Children in Bee Costumes

Tomorrow is Halloween, a holiday which is totally fun when you're a kid, loses its fun as you get older, then becomes fun again when you actually have children around you and can legitimately grovel for candy with them. I remember when my oldest nephew had his first Halloween, my sister and I walked him around their neighborhood in his giraffe costume. He was outrageously cute. But he was about 8 months old, so it felt a little strange to be collecting candy on his behalf when we all knew that my sister and I were going to eat it. It felt less awkward when my nephews started walking and had teeth. But then it was tricky to sneak the candy you wanted to eat out of their plastic pumpkins without tipping them off and causing problems. This took some finesse, which my sister has in great amounts. It seems to involve keeping the candy in the pantry on a high shelf, to be doled out to the child after dinner contingent on behavior, but to yourself, liberally during naptimes and slack jawed cartoon watching. It's great.

I guess my mother must have done the same thing but I don't remember it so she, too, must have had great finesse in this area. When I was older and graduated to a pillowcase instead of the plastic pumpkin, I kept that under my bed. I don't recall being a very good share-er of my loot but then one year the schnauzer Tappy ate all my candy from said pillow case and that was that.

Anyway, this weekend there was a little parade near my house where costumed kids went in and out of shops with their folks. There were tons of babies dressed as bees, which just killed me, it was so cute. Costumes now are much better than they were in the 70s. I recall plasticky things with suffocating face masks that were more scary than anything else. Did babies wear costumes in the 70s? I have no idea. Then again, consumer markets have expanded in all kinds of crazy directions since then. I am not sure if people have more disposable income now than they did then but it seems like there are more things to "need." Hmm, this is starting to verge on a old codger rant, but I really don't feel that way, at least about the costume options available to babies and toddlers. Who cares if they have no idea what it going on! Bring on the babies in anything fleecy with ears and a tail!