Happy Halloween: Letting go of the need for perfection.

It was 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, and I was on a mission. My challenge: to find a suitable Halloween costume for my two-year-old daughter. And when I say suitable, I mean pretty much any costume that would fit her, that was still available for purchase in the Bay Area.

The next day (yesterday) was the big Halloween parade in our amazing Oakland neighborhood, and I had run out of time to find her a costume. I hadn’t intentionally left it for the last minute--I never do it intentionally--but there I was, feeling more and more like a lousy mom as each store I called told me that they were out of children’s Halloween costumes. 

I had promised myself that this year I was going to start early. And I did. A good month before Halloween, I started discussing it with my daughter. She dressed up last year (in a bee costume that I bought at the last second) and went to a party at her daycare, but she was only one, and she didn’t really understand. This year I explained the concept to her carefully, emphasizing the dressing-up and the pumpkins, and I got some help from Disney Jr. (they had a song/commercial about Halloween on heavy rotation). It wasn’t long before she began to get excited, and about a week into October, when I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, she stated with confidence, “baby sheep!”

I liked the idea, so I started looking for costumes online. I was on top of it--I felt like an early-bird for the first time in my life. I even pinned a possible costume to my Pinterest page. But I hesitated to place an order, afraid that the costume would come, and she would change her mind about what she wanted to be. So I waited. And sure enough, a few days later she told me that she now wanted to be a kitty. Then it was a bunny. Then an apple. Yes, an apple. 

By that time, it was just a couple weeks until the Halloween parade. She still couldn’t decide, and and we still didn’t have a costume. I realized that we would have to pick out a costume in person, so I could be sure that she would wear it. We spent the better part of two weekends shopping around at all of the best places to buy costumes--and nothing. The city seemed bare of good costumes for toddlers. I had planned to take her to even more stores one night this past week, but I had an especially busy week, and was too tired or busy to go shopping after work. Before I knew it, it was the day before the parade, and with fifteen minutes left before the end of the work day, I was scrambling.

The first store I called told me that the only costume they had left in size two, was a parrot. Then I called a store in Berkeley that closed at 6:30, rationalizing that if I picked up my daughter on time, and there was no traffic, we could probably make it there before they locked the doors. Of course, it didn’t matter anyway, as they told me that they only had a “very limited supply” of children’s costumes, which I took to mean basically none. Finally, I called an arts and crafts store. The clerk told me that while they did not carry costumes for children, they were selling costumes for dogs. I filed that one away as a possibility. 

By this time my coworkers were getting involved, having overheard my phone conversations, and they offered their suggestions. “Try Ross and Marshalls,” said one. “Tie some ribbon around her head and call her a fairy,” said another. I left work armed with these suggestions, and while my daughter insisted repeatedly that she just wanted to go home and watch television, I took her to Ross and Marshalls, before revisiting BabiesRUs and Target. We finally found a costume at Target--a ladybug costume that we had rejected weeks earlier. We were both thrilled, and I posted a very happy picture on Facebook of both of us grinning like we just won the Olympics.

The next morning, we were both excited to get ready for the parade. I had a headband with sparkly, orange, pumpkin antennae on it, and she had her beautiful ladybug costume. But when I put the costume on her she started screaming that it hurt her, and when I checked, I saw that the sleeves were really tight. I sighed. I was disappointed. I had tried so hard to make this a perfect Halloween for my child, and in the end I was left with nothing. A part of me wanted to make her wear it--after all, we had gone through so much to find it. I checked the sleeve again and looked at her sad, little face, and I knew I couldn’t go through with it. What was the point of all of this, if she wasn’t going to have fun? Who was I really doing this for?

So she put on her pink tutu, her Hello Kitty shirt, and the heart antenna headband from the ladybug costume, and I drew hearts on her cheeks with eyeliner. And we just went with it. She didn’t care that she didn’t have the perfect costume, and by that point, neither did I. Once she saw all of the kids trick-or-treating at the businesses along the parade route, and realized that candy was up for grabs, she forgot all about the ladybug costume, and proceeded to have the time of her life. 

We had a fantastic time. She took home quite the candy haul, and there were lots of goodies for the parents, too. A new Japanese restaurant was handing out delicious miso soup, and a gourmet burger place was passing out curly fries (which my daughter fought me for, ultimately eating most of the bag). It was a great day, and I learned something about being such a perfectionist about the holidays--and in general. I’ve realized that I have to let go a little bit. It’s okay to want to do things really well, and create amazing memories for my daughter, but so often my perfectionism leaves me with nothing at all. I have resolved to live and let live a little more--go with the flow. After all, I do yoga now. I am zen-like.Yes.

Next up is Thanksgiving, which this year also happens to be the second night of Chanukah. They are calling it Thanksgivukkah (exact spelling as yet undetermined), and apparently it is a once-in-a-lifetime event, which I am apt to believe. I know I have never heard of Chanukah coming this early. 

The shtick is to serve dishes that combine elements of the food traditionally served on both holidays: I am planning on bringing latkes with cranberry applesauce to the meal this year. Now all I have to do is find the perfect latke recipe. And the right potatoes. I wonder where I could get some really good potatoes. Hmmm.