Peeeeep, hello little mouse

If there is some Halloween version of Scrooge, that's me. This has always been one of my least favorite holidays and as recently as last night I was debating bagging the whole thing. I'm so glad I didn't.

After some discussion, we decided not to go with the play-doh idea (way too much effort for my sluggish-of-late state) and instead decided to go with a mouse. "Why a mouse?" you say. Well a couple of months ago Jessikah went to get Taran from a failed nap, most of which he spent rolling around his crib shouting out "Peeeeeeeep". When she picked him up from his crib she said "Hello, little mouse". He loved it and it stuck. Now he walks around the house talking about Mama mouse and Papa mouse and little mouse and peeping a lot. So the mouse costume was an obvious choice.

I am not a sewer by any stretch of the imagination, but the fantastic thing about two year olds is that the mere suggestion of a costume is enough to bring sheer joy. So on my husband's encouraging last night at 9 pm (I was still sprawled on the couch reading a spy novel), I drummed up some enthusiasm and sewed a pink oval on to the belly of a grey fleece bought especially for the occasion. Joe gathered some white felt, cotton batting and wire for a tail and in the morning, I hot-glued together the tail and somehow managed to get it to stay on a pair of warm grey sweat pants with a few sloppy stitches. Some eyeliner-whiskers and voila! Mouse costume!

We let him wear his costume to music class this morning and he was more animated than I've seen him there for weeks. For the last seven weeks, every night before music class his sleep has been absolutely horrendous. I call it the curse of the music class. I'm kind of bummed about this because music class is something he absolutely loved to do last year but so far this year he's stayed curled in my lap the whole clase, all pale, bleary-eyed and well, pretty much miserable. I thought last week was bad when he was up for 4 hours in the middle of the night (peeping like a mouse of course) and got a grand total of 8 hours of sleep. Last night he topped that by only getting 6.5. I contemplated skipping it all together this morning but he had the best time. Ever. He ran around the class singing, dancing, laughing, peeping, and showing off his tail to everyone who would listen about it. For his 6.5 hours, I only got three, but his performance even perked me up. All in all, this might have been my best Halloween of all time, thanks to Taran. I'm so glad he's old enough now to get so much enjoyment out of all the holidays!

Trick-or-treating at our neighbors. According to their 9-year old Jack, Taran "is the cutest mouse I've ever seen". 

Bath time for the melty mouse