so I guess we're THAT family on Halloween.

Shhh, let's pretend I haven't been trying to juggle three part-time jobs, being home full-time, taking two weekly classes that are supposed to be self-care time but are actually just sabotaging bedtime every Monday and Wednesday evening, plus a preschooler who's still struggling with separation issues that are manifesting in so many nighttime wake-ups that I finally bribed her with Oreos if she'd just stop crying out for me three, four, five times a night. Which, you know, goes against all of my early childhood social work training, except the part that proclaims you gotta do what you gotta do.

Ahem. Right.

My point is, someday I'll get around to posting about Rowan's third birthday and all the other things I wanted to share during September and October. But in the meantime, how about some Halloween pictures? Yes? Yes.

Early last spring, totally out of nowhere while we were reading books together, Rowan told me she wanted to be a ghost for Halloween. I was 100% on board with this costume idea (cut some holes in a white sheet + smear on some face paint = my idea of a good Halloween costume), but also acutely aware that she was likely to change her mind a dozen times between March and the end of October. Then, over the summer, J.J. and I went out to see the new Ghostbusters movie, and Rowan had a million questions: What's a Ghostbuster? What do they look like? What do they do? How do they catch the ghosts? Why is the movie not for kids? Why won't grown-ups get scared about it? And then she told us that she wanted all three of us to dress up like Ghostbusters for Halloween.

Now, a Ghostbuster costume is a little more complicated than a ghost costume, but I sorta loved the idea of tramping through the neighborhood with my tiny ghostbusting girl, complete with a tiny proton pack. In September, we started talking about Halloween more and more, and - just in the nick of time, before we started actually putting costumes together - we parsed out that Rowan didn't actually want to be a Ghostbuster. She thought Ghostbusters were ghosts. Once we got that straightened out, it was decided that J.J. and I would be Ghostbusters, but she would be a ghost. A "spooky" ghost. And when I showed her the face paint, the deal was sealed.

My unbelievably amazing mother-in-law (who is the reason I've survived this crazy busy autumn without running away and/or selling my child) made Rowan a ghost costume that was WAY better than a holey sheet (it even shimmered and sparkled), and she got to practice wearing it to her friends' joint Halloween-themed third birthday party a couple weeks ago.

SO excited to try out the face paint for the first time. "But
not IN my eyeballs, right, Mommy?"

Ghost in the bounce house!

Took off a few layers of costume to paint a pumpkin.

My mother-in-law (have I mentioned lately how awesome she is?) also made a "Halloween house" with Rowan one day when she was babysitting...basically a gingerbread house, but for Halloween. Rowan loved decorating it, and I loved dipping the candy in the frosting for the next week or so.

When Halloween finally arrived, Rowan was out of her mind excited. That morning, her preschool did a low-key "trick or treat" through their building, which was so cute. She wore her costume the whole morning and wanted it back on IMMEDIATELY after waking up from nap. We waited until after our traditional Halloween pizza dinner to actually put it back on her, along with her face paint. And check out the "spooky ghostie face" she made for all the pictures we took:

J.J. ended up going as an old-school Ghostbuster, but I did my best approximation of Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon's character from the 2016 reboot). Our light-saber ghost blasters, DIY'ed by J.J., definitely completed our looks.

You might not be able to tell, but my glasses are even yellow
like Holtzmann's. Just missing some salty parabolas.

We went trick-or-treating with our next-door neighbors, who have an eight-year-old daughter (or maybe she's nine?). She was a total trouper for letting Rowan tag along, and Rowan really did a good job at keeping up with her. They ended up trick-or-treating for a looooong time, making it almost all the way to the end of our street and back - somewhere between a mile and a half and two miles! Our neighborhood boasted some pretty sweet decorating, including "haunted tunnels" in garages and hot cider stations, complete with adult beverage add-ins. Rowan found some ghostie pals in a yard along the way...

Still making her "spooky ghostie face".

...And chose exactly one piece of candy from her sizable stash when she got home. I told her she could have a couple, but she said, "No, just one," and asked for the candy necklace that someone had dropped in her pumpkin.

Supremely pleased.

She's already planning what our costumes will be for next year, which I think is adorable. And although I never would have guessed that we'd turn into the kind of family that does group costumes every year, it seems to be a tradition now - minus, of course, Halloween 2013, when Rowan was five weeks old and donned a Yoda hat as her costume. I managed to get dressed that day and answered the door for trick-or-treaters with some approximation of a smile, which was about all the postpartum costuming I could manage. It's gotten a little easier since then:

2014: Darth Vader, Padme Amidala, and their
daughter (spoiler alert) Princess Leia

2015: three Spideys

2016: two Ghostbusters and a "spooky" ghost

We'll see what her plans for next year turn out to be. In the meantime, let it be known that I am getting really, really good at eating Kit-Kats from my daughter's trick-or-treat stash with her less than ten feet away and without her noticing. #ParentSkills #HadToCapitalizeThatSoItDidntLookLikeParentsKills #PossiblyOnAHalloweenSugarHighRightNow



In case you missed it: Halloween 2015: A Very Spidey Halloween