intellegent design

"How could you do it? How could you cave like that?" asked the woman in the cutting line. She had a point, of course.

She meant how could I possibly say yes when my son, who had until Friday morning planned to be a pirate for Halloween, confidently announced at lunch that he was going out as a triceritops.

"well, because he's two." I thought for a long moment.

"And, actually, because I'm a huge show-off, and I want to prove I can do it. Like winning some ludicrous challenge on Project Runway."

And, I thought later, because he had said to me a few days ago, "Mommy! You can fix anything!"

I was actually a little disappointed in 'pirate', easily assembled from his own clothes and some fabric scraps I already had. Perhaps a stuffed sword, I thought, with a gold lame scimitar blade...

I was not the only person buying costume fabric and boning at 4pm on Halloween, incidentally. Not by a long shot.

What we ended up with: a mottled green fleece hooded pullover, with 3 horns on the forehead, a curvy stuffed tail, and deep green felt ridges down the back. (I never got around to attaching the standup frill, which was made of fleece and stiffened with spines made of that poly foam sheet stuff they have now.) He could wear it with his camo pants or with some cartoon dino pajama bottoms I just picked up at Target.

He wouldn't even put it on, a surprise to PRECISELY NO ONE I'm sure. Not even me, really. It was just all too much - it didn't scare him, exactly, just seemed to overwhelm him. I cut the hood off and tried it as a hat - no chance.

He wore his pajamas to trick-or-treat.

I cut off the tail, and pinned it to the hem of my sweatshirt.

Still, it must be said - I did win the challenge, create a cute and recognizable triceratops for a toddler in 2 hours, including shopping.

Do I have immunity for next Halloween?