In the end, he was a baseball player.

Halloween in the Vasquez household played out pretty much as expected. When it came time to get dressed to go trick-or-treating, my son would have none of it.

Big tears. Lots of screaming (“Take it off!”) when I tried to slip on the “scurvy” pirate costume he had been talking about for weeks. I managed to get the pants on. But that was it. The shirt might as well have been laced with shards of glass. The painful screams persisted long after the shirt was removed and shoved into a distant corner. Our back-up fireman costume didn’t even make it out of the closet.

The crying eventually subsided, and, amazingly, my son still wanted to go trick-or-treating. So my husband and I improvised and searched the house for some semblance of a costume:

Mickey Mouse Club member. Costume: Mickey Mouse shirt and Mickey ears. My son’s response: “I don’t want the ears. I don’t like it!”

Harry Potter. Costume: Pair of round glasses. My son’s response: “I don’t want glasses!”

Then came one last idea: Baseball player. Costume: Aforementioned pirate pants, San Francisco Giants jersey and plastic bat. My son’s initial response: “No shirt! No shirt!”

At that point, I realized he just wanted to say no to everything –- not exactly unusual for a three-year-old. So I told him if he wanted to go outside to see his friends and go trick-or-treating, he needed to wear a jacket (a.k.a. baseball jersey) because it was cold. (OK, technically, it was just breezy.)

He agreed. He smiled. And the rest is one for the baby book.

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