"I can wear that!"

I am not crazy about Halloween. (As I have mentioned the last two years.) I rarely dress up, and I don't get the big deal. But this year is different. This year I have a toddler who is capable of understanding the concept of Halloween. Last year we dressed Ike up as a monkey. We got the costume at a yard sale for very cheap, but we didn't go to any Halloween parties or take him trick-or-treating or anything. It would have been way over his head. He looked adorable in his monkey costume, and we were glad we bought it, but in general there wasn't anything particularly thrilling about Halloween with a non-walker and non-talker.

I saw a pattern for a crochet sock monkey hat on Pinterest, and I knew that this year my boys would be sock monkeys. I whipped up Felix's hat very quickly. He is a newborn, and he doesn't really have opinions. If he doesn't like his sock monkey hat, he has no way of expressing that sentiment. Plus, he lacks the coordination to take his hat off.

Ike, on the other hand -

Well, Ike doesn't really like to wear his sock monkey hat. He likes the idea of the sock monkey hat, but getting him to wear the hat has been a challenge. I've taken to bribing him with candy to get him to wear it. I don't like bribery as a parenting method, but I figure for a Halloween costume, it's okay. After all, the whole point of wearing a Halloween costume is to get candy.

Seinfeld has said it best. (You can watch the whole thing, or you could stop at about 1:10, since that is where the relevance to this blog post ends.)

On Saturday our city hosted a little Halloween activity at a local park. A whole bunch of local businesses came and passed out fliers for grownups and candy for children. Ike very quickly picked up on the concept. He didn't say "trick or treat" (or anything remotely resembling the phrase). Instead, he just walked up to the people with the big bowls and said, "candy." He was hit or miss with saying "thank you" on his own. Most of the time I had to remind him, and usually he was so excited about having another piece of candy that it took him a moment to thank the appropriate person. Several times he just thanked whoever was standing closest to him, regardless of the age of that person.

I wasn't able to get a great picture of Ike on Saturday. He was so excited he just couldn't be still. These two are the best I have so far, and they should give you an idea of his costume.

The hat was definitely the most elaborate part, and even then it was a simple pattern. The pants and shirt are just gray sweats. I used some plain white material to trim the arms and legs like a sock monkey. And because I wanted to still be able to use the sweats in the future, I did not sew on the trim. Instead I used double-sided tape. That's just how crafty I am.