Shoebox Head

Let me set the scene for you:

It was the late 80's, October... Halloween, actually. According to my parents we were not rich folks back then, although we (my 2 brothers and I) had no idea that we couldn't afford any old costume that we wanted. More years than not we had homemade outfits, ones that my creative mother usually orchestrated herself.

So take a moment to soak up this little visual nugget:

Zac, my oldest brother, was a tube of toothpaste. It's obvious that lots of time and creative energy were put forth into his bedsheet-turned-toothpaste tube. Besides the color scheme, it even had the "with fluoride (c)" printed on the front. Creative indeed. Ben, my next oldest brother, apparently wanted to be a ghost... Easy! another bed sheet, a little magic marker and voila!

I'm not sure how things took such a terrible turn south for my costume. Several questions have entered my mind: Did I want to be a toothbrush? No, not likely. Did they forget they had a 3rd child to outfit? Highly doubtful. Did my mothers creativity run out? Again, unlikely. Did my parents think that a shoebox on my head, fringed with construction paper "bristles", was just too funny to pass up? We might be on to something here....

If body language means anything, it's obvious that I knew I had failed on the toothbrush front even at that tender age. I won't even face the camera, my brother has to hold my hand to keep me in the picture. I've also learned from studying this picture that apparently we had siding on the inside of our kitchen, and we must have eaten hamburgers for dinner. But I digress...

Now, as a parent, I have come to realize that there are only precious few years where you can talk your children into dressing as you'd like them to dress. All too soon they develop their own opinions and desires for costumes. Last year, at only 3 months old, Madigan had no choice in being a banana:

Will she someday wonder why I picked such a fruit for her first halloween? Probably. The answer is simple: it was cheap, it was warm-looking, and it was easy to get on and off. Oh, and I think there is a law somewhere that states that your firstborn must dress as a fruit or vegetable for their first halloween. Seriously.

So when looking at costumes for this halloween, we realized that the years that WE get to pick are limited. Especially considering that she screamed bloody murder when we tried on a "Candy Corn" outfit this year. Does she KNOW that being a candy corn would be dorky? Hmm... Don't think for a second that we didn't try a few of the outfits that would surely cause her to groan and roll her eyes when she sees the pictures as an adult: a garden gnome probably topping that list. I reserve the right to put my kid in a sweat suit and put a shoebox on her head if I want to. Because it's funny, because I'm her mom and it's my job to dork-her-out on a few occasions in my life. And also because I guarantee that little Sarah Shoebox Head was the only toothbrush on the block that year. So, truth be told I may have been embarrassed at the time to be a shoebox headed-toothbrush that year, but as an adult I really appreciate my mom's effort and creativity, not to mention her ability to recycle a shoebox into headwear.

So soak it up, people:

Because you might just see me sporting a shoebox head this year, for old time's sake!