I'm Starting With the Man in the Mirror

Ahh, cooler weather! Finally! This past weekend was absolutely beautiful and we had so much fun with the boys, scootering up and down the sidewalk. With the cooler temperatures, Connor's fifth favorite holiday is approaching....Halloween! He starts thinking about it around July and runs through countless possibilities before finally settling back on the first thing he ever mentioned. This year he has decided to be what else? An astronaut. No real surprise there.

We already found an astronaut costume for him and he is so excited to be a 'real' space man. Connor is definitely a kid who gets his money's worth in a costume. They can make appearances throughout the year, you never know when it might show up at an egg hunt or on St. Patrick's day. So, you would think that he would be content to bask in his astro glory for the next month waiting for the big night to come, but no. He isn't happy until his brother is suitably equipped in an equally elaborate fashion. We have had countless discussions about what Hudson should go as for Halloween. And when I say we, I mean Connor and I. Hudson apparently does not care. This is an unacceptable attitude in Connor's opinion because he believes everyone in this world should be as theatrical as he is. Hudson's main worries in life revolve around when the Wiggles are coming on and when he is going to eat next, not what he is going to eat next, just when. Connor first thought that we should make Hudson into a rocket ship for Halloween. He just knew his brother would love to be dressed as the perfect accessory to his astronaut. Yes, I realize this is pretty selfish. He is essentially thinking of our two year old as a purse, something created to make his costume look even cooler. I personally did not want to fashion a wearable rocket ship from scratch for the world's tiniest two year old so I told Connor that we had to think of something that he would really like, not just something that Connor needed to complete his picture perfect Halloween. So after some more thought, he came up with the idea of a little alien, an itty bitty green man. Then he could pretend that he found Hudson on one of his great space adventures and was bringing him back to Earth. I thought this was doable and still fit into Connor's elaborate story line, so we ran it by Matt. But he wasn't blown away by the idea. Plus, all the alien costumes out there are kind of scary and I don't know how Hudson will do with green face paint. He has remarkable licking range of motion.

Hmm, still thinking and now we are running out of time. My personal project schedule decrees that all costume decisions must be set by the end of September or I will freak out. That's just the way it is. So Connor and I took a little trip up to Party City to peruse the selections to see if we could find any inspiration. That trip was a disaster, not only did we not find any ideas for Hud, we also got the crap scared out of us by all their gigantic, horrific Halloween decorations. Connor sees Halloween as a light, carefree, wear a costume and get candy kind of night, not a bloody, jump up from a grave and swoop down from the sky with your bony hands outstretched nightmare. He was freaked, so we left. In the car on the way home he made me promise to never take him to that store again, never ever. So I promised and kept trying to explain that all that stuff was just pretend, but frankly I am a little disappointed in Party City! Anyway, before I write my letter to their corporate office complaining about the forced walk through the horror in order to get to the children's costumes, I have to share what Connor said as we got out of the car. He climbed out and said, "Mommy, do you know why I never want to be anything scary for Halloween?" I just knew he was going to say that he didn't want to scare his little brother or his sweet mommy, but nope that was not the reason. "Mommy, I can't wear a scary outfit because every time I look in the mirror I would scare myself and I like to look at myself in the mirror a lot." Well. Ain't that the truth! Connor, in costume, stares at himself in the mirror more than you could ever imagine. Apparently his awesomeness knows no bounds.

But just when I thought we had completely lost him to the narcissistic dark side, he came through in the end with the perfect costume idea for his little brother. He came in this afternoon and said, "Mom! I thought of the best idea for Mushy's costume!" I figured it was going to be another suggestion for an asteroid or a box of Tang but he surprised me. He said, "I think brother should be his favorite thing in the whole world, a bottle of ketchup!" Yes! Hudson should be a bottle of ketchup! It is simple, it is genius. It is definitely going to have to be homemade, but who cares. He is going to be absolutely adorable and there was not even a mention of whether or not astronauts can eat ketchup in space. There is hope for us yet!