C Is For Cookie

We ended up getting a cookie monster costume for Owen for Halloween, after much thought.  He doesn’t particularly like to dress up – except for the occasional hat he’ll wear while playing – and so I figured that if the costume didn’t appeal to him he wouldn’t wear it.  He doesn’t watch Sesame Street much, if at all, but he likes to sing the song “C is for Cookie” and will watch Cookie Monster sing it on my phone on occasion.  And when I asked if he wanted a cookie monster costume, he seemed very enthusiastic about it. 

Another plus is that the top of the costume was a hood, so he could either wear the hood part or just have it hanging from his neck.  He had multiple occasions on which to wear the costume, the first being a birthday party in the middle of October.

Then we went to the Philadelphia zoo on the 24^th, a day on which kids were supposed to wear their costumes, and then they had trick or treat stations by the animals.  We had stumbled upon it by chance last year, and decided to go on purpose this year.  Owen wore his costume and rode around in his blue car and had a good time – it’s fun to see all the kids dressed up, and a lot of the parents!  Owen also didn’t seem interested in the trick-or-treat stations, so we could skip that part of the celebration and concentrate on the animals, or the statues of animals:

He then wore the costume to school on the 30^th for the Halloween parade.  There was a bit of drama:  he was happy to wear the costume to school, but when he arrived immediately wanted to take it off so he could get down to the business of playing with the school toys.  We left him sobbing angrily with a teacher, as she tried to convince him to leave his cookie monster suit on.  Fifteen or so minutes later, he paraded past us three times, holding the teacher’s hand, and was Not Pleased.  I had expected that there might be problems when he saw us and wasn’t allowed to go to us, and I was right.  The second time he paraded by though, the teacher did let him stop for a “mom hug”.

Then he went inside for Halloween fun and games and all seemed well.  His friend, Mason, didn’t enjoy the parade either, and Owen is still talking about how Mason had tears “all over his face” and the teachers wiped them off.  He says “Mason didn’t like the parade” and then shakes his head sadly.  It’s the new “Mary Spilled Her Juice” story from yesteryear.

Then of course he wore the suit on Halloween for trick-or-treating and had a great time.  He kept asking Sean if they could go to one more house.  He was then also pleased with the kitkats (he breaks them apart and says “one for me, and one for you!” and hands one to me), and the Reese’s.  He doesn’t eat much of the rest of the candy, as he doesn’t like the ones that have “honey” in them (caramel), or “crunch” (most everything else).  Strange kid!