Halloween 2008

Ah, Halloween - is there anything better for a three year old? Dressing up in costume, knocking on random doors, strangers giving out candy, and your parents actually letting you eat some! As Rory would say, Halloween is "pure awesomeness"! We are still in the process of detoxing that three year old from eating his weight in candy...

The lead up to Halloween this year was pretty entertaining. At the beginning of October, I asked Rory what he wanted to be, and his answer was "a Starbucks Maker"(which translates to a Starbucks barista). Not hard to tell that this kid practically grew up in a Starbucks, is it? It sounded kind of odd to me until I realized that this costume basically required only a green apron and a pair of tan pants - it doesn't get much more low maintenence than that! - so I was totally onboard. However, about a week later, I went to pick Rory up from school and his teacher came up and said, "I asked your son what he wanted to be for Halloween and do you know what he said?" I smiled politely, thinking that she meant a Starbucks barista, but she started to laugh and said, "He wants to be a Chuck E. Cheese token!" Uh, WHAT?? Where on Earth did THAT come from? Rory had only been to Chuck E. Cheese once before when he was much younger, and they don't even have tokens anymore! I had no idea where he got the idea, but from then on, he was totally stuck on it.

There went my low mainetenece costume! I had to figure out how to turn my kid into a token! My idea was to use cardboard and cut out two large circles to create a sort of sandwich board that he could wear over his shoulders, then take a picture of a token and have it blown up to cover the cardboard. Sounds good in theory, doesn't it? However, I quickly realized that this was going to be heavy and hard to move around in - and trust me, my child NEEDS to move! On to Plan B. I bought some light weight poster board, figuring this might be easier to get around in, but when I did a test drive with it, Rory ended up crushing it within the first five minutes of wearing it. This was turning out to be even harder than I thought. Darn that Chuck E Cheese and his tokens!

So enter Plan C - convince Rory that he REALLY wanted to be a barista after all! I quickly ordered a little Starbucks apron online and started talking it up like it was going to be the best costume in the world. And you know what? It worked!!!

Check out the cutest "Starbucks Maker" you've ever seen:





Can't wait to see what he comes up with for next year...