I know a lot of people have little girls who dress up in some sort of costume every day. That’s normally not Catie’s thing, she’s not a big “playing dress-up” kind of girl. (Unless we’re talking about putting my bra on her head like Princess Leia hairbuns, in which case, yes, she does that almost every day.)

Something about Halloween, though, brings out the need to play dress-up for most kids, I imagine.

On Friday, as I mentioned, was Catie’s daycare Halloween party. Catie decided months ago that she wanted to be a unicorn for Halloween. My mom bought her this costume on eBay, and she has been loving on it and talking about it for ages.

The kids did a little parade around the building, which was fun, but that was when we first started to realize a problem with the unicorn costume: it’s kind of hard to manage four legs when you’re used to two. Catie kept tripping on the unicorn’s front legs. We brushed it off because she was so in love with the costume.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to our neighborhood Halloween parade, and again Catie wore her unicorn costume. She had so much fun, and it was such a beautiful afternoon, that she wanted to walk home rather than drive. No big deal, but again, she tripped and fell on the sidewalk in her costume.

Despite the happy appearance in that picture, she was pretty upset by the time she got in the house, and immediately took off her unicorn costume and announced she wasn’t going to wear a costume for Halloween at all. I suggested that she wear her dinosaur costume from last year (which still kinda-sorta fits), but she didn’t want to do that.

Finally, I had a light bulb go off over my head and I suggested that maybe she could wear the princess dress that Mimi made her? She tried it on once when she first got it, but she decided that the fabric was too itchy (which it sort of is, I get where she’s coming from), and she hasn’t worn it since. I pointed out that since it was cold, she could wear a long-sleeve shirt under it, so the itchy part wouldn’t touch her or bother her at all.

Mommy FTW!

Only, uh, I kind of assumed that since the neighborhood Halloween party was on Saturday, that everyone would be trick-or-treating then, rather than on Halloween (Sunday)? And… I was wrong. We went to 3 houses, all of whom seemed pretty surprised to see us, and the 3rd house didn’t have their candy yet, and that’s when I realized we were the only ones out trick-or-treating. Huh. We went home with many, many promises from Mommy to let her have whatever candy she’d just gotten, in addition to playing fun games at home, AND the promise of more! trick-or-treating! tomorrow!

It worked. And tonight we went trick-or-treating for real.

We hit just about every house on our street, and she was lovely and fun the whole time. In between houses, she kept telling me, “Mommy! This is the most fun party EVER!” And she was pretty much right, it was awesome.

I already can’t wait until next year.

P.S. New job starts tomorrow! Yay!