Halloween in July

I did something really silly today: I bought my kids’ Halloween costumes.

I know, I know. I’m almost as baffled as you are as to why I did this. The kids could change their minds in the next three months – or rather they may decide to offer a vote in the first place since I pretty much just went ahead and did this without consulting either them, and my daughter is old enough now to give me a flat-out “No!” if she doesn’t like what I’ve chosen for her.

And I don’t think of myself as one of those Type A moms who are super planners, always prepared for everything and buying things seasons ahead of time (although I did stock up on multiple tubes of sunscreen for the kids last month so I wouldn’t have to worry about tracking down the seemingly popular Neutrogena Pure & Free Baby Sunblock when they supply at both home and daycare ran low, so maybe I’m totally wrong about how Type A I am).

The arrival of a Chasing Fireflies catalog is what started the Halloween madness. I normally toss that catalog right in the recycling bin because I don’t need any extra suggestions for spending money, but I was bored, so I flipped through it. That’s when I spotted an awesome Batgirl costume. Lucy loves Batman, so I have a hunch this will be ok with her. That got me thinking that it would be really cool if we could find a Robin costume for Ike, and low and behold, look at what I found at Amazon.com.

That’s when I went Type A, all the way. It just seemed wise to go ahead and buy the costumes now, mostly because we are going for the whole sister-brother coordination thing. Who knows how long we’ll be able to get away with stuff like that with them? I didn’t want to risk blowing my chances by failing to act and then finding that all the other moms had bought up the Batgirl and Robin costumes during the summer.

The other thing is that I guess I’m just really enjoying being a mom and having fun doing silly things like this for my kids. There’s a lot of rather un-fun, daily slog kind of stuff that’s part and parcel to parenthood (poopy diapers and late-night tantrums, anyone?) so I’m happy to wallow in Halloween a few months ahead of schedule. Maybe this rationale could also score me some premature fun-sized Snickers.