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Quick thinking, patience pays off on Halloween


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.

Categories: Anne Vasquez (67), Toddler (126)


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About the authors
Gretchen Day-Bryant has a son in high school and a daughter in middle school. She’s lived to tell about the struggles of juggling little kids and work.
Joy Oglesby has a preschooler...
Cindy Kent Fort Lauderdale mother of three. Her kids span in ages from teenager to 20s.
Rafael Olmeda and his wife welcomed their first son in Feb. 2009, and he's helping raise two teenage stepdaughters.
Lois Solomon lives in Boca Raton with her husband and three daughters.
Georgia East is the parent of a five-year-old girl, who came into the world weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces.
Brittany Wallman is the mother of Creed, 15, and Lily, 7, and is married to a journalist, Bob Norman. She covers Broward County government, which is filled with almost as much drama as the Norman household. Almost.
Chris Tiedje is the Social Media Coordinator and the father of a 7-year-old girl, and two boys ages 4 and 3.
Kyara Lomer Camarena has a 2-year-old son, Copelan, and a brand new baby.


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