Jen's Column / Halloween

I love dressing up for Halloween. Even before kids, my husband and I applied our ghoulish makeup with care for the onslaught of trick-or-treaters. After kids, it got even better.

Well, except for last year. Last year, my then-preschooler was determined to be a “scary ghost” for Halloween. He’d been saying as much since July.

“Of course you can be a scary ghost!” I told him. I mean, how easy would that be? All I had to do was buy a white sheet and cut it to size. Voila — one scary ghost and one totally cool Mommy for making it happen.

A few days before Halloween, I corralled Bergen in the living room for his official fitting. I threw the sheet over his head and put Xs where I’d cut armholes and eyeholes. I drew a dotted line to mark length.

As I cut a ghost-like zigzag pattern along the bottom, carved two perfect eye circles, and rounded out armholes, I was flying high. This wasn’t just a Halloween costume, I decided — this was love personified. This was a mother’s devotion. This was my Martha Stewart moment.

I called Bergen back to my makeshift costume workshop. “Ready?” I asked.

Was he ever. “It’s my scary ghost costume!” he shrieked, running up the stairs.

I threw the sheet over his head. And then, in a move never before seen in the Koski household, Bergen yelled, “I can’t see!” while simultaneously tripping on the edge of the massive white fabric and falling headfirst onto the couch.

I dug him out and assessed the situation. The sheet was too long. The eyeholes were positioned squarely on either side of his mouth. The armholes sat at his elbows.

“It’s OK!” I announced. “I can fix it!”

I trimmed the bottom. I turned two eyeholes into one giant eyehole. I lengthened the armholes.

“We’re rolling now!” I hollered to Bergen, who was sitting on the couch, deflated. “Try again!”

He did. Giant eyehole over his nose. Zig-zag bottom dragging decidedly on the floor.

“I’m not a scary ghost,” Bergen said pointedly.

“You will be!” I assured him. “Let me try one more time.”

I re-trimmed the bottom. I turned the giant eyehole into a whole-face hole.

By the third go-round, Bergen’s face — chin to crown — stuck through the giant hole at the costume’s top. The armholes ran from shoulder to elbow. The bottom was six inches off the ground in the back… and still dragging on the floor in the front.

“I’m not scary,” he said, looking in the mirror. “I don’t want to be a ghost anymore.”

“You are the scariest ghost I’ve ever seen,” I promised him.

“No one will know what I am,” he muttered a day later as we walked into his preschool.

“Of course they will,” I answered optimistically. But I wasn’t kidding anyone.

“And what are you?” his teacher asked as we walked in.

Bergen looked at the floor — the white fabric blackened by dirt. “A scary ghost,” he answered quietly.

Talk about Mommy Failure.

He tripped all over himself during the costume parade… and again that night during the trick-or-treat extravaganza. “Oh, look, it’s a…. a…” neighbors said as we made our rounds.

“Ghost!” I’d fill in. “Bergen’s a scary ghost!”

“Of course he is,” they’d answer as Bergen tripped down their steps.

I am determined to redeem myself this year. No more crafting a costume with love and devotion. No, this year Bergen is a Storm Trooper — in all its mass-produced, store-bought, plastic, foam and cheap fabric brilliance. He loves it.