Guest Blog: Baba on Halloween Costumes for Babies

This post was written by our lovely family friend, Marcia Y. She is the proud and fabulous grandmother (or Baba) of Lauren and Alexis (who are featured in this post wearing their festive Halloween costumes).

First a disclaimer: I am the grandmother… aka known as Baba. Ergo, the following observations and pronouncements must be taken with the proverbial grain-or two- of salt. That said, it is an indisputable fact that my 4-year-old identical twin granddaughters are the sweetest, smartest and cutest little girls on the planet. And I, a retired teacher, have the time and inclination to indulge them in their favorite pastime- dressing up. This brings us naturally, to the subject of Halloween.

Their first Halloween almost went by without a costume. The twins were only one month old, and I must admit that I was not in full grandmother mode. However, on October 29th I was walking through Old Navy and came upon the last two pumpkin shirts in size 3 months. They weren’t cute. They had silly, googly eyes on the pumpkins, and they were too big. But it was October 29, and they were the only game in town. An enterprising Aunt sent them cat hats, and a tradition was born.


The next year we were more prepared. My daughter-in-law and I came up with the concept of Ballerinas. She found little purple tutus at a now defunct ballet themed store, paired them with pink shirts and white tights, and voila! The girls seemed quite pleased with these outfits and particularly enjoyed eating the sequins off the tutus.


By the time they were 2 years old, they were beginning to get the concept of Halloween. I wanted a costume that they could pronounce and understand. My search led me to Buy Buy Baby where I found matching Bumblebee and Ladybug costumes as well as black tights. They loved these, though they couldn’t be persuaded to wear the antenna headbands. They wore these costumes long, long after Halloween, and the Bumblebee and the Ladybug became staples in the dress up box. Only after the Velcro stopped attaching and the bones in the wings came apart did they give them up.


When they turned 3, I turned to the catalogs. Chasing Fireflies has lovely children’s clothing as well as a unique costume selection. I was immediately drawn to the flower fairies, one Rose Fairy and the other a Lily Fairy. They were made of satin, tulle and organza and came with bloomers, a flower headband and a magic wand. They adored these outfits, wore them to bed and changed into them as soon as they walked in the house. Unfortunately that Halloween was freezing cold, and the Lily Fairy had a meltdown when she realized she would have to wear long sleeves under the costume.


Which brings us to the present. This year the girls perused the catalogs themselves (this is a great, absorbing activity for a long car ride). They decided they would both like to be butterflies (although one had to be dissuaded from the Medusa costume- complete with snake headpiece.) Pottery Barn came through this time, complete with wings, tulle skirts and antenna headbands. The pink tights came from Gymboree and the pink sequin ballet slippers came from Target. Of course I bought the matching Halloween bags.