Sleepy but pleased.

[rivka]

A few weeks ago, Alex suddenly announced that she was going to be a dolphin for "trick-or-treat." After a few quick searches for dolphin costumes, which are thin on the ground (if only she'd wanted to be a Miami Dolphins cheerleader...), we tried to expand her sense of the potential Halloween options. What about a dinosaur? Wouldn't that be cool? Or a butterfly! Or a doggy!

"No," she said firmly, again and again. "I'm going to be a dolphin."

I bid on three dolphin costumes on eBay and watched the prices rise: $30, $40, $50. Each one went far beyond my ability - or, frankly, willingness - to pay. The last one I bid on went from $10.50 to $45 in the last six minutes of bidding. And afterward, there was Alex, chirping happily, "I'm going to be a dolphin. What are you going to be, Papa? A seahorse?"

Not a lot of size 3 dolphin costumes come up for auction.

I decided to take a chance on another auction. Size 18-24 months, but the seller was sure it would fit a 2T as well. Alex still wears some of her 2T clothes. Besides, this one is just a jacket - a tailcoat, actually - not a full-body suit. There's more wiggle room in the sizing. So I held my breath during the bidding...

And I won. For $10 - about one-fifth the price of the auctions I felt so bad about losing.

I don't have to choose between being rational and sensible (people are willing to spend how much on a toddler's Halloween costume?) and granting the deep desire of Alex's heart. Yay, dolphins.

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

That is going to be absolutely adorable. Do please post pictures.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Oh that is perfect! She's going to love it.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Bravo! Well Ebayed! :)

I asked Tamsin what she wanted to be for Halloween and she replied "hot cocoa," but I think she was just thirsty.

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

I want to see how that costume would work LOL

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Me too! :D

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Actually, a hot cocoa costume wouldn't be too difficult to design, would it? You could find some sort of a hoop, hang white cloth from it (for the cup), and brown cloth across the top with a hole for her head.

Or maybe she was just thirsty.

I thought we'd have another year before Alex would be specifying her Halloween costume desires - that this year, we'd be able to just buy something and present it to her with "Look! Here's your Halloween costume!" How wrong could I be? And I would never have thought of a dolphin on my own, either.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's a good idea for how to construct it. I may borrow your idea! All I know is, we were on our way to the playground (or the "paygownd," as T says) and when she answered "hot cocoa!" she then wanted to turn around and go home and get some... so... hmm. Toddlers can be inscrutable.

That is wicked amazing that Alex caught on to the whole dressing up trick or treat thing! Dolphins are pretty way cool too. And that costume is adorable (and brilliantly constructed!)

I may have to get out the "Spot's Halloween" book where Spot's friends help him pick a Halloween costume. Maybe that will refresh her "dressing up/trick or treat" memory.

My only fear is that she's going to want to be a badger again this year, and then I'm going to have to make the same damn costume again larger.

Maybe I'll show her your otter icon. Otters are neat! She could be an otter! With a bottle! (That is truly the cutest icon ever!) I'd be happy to make an otter costume! It could be like a gangsta hoodie romper! With a tail!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

That is wicked amazing that Alex caught on to the whole dressing up trick or treat thing! Dolphins are pretty way cool too. And that costume is adorable (and brilliantly constructed!)

She was... 18 months, last Halloween? And yet she hasn't ever forgotten about trick-or-treating - although she did have trouble grasping the idea that it's only once a year. (This year, she'll have five costume-wearing opportunities: our friends' Halloween party, our church party, her nursery school costume parade, Zoo Boo, and trick-or-treating on our block. That's a little crazy, isn't it?)

I confess to being thrilled that she didn't want to be a princess, or a fairy, or a fairy princess. I don't think there's anything wrong with being girly, but I do hate the way princessy stuff tends to crowd out every other imaginative possibility for young girls. I remember going to a neighborhood Halloween party when Alex was 6 months old and having her be the only girl in the room who wasn't dressed up as something on the princess spectrum. It's just so narrow!

...And yet who wants to be rigidly controlling about their daughter's permitted forms of gender expression?

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Well, you could add the Jewish holiday of Purim to that and go trick-or-treating in the spring as well... :)

As Halloween is one of my fave holidays, I must say I don't feel 5 costume-wearing opportunities to be at all excessive, especially considering the growing-child-getting-mileage-out-of-the-costume part of it. I wonder if we have a Zoo Boo type thing here in Philly too? That would be fun!

I am also hoping for non-princesshood, and admit to cringing when the neighbor girl very generously offered to lend Tamsin her light-up tiara so she could be a princess for Halloween. Though I also decided that I would be nice about it if she did want to be a princess, and I would suck it up and make her a nice costume (but it would be a historical princess costume and not a Disney one!!!) It's partly the gender expression aspect of it that bugs me, but also the historical accuracy issue and the product merchandising issue.

