HALLOWEEN COSTUME DILEMMA
Mid-September
Recently six year old Noah had become obsessively interested in all-things pirates. He kept talking about dressing up as Captain Hook on Halloween.
'Easy enough,' thought Olivia. 'Eye patch, sword, puffy shirt, a hat or bandana, and oh, yes, some sort of fake hand with a hook on it. Doable.'
She broached the costume theme with the three year old Barba twins who always emulated Noah. They had also recently watched the older animated Peter Pan on TV.
"I want to be Peter Pan," said Jamie.
"OK, then you can be another pirate, Dan, maybe Smee," offered Olivia.
"No, I wanna be Tinkerbelle," retorted Jamie.
"But Jamie, you know Tinkerbelle's a girl," said Olivia.
"I wanna be Tinkerbelle," said Dan again, stamping his foot. "I want wings and a wand with glitter!"
"How about Nana, the Darling's dog?" said Olivia trying to change his mind.
"No, no, no," Dan said and ran up the stairs to his room.
Later that night
Olivia raised her head and glanced at her bedside clock when she heard Rafael unlock the front door.
'Another late night,' she thought. 'Eleven thirty!'
Barba slowly trudged up the stairs carrying a bottle of water. He sat on his side of the bed, turned and faced Olivia.
"How was your day, mi amor?" he asked before gulping down some water.
"Not as bad as yours, I think,' she replied. "Wanna talk about it?"
He sighed. "Not now. How are the kids? Sorry I missed their bedtime…again."
'Well, we have a bit of a Halloween costume quandary. I had thought of a pirate theme since all three boys love the Peter Pan story. But…"
"What," Rafael interrupted, smirking, "they all want to be the same character?"
"Not exactly. Noah picked Captain Hook and Jamie wants to be Peter Pan, but…" she hesitated.
Barba frowned. "And?" he questioned.
"Dan wants to be Tinkerbelle."
"Huh?" Barba said. He stopped unbuttoning his shirt and rolled his eyes.
"I tried to talk him out of it. I suggested Smee or Nana, the dog," Olivia said demonstrating her knowledge of J.M. Barrie's work.
"Besides trick or treating in costume Halloween night, the twins are expected to wear their costumes to pre-school. How do you think that'll go over?" Olivia smiled sweetly. I'll work on the pirate costumes. You can figure out what to do to make Jamie into Tinkerbelle! I've printed up some pictures for you to use.
"Lucia agreed to come over and give out our candy and we are accompanying the kids- you promised, remember? By the way, I'm dressing up as Tiger Lily. Do you want to be Wendy or the crocodile?"
Rafael's mouth dropped.
"Oh, and don't forget Carisi is coming over to take photos of the kids in costume."
Rafael stood up and pointed a finger at Olivia. "If Carisi tries to take my picture, I'll break his damn camera!"