Hellfire and dalmatian.

As I mentioned, Phoebe wanted to be a firefighter for Halloween this year. Her costume turned out to be a cinch. She’d gotten a freebie fire hat at a recent daycare field trip to the firestation, and then our daycare provider had some other firefighter costume gear to lend us. A totally free costume.

Seeing as he doesn’t yet have a say in the matter, I figured I would dress Theo to go along with Phoebe’s firefighter. (As you may have noticed, I’m all about going with themes.) At first, I thought, “Theo can be a fire!” As I thought about the costume, however, I realized that there was a good chance that he would end up looking like a baby on fire. Um…perhaps a tad more disturbing than I had in mind.

So, the plan was to go with a dalmatian (the traditional firehouse dog).

For the pre-Halloween party on Tuesday, I hadn’t managed to get a dalmatian costume together. Theo went as a (very cute, and still black and white spotted) cow, instead. On Wednesday, I stopped by a used children’s store (where they sell used things for children, not actual used children). I had plans to get some white clothes, a white hoodie if possible, to which I would affix black spots, a tail, and some ears.

As it happened, the store had a rack of Halloween costumes. Which were additionally marked down. And there was a dalmatian costume. In Theo’s size. For $4.00. Suddenly, the whole home-made costume idea seemed like it would be a big ordeal.

Apparently, though, I still had a hankering for assembling a Halloween costume, because I decided to put together a costume for myself. I would be the fire to go along with the theme. I wore a red shirt layered over an orange shirt, along with an orange and red swirly-patterned shawl that I happened to have picked up for 1 euro at a Sevilla flea market. I fashioned a hat out of fleece left over from Theo’s carrot costume from last year, and attached flames of red and orange tissue paper to it with staples. (I was in a hurry. I made the hat this afternoon while Theo napped.)

I was quite pleased with the end result, especially considering that I bought nothing new to make my costume.

Of course, wearing this hat around our neighborhood reminded me of something: the fact that I have no dignity.

John, on the other hand, has some. He totally ignored my suggestion of a costume for him. Because you know what would have gone really well with both the firefighter and the dog costumes? A fire hydrant.