Halloween. How could it not?
It certainly amped up my enthusiasm! Although, I will admit that the kiddie candy trail we went to last weekend was a bit of a chore. My husband and I both agreed that next year if she wants to go, we may pawn that outing off on her grandparents.
LOL — What are grandparents for if not chores like that one.
So you bring up a VERY good question: Why ARE owls so trendy? And I’ll plggyback that with WHY are mustaches so trendy? Regardless, that owl costume was flippin’ adorable, and little Miss Cee is rockin’ the butterfly wings this year!
Dude, I totally don’t know. I mean, I like owls and all and they’re really cute (I even made it Pinterest official and made an entire owl board), but I don’t understand the mass appeal. The owl lobby must be really powerful.
It’s like they’ve been plotting this all along. I mean, owls were always on the periphery. They had roles in fables and animated movies and such, but they were always the supporting character there for the wise advice. I bet they had an advantage being that they are nocturnal. All these years, they’ve been plotting their mass decent on all things trendy while we and other adorable animals slept.
Oh my gosh, she’s adorable! LOVE.
Thanks! She’s kinda cute.
and lucky me, I seem to have already written a Halloween post…
Woot!
My craft skills pretty much ARE limited to making people. But I’m good at it.
That’s all that really matters anyway I think. An upside is that you won’t feel tempted to decoupage Squish.
I admit here to you now that I was not sure what I would write about for this week’s RTT Halloween theme story. But then this morning, like a piercing stab from a hanger to the eye from Jamie Lee, it came to me. Warning – you may not think I’m such a good dad after reading.
Parenting fail moments make the best blog posts. Just sayin’ ;D
My mom always bought our costumes – those plastic face masks with the tiny slits for eyes, nose and mouth that you sweated in so much, even when it was 20 below zero out, that you got killer acne even if you were 7 years old. I tried to do the creative route with my kids, but it was too hard.
It’s over-achieving moms like you with the glue-gun who make all the rest of us feel inadequate, even 10 years retroactively. Thanks for that.
p.s. Your butterfly is totes cute. But you knew that.
Therein lies the power of the glue gun. Although it is but a piece of plastic with a heated tip, it stirs up the jealousy of mothers like nothing else can. It really is a lethal weapon. Happy Halloween, Peg, from the butterfly and me ;D
That is pretty darn cute. You could also luck out by having a child who shuns all costumes like my kid.
Does he shun all clothes too? That’s when you have a real problem, when their clothes literally fall off the instant you put them on.
PS I just heard a rumor that you are going to be posting every day for November, and I have to admit that I peed my pants a little in excitement.
I hope you don’t get tired of hearing that Cee looks adorable as a butterfly even if she made mincemeat out of her antenna at warp speed.
Emily,
This was one of your best. I love your sense of nostalgia.
Happy belated Halloween!
The Hook.
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