I was relieved when Tamsin insisted on wearing the tiara backward and upside-down, so that she looked more like a DS9 Ferengi than a princess, though the neighbor girl was kind of horrified. Later, Tamsin put the tiara on Hippo (correctly) and patted him and told him he looked pretty. Hee.

Of course, I remember how mortified my mother was when I was Anubis for five years running. Poor woman had to explain me at every Halloween party she attended.

Right now, hot cocoa trumps princess for me.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I wonder if we have a Zoo Boo type thing here in Philly too? That would be fun!

You should come down here! It's only what, an hour and a half on the train? We could make a weekend of it. Interstate playdate!!

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

That sounds awesome! Tamsin seems to be leaning toward being a ray, so they'd even be dressed as animals from the same environment... :D

I'll email you--even if Zoo Boo doesn't work out this time, maybe we have an Interstate Playdate some other time. It would be very cool to meet you IRL!

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

Man, now I want to be a dolphin. That's a great costume.

I thought we'd have another year before Alex would be specifying her Halloween costume desires

On underestimating, and Halloween.

When I was two-and-a-bit, we had our first Halloween out of the city, where we'd actually get trick-or-treaters. My mom figured I'd be too young to even understand what was going on, but thought that I might like handing out candy.

When the very first group of kids came up, I immediately turned to my parents and asked "Where *my* funny face?" Whoops. They managed, somehow.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Marshmallow on her head!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Hee! Oh my, yes. And maybe a peppermint stick.

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your mommy stories, I'm learning a lot.

This entry is someone poignant for me, as I have fairly intense memories of somehow always having to negotiate what was "reasonable" with my mother. It's hard to explain without sounding like I was always too much for a reasonable adult, but I know that the sense of "these are the best years of your life" that adults kept telling me was supposed to be my childhood was most definitely missing.

So, yeah, hooray for going the extra mile for granting a child's wish of the heart! :'-) (And in "extra mile" that includes the extra auction cruising, so that you got both reasonable and wish-granting!)

Crazy(and looking forward to the pictures, too!)Soph

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Money is tight right now. So I am very, very relieved that Alex can go a little while longer without having to have the "there are some things we just can't afford..." conversation.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Awwwwwwwww!

Dolphin Costume

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Okay; that's cute.

B

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I still regret reaching a certain age and no longer being able to imitate Flipper noises. I mean, I regret that aspect of reaching a certain age.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

There are so many heartwarming aspects of this story. I like the way Alex knows exactly what she wants and articulates it so clearly. I like the fact that amazingly cool costumes *can* be found on Ebay. There was something wrong with the old choices of elaborate home crafting, spending lots of money one something to be worn once or twice, and having to make do with something obviously inferior. (Though I'm afraid the ease of finding great stuff at reasonable prices will lead to pressure to find more and better stuff by kindergarden or so.)

For all that, I'm still childish enough to be most impressed by this:
Besides, this one is just a jacket - a tailcoat, actually - not a full-body suit.
Hee! A dolphin tailcoat!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex being articulate about what she wants is in fact a mixed blessing. But I do think it's cool that she chose such an unusual costume, and was so certain about it. When I still thought *I* would be choosing her costume, I was sort of wringing my hands about whether it was really fair of me to be completely closing the door on the whole genre of princess/fairy/fairy princess costumes.

When I was a kid, I don't think I even knew about the possibility of spending a lot of money on something to be worn once or twice. Costumes came in two varieties: homemade, and dime store. And homemade had to wait until I was old enough to put together my own, because my mother had more than enough to do without hand-sewing costumes.

We had a big black plastic garbage bag in our attic filled with old costumes, costume pieces, and masks. The costumes were mostly thin polyester tunics, one-size-fits-all. The masks were horrible cheap plasticized-cardboard things with insufficient eye- and mouth-holes and an elastic strap that would get caught in your hair.

Even cheap Walmart costumes these days are likely to be made of plush (the animal costumes, anyway) and nicely detailed. And I love the innovation of having the animal's head on top of the child's hood, so that those uncomfortable and probably dangerous masks are completely done away with.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Yay you! Can't wait to see photos!

My eight year old wants to be a Bat-Dragon. And while I am thrilled that he is avoiding the commercialization juggernaut, it's really, really hard to find a Bat Dragon costume, so we're doing some patching together of a bat body and a dragon headpiece, and hope it'll work...

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Some of the ones our kids enjoyed in later years included a Headless Man (this involved wearing Dad's motorcycle jacket up over zir head and carrying a helmet), a knight with tabard, a bear, and a certain kind of mage from the novel zie was writing at the time (this necessitated a lot of explanation).

As an adult, my best one was the outboard motor and my usual quick one is a spider. (Stuff black kneesocks with newspaper for the extra legs, pin them to my back and pin threads from them to my elbows and wrists so I can hug people with them, wear leggings.)

[redbird23.livejournal.com]

Oh the cute! It's a fantastic costume.

I couldn't resist the lion costume I found at a consignment sale. Good thing it was only $5, because I probably would have spent more.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

That's so cute! It has a fin in the back! We'll want pictures, of course.