You see, I have these creative ideas that I feel my kids will be dying to go along with. When I came across this gnome hat with an attached beard, I felt I must have it. Could anyone resist a chubby-cheeked towhead in suspenders?
Thus was born this year's costume endeavor to get all three of my kids to go as garden gnomes.
Don't let the adorable photos fool you into thinking that our family has it all together. That my children always get along. That they do what I ask, when I ask, without pausing to exercise their own strong wills. I have carefully sorted through the bloopers.
What really happened is that I bribed my children into cooperating in a garden gnome photo session by telling them they could be anything they wanted for the evening's trick-or-treating. I had to throw in the promise of make-up to clinch the deal. You might notice that my oldest is being quite well-behaved overall. She was dead set on getting her face painted in character.
My husband was furious with me for "wasting" time and energy (and money) on costumes I wasn't going to make our kids wear. It was definitely a dilemma.
I just don't subscribe to the school of parenting that involves making kids wear costumes they don't enjoy. Halloween is supposed to be fun for them, not just me. I spend a lot of energy throughout the week making them wear things they don't want to wear. When it is important, I will win that battle. When it doesn't better society, or better them, or disturb any honor to God, then it feels wrong to insist.
In the end, my oldest went as a fox... again. Same as last year.
I don't even know what my middle child went as. Some kind of snow princess, I guess. She wore her favorite Christmas dress, that she actually wore to school every day last week as well. With a medieval flower child headdress and her favorite red shoes. A pink wand made it into the photo as well.
The little guy was the only one without a choice. He was into it as long as the hat wasn't involved. The entire night was a constant back and forth with some adult putting the hat on his head and him removing it. Over and over this played. He did keep his pants on all night, though, which is a real triumph when it comes to keeping him dressed. This little gnome rocked trick-or-treating. He walked the whole way through the neighborhood holding his little pumpkin bucket and his flashlight shouting "Tick or Teat!" He could care less about the candy.
There are plenty of ways in this life to squash a child's spirit by enforcing things. I don't feel right contributing to it by forcing them to wear costumes. Being flexible about this is one more way that I can teach them the difference between the things that matter in life and the things that don't.
In the meantime, I got my photos, so I guess I am happy. I can only feel sincere about them by telling the real story of what happened on Halloween. All those of you out there who have children who also rebelled against conformity in some manor or another regarding a costume can sleep a little bit better tonight knowing that the photos of your friends on facebook or instagram whose children are all dressed in a set of cleverly matching disguises, smiling, getting along... well, they might not be telling the entire picture.
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