We told our son that he could be anything he really wanted to be, a storm trooper from 'Star Wars' or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but he was adamant that he wanted to be a blue butterfly. And then, once our youngest daughter was born, we had three butterflies. There was the Halloween when our oldest dressed as a mermaid and our son was a pirate. That year, we had a Dorothy and a Cowardly Lion. Another year I had a Little Red Riding Hood and a Big Bad Wolf.
Two years later, I had two kids in tow and discovered a love of themed costumes that matched. It was then that I knew, as a parent, that Halloween would forever rival Christmas as my favorite holiday. But despite that, my mother, husband and I took her trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and proudly showed off our first child on her first Halloween. She was far from being old enough to eat candy, and refused to keep her green leaf “strawberry top” hat on her head. As a kid on Halloween, I relished in dressing up in costumes.īut 12 years ago, I discovered a different side to the holiday, as I dressed up my squirmy, 6-month-old daughter into her first costume - a bright red strawberry with her legs wrapped in thick black tights as her feet flailed about with her red Mary Jane shoes.
