Today is February 2nd. February 2nd, as in 94 days after Halloween has passed. Today my son asked to drive past the Halloween store, which closed on November 2nd, which was 92 days ago. Twelve weeks ago. Three months ago.
Our three-year-old Dane has an interest in extremely obsessive passion for all things Halloween. Every single day, multiple times a day (I am not exaggerating), he asks to browse Amazon for a new costume he can add to his wish list. The first couple weeks he was doing this, he thought anything added to his wish list was actually being purchased. Needless to say, he was pretty devastated one day when he asked why his 15 costumes hadn’t been delivered yet. I re-explained to him the purpose of a wish list and that it isn’t a responsible choice to buy costumes every day. He wasn’t necessarily cool with that, but luckily he doesn’t yet know how to hit the “buy now” button. Anyways, he continues to add things to his wish list daily. It is truly an entire list of Halloween costumes and even some Halloween home decor. 😆
On a few occasions, Dane has been able to choose something from his wish list to buy. He had some Christmas money to spend, and another time he earned a reward for totally rocking a potty training sticker chart (Yay! But then he regressed back to diapers after his costume was delivered – I guess it’s true that bribing with extrinsic rewards can backfire. Be that as it may, I will likely keep bribing my children 😬.)
One of the costumes Dane chose to pull the trigger on was this super creepy evil jester costume. Most kids Dane’s age would be afraid of this costume. Most adults are probably afraid of this costume. It’s weird. I felt weird ordering it, and I felt weird about how excited he was to wear it. But, whatever. Here it is.
Anyways, the day after I let him order it, he could not focus on anything other than the costume and asking when it would be delivered, which proved to be interesting at his eye appointment that morning. Dane has had eye appointments every few months since we discovered he needed glasses in 2021. The Children’s eye clinic staff are wonderful and always amaze me with how they can get him to cooperate with so many tasks to assess his eye health. Well, the eye doctor we had seen several times recently moved out of state, so we were seeing a new doctor this particular morning. He was awesome, but I’m sure he thinks that Dane and his mom are in need of more “help” than just eyeglasses 🤣. Dane, as I mentioned, could not focus on anything but the damn jester costume; as a result, he stopped cooperating in the middle of his exam with the new doctor and asked me if he could see my phone. I knew why he wanted my phone. He wanted to show the doctor his super weird evil jester costume. Which he ordered in January… which is not typical Halloween costume-ordering territory. I tried really hard just to sweep it under the rug and distract Dane so I wouldn’t look like a psychopath mother to this doctor we had just met a few minutes before. Unfortunately, Dane doesn’t let things get swept under the rug. There are no legit no rugs with Dane. So he was getting heated and saying out loud that he wanted to show the doctor his new costume. Of course, the lovely, kid-friendly pediatric doctor was like, “Ohhh, sure, I’d love to see the costume!” 😨 So, I begrudgingly opened my Amazon app and ashamedly handed it over to Dane. I tried warning the doctor super quickly before Dane exposed us, but he moved too fast, and I couldn’t get my words out in time. I kind of just slurred a few inaudible sounds and then stopped trying because it just wasn’t worth it. So, the new doc saw the costume and was like, “Oh! Wow!!! 👀 Yeah, that looks pretty scary!!” And Dane was like, “YEAHHHHHH, ISN’T THAT COOL??!!?!” And I was thinking, “FML, I wonder what time the doctor will call social services on me.” Then, when Dane was satisfied and ready to move on, we finished the eye exam and found out his “good” eye apparently became even more farsighted, and he now needs to wear eye patches for 2 – 4 hours a day. So… that was cool, too. 🙃
Another one of the costumes Dane ordered from his wish list was this ghost with a creepy grim reaper scythe. He is all about accessories. We have so many Halloween scythes and staffs around this place, it’s just bizarre. And whenever I put them in basement storage with the Halloween stuff, they somehow find their way back up. I’m not sure if Dane keeps bringing them back upstairs or if maybe they’re haunted… and I’m actually not sure which of those would creep me out more.
Dane could not wait for his ghost costume to show up. On the day that it was to be delivered, we were at a gym daycare where I help out at on occasion. I was hanging out and watching the kids… all was going well. I noticed Dane talking to a little boy he had just met, and they seemed to be getting along. I was eavesdropping on their conversation, and it was so cute. Until it wasn’t. 😬 At first, I heard them talking about racing their toy cars, and they played together so sweetly. Then all of a sudden, things got dark. Dane basically cornered the kid and asked him if he wanted to see his scary ghost costume. It was a few days before Christmas, so the kid was probably like, “WTF?” The boy stared at Dane for a few seconds and just quietly shook his head no. I don’t think they played anymore after that.
When Dane was born, I vividly remember looking into his eyes during the first hour of his life. He was staring at me so intently, and I recall being fiercely curious about what he would be like as he got older. I must admit a mini Tim Burton was not what I envisioned at that moment, but here we are. We will see how things progress as he gets older 😂. If he as successful as Burton one day then I’m all for it, but it’s more likely that he is just going to be the weird guy that makes Youtube videos displaying all of his Halloween things and can’t get anyone to be his friend because he scares the shit out of everyone. But, in all seriousness, one of my favorite aspects of parenting is discovering what each of my kids take an interest in. Their personalities are so different, and they are their own little humans, learning how they will navigate their life. I have a feeling Dane’s navigation will be a little… different… but I sure love that about him.
I hope everyone is having a solid start to February. And just so y’all know, there are only 271 days until Halloween!