At three, my little one is getting hip to Halloween. Last year my mom and I took her trick-or-treating. She was dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (she had no idea who Dorothy was, but I dug it). This is Viv in her costume when she was one. It cost $40, so I had her wear it for two years running. I was a doctor. When we went trick-or-treating, Vivien often tried to give the candy back to the people who gave it to her. It was so cute.

This year she is noticing other people’s decorations and she wanted to get in on the fun. So we went shopping today for Halloween decorations, at a party supply store. My gal is a bit sensitive, so everything was deemed “too scary, Mama” as we walked the aisles.

“Well, Halloween is supposed to be scary, but in a tongue-in-cheek way.” Surprisingly a three-year-old didn’t understand that. (She no more understood it when later in the afternoon she was fighting me on her nap, and I told her she was being contrary.  She stopped wailing, “I don’t know what contrary means!”)

I found a tissue-paper pumpkin but that was rejected as well. Finally she agreed to some smiling pumpkins and a “happy” cardboard ghost.

It did make me think.  Halloween is kind of weird.