I Am Toddler, Hear Me Roar

My friend Christy and I were in Old Navy a few weeks ago when we came across an adorable children’s lion costume that was ½ priced. Not only am I a sucker for a bargain, but when you ask Ellie what a lion says, she says “roar” with her nose crinkled and eyebrows raised and it might be the cutest thing ever. It was meant to be. Ellie would be a lion for Halloween.

When we got home, we thought we’d try it on her so that Christy could see her in the costume since she wouldn’t see Ellie on Halloween. Well it turns out that my daughter is terrified of lions. Or maybe its just bargain priced lion costumes from Old Navy that scare her. Whatever it was, Ellie screamed while we were putting it on her and was anxiously trying to tear it off of her body the whole time she was wearing it. This did not bode well for a fun filled Halloween.

Not one to easily accept defeat, we devised a plan to get her used to it. We laid the costume out on the couch, in plain view, for the weeks preceding Halloween. That way, she could get used to seeing it and realize that it wasn’t, in fact, scary. Every time we passed the couch, we encouraged her to pet the cute lion and before bed we gave it kisses. I must say, this was a brilliant plan. And she did warm up to it. But when we tried to put it on her on Wednesday, she freaked out again. She wanted nothing to do with wearing that lion. (Maybe this has something to do with the fact that she is a self-imposed vegan. Perhaps it’s not that she doesn’t like eating meat, but more that she is making a political statement about the treatment of animals that also carries over into her clothing choices. Next year she will most certainly be dressed as a vegetable).

We finally got the costume on, through protests and tears (and at this point I am feeling very guilty for forcing my child to dress in a ridiculous outfit that she clearly despises for my own amusement, but sometimes you have to wield your power as parent and dresser). We dragged her outside so that hopefully she would get distracted enough by the other kids in costumes to forget that she was wearing this bizarre lion costume that she hated so much. This plan actually worked a little better than “Operation: Stop Being Scared of Lion”. In fact, she ran around the porch for a while laughing and having a grand ol’ time in her lion suit. Seeing as how she relaxed a little bit, we decided to take her for a walk around the block to show off her adorableness but to skip the trick or treating because she’s too young for candy and we don’t have enough self control not to eat the candy ourselves. She loved seeing the other kids in costumes and thought it was fun that so many other children were outside.

About halfway through the walk around the block she remembered that she hated the costume and took the top part off. She left the cute little lion feet on though, and that was cute in itself. It ended up being a fairly successful Halloween, but I will take the lessons learned from this experience to make sure that she is not afraid of her costume next year. No matter how irresistible the bargain.