Boo (Hoo hoo)

Although I’m not a fan of cheesy clothing that commemorates it, I am a softie for First Christmases and First Halloweens and First Arbor Days. So it was not Muffin’s first Halloween. But it was only her second, and I thought it should be special and memory-making. It wasn’t.

Sally called me at the end of the work day to tell me that Muffin had not had a nap that day. She’d tried to get her down several times, and Muffin just couldn’t settle herself. She has never, ever gone an entire day without a nap. In fact, sometimes she still naps twice a day. Also – remember daylight savings? Muffin does not seem to know we’ve fallen back. This was all very, very bad.

When I got home, she was in a pleasant enough mood, so I thought we might coast through on a second wind. Then we tried to put on her costume, which, until this point, she had ooohhed and aahhhed and actually, bahhhed over too. She ran away until finally we cornered her in the bedroom and wrestled her into the costume as she squirmed and squealed. I somehow strapped her into the stroller, plopped on my cartoonishly large witch hat, gave the Canuck a dirty look for not wearing the Mohawk wig I’d gotten him, and tried to remember that Halloween was supposed to be fun.

We met some friends from the building to join the parade that takes place every year in my neighborhood. Their girls sat happily on their dads’ shoulders. Ours whined to get out of the stroller and then booked away from us at a fast clip as soon as we set her free. We tried her on the Canuck’s shoulders. She wouldn’t hold on. We tried her in the stroller again, and she flailed around angrily. We tried letting her walk, but she refused to hold either of our hands, and this was no place for her to roam free. In frustration, she pulled off her lamb hat, threw herself in the middle of the street, and sobbed. Four blocks into the parade, we were done.

On the walk home, I heard someone remark, “What a cute bunny rabbit!” as Muffin screamed and screamed.