Two Halloweens ago, I bashed baby costumes, and heaped quite specific vitriol on the infamous Martha Stewart lobster baby costume.
Little did I know that a year later, I'd be knocked up (the planned kind of knocked up), and that two years later (meaning now), I'd lie awake at night lactating and plotting my baby's first truly public embarrassment: his 2009 Halloween costume.
I've actually hated Halloween for years -- to me, it's no more than excuse for otherwise pleasant adults to turn into masked assholes. The few times in the past 20 years that I've deigned to go out in costume on Halloween, I've resorted to my cactus get-up, which consists of green clothes + clothespins. The cactus get-up is perfect for those, like me, who are: 1) lazy, 2) cheap, and 3) open to the possibility of foreplay à la clothespin.
With the arrival of Henry, the erotic possibilities of clothespins have dramatically receded, and even I'm not mean enough to dress my child up as a cactus (imagine the "Oh, he's a prick!" jokes). I am, however, still lazy and cheap. And I love to kill two birds with one stone.
So, here was the suite of conditions for Henry's costume since he's more fun to dress up than I am: