Almost 3 in a homemade costume

Historically, Halloween is big business in our home. Our house all decked out in purple lights and spider webs. Homemade costumes obsessed over for weeks. Hard-core negotiations over candy in the supermarket holiday aisle.

However, last year found us in a hotel. This year, throwing around references to gopher wood and Noah’s Ark as the rain comes down in relentless sheets. While our weather is nothing like the images being broadcast of the wreckage of Sandy (we’re praying for you East Coast) this constant downpour has my kid retreating to  a youth group candy pot-luck and me considering turning off our lights tomorrow and munching on candy in front of a roaring fire.

Despite the change in plans, there is still the issue of a costume. Going to a church function puts a real crimp in any ghoulish ideas he might have entertained. I say might, because he recently told me, “Oh, I’ve outgrown the desire to scare people on Halloween.” Yay?!

And being nearly 16 creates a whole different dynamic to the costume considerations. Gone are the years when I could say, “Look at the great costume I made you, don’t you want to be a spider?!”  Now I have to find a subtle way of suggesting that the best way to combat your “I’m a science geek prodigy” reputation, is to go BIG. Make fun of yourself. Be silly. But no LARPing costumes. 

That would be weird. 

We’ve settled on something. I hope he’ll go, have a good time, and not obsess too much on how people react to his costume. I pray the other kids get his joke and are kind, because historically they’re not so good at either of those things. And I hold my breath against the impending tidal-wave of emotions that come with parenting a child nearly grown and gone. Gone, too, are the days without a thought or care of an empty nest. Or, if the thought did come, it was in relief. Then I’ll sleep. Then we’ll be alone. 

Because now it is. . . we’re nearly there.

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