The Cowsuit.

Declan's other Hallowe'en costume was a cow.  It may seem extravagant to have multiple costumes, but his Banksy costume was homemade (really, not commercially available you say?) and down here in the South, there are like a dozen events that require a costume around this time, and so it's nice to be able to mix it up a little.  Hallowe'en parades and trick-or-treating, trunk-or-treating and class Hallowe'en parties and private Hallowe'en parties and Hallowe'en festivals (not the same thing, btw.)  They are crazy for Hallowe'en here.  More houses here are decorated for Hallowe'en than for Christmas, which my Canadian self finds surprising.  I digress.  Have I ever told you that Shane once told me that if I were a pilot on Battlestar Galactica, my callsign would be  "Sidetrack"?  I've been meaning to. 

Anyway, costume selection.  Declan had been flip-flopping about costume choices.  First he wanted to be Mickey Mouse, which I thought was extra sweet, because unbeknownst to Declan, Shane was Mickey Mouse when he was about the same age.   I was perusing some pretty pricey costumes on Etsy, because I didn't like any of the commercial Mickey Mouse outfits. Then all of a sudden he wanted to be a jack-o'lantern.  Luckily I hadn't ordered the M.Mouse yet, but this flip-flop reminded me that he could turn on a dime.  So I strategized that we should just pick one out in a store, as it's more tangible than ordering one online to avoid another change of mind.  I decided on taking him to Target, because unlike the pop-up Hallowe'en stores' offerings, Target's children's costumes don't each come with a free pair of fishnets.  The Target's  boys' costume selection was rife with super-heroes and ninja warriors, but Declan picked out the lone sweet costume- the cowsuit.  I was really pleased about that, because I feel like this might be my last year for a sweet costume.

Now it looks like I have staged a huge multi-location cowsuit photo shoot in these pictures, but the truth is, he has just been wearing his cow suit a lot lately, and we've just been going about our regular business.  I definitely seem to take more pictures of him when he's wearing a cow suit, and I think that is perfectly understandable.  At various junctures, I would be watching him and think "A cow riding a horse - that's something you don't see every day" and take a picture. or "A cow driving a tractor.  That's something you don't see every day".  or "A cow drinking milk.  That's something you might see every day if you were raising cattle I suppose, but not out of a tetra pak."  So I ended up with a lot of cowsuit pictures.  

And I'm pretty happy about that.

Cow in the thick of the preschool parade.

Cow at circle time at school.