
My little strongman. (Ewan, last year.)
Can you believe Halloween is only a few short weeks away? And that I have been sitting on these literary Halloween costumes since September and have yet to post them? Gah. Where is my time machine? I don't know about you guys, but we have been laid LOW by sickness these past few weeks. I thought I'd lost the will to blog, but then it miraculously came back once I could breathe through at least one nostril. Nothing serious of course, just one cold on top of another as it happens when your toddler must touch ALL OF THE THINGS in the germ infested world. Not to mention the fact that we are all terrible sick people. Not one stoic, take-it-like-a-man person in the whole bunch. Nope. There has been a lot of sniffling and complaining and throwing ourselves onto furniture in melodramatic ways. So yes, FUN. It has made for a much mellow-er fall than years past, with only one trip to a pumpkin patch (with terribly-lit, cliched photos to come, I promise), but no apple picking or raking of leaves or any other twee, face-book clogging activities of which to speak. Instead, I am looking forward to Halloween, and dreaming about dressing my sweet little boy up in his first real trick-or-treating costume.

Completely precious Olivia the Pig costume, by OneLittleMinute
I am a firm believer in ridiculous, literary Halloween costumes (I was everything from Raggedy Anne to Alice in Wonderland as a child), and Ewan will be carrying on the tradition this year. I gave a little sneak peak on Instagram awhile back, but I promise to take BILLIONS of photos once I can actually wrangle him into it. I've got one, maybe two years left before this kid wants to be a Transformer or Ninjago or Diego or something, so I am going to go ALL OUT while I still have the chance. In the meantime, can you believe these amazing get-ups?

I mean, this Family Peter Pan costume WINS Halloween. (By A Beautiful Mess)

I am filing this adorable James and the Giant Peach costume away for next year. It would be perfect for a ginger-headed, balloon-loving toddler. Or just MY ginger-headed, balloon loving toddler. Also, check out the equally darling Flloyd from Stuck costume. Both over at SmallFry blog. Oliver Jeffers forever, amirite?

These Madeline and Miss Clavel costumes by Erica Holland are basically the reason to keep having babies until you have twin girls, right? (JUST KIDDING. sort of.)

Cutest, tiniest, Mary Poppins costume by Emphasis Added.
And in case you weren't dead yet:

Baby Charlie Brown costume. (Originally posted by NichThomas.)
Last Halloween, Ewan was just a wee, half-bald little thing of two months. I remember it had been an extremely difficult, fussy day, full of intermittent rain. It was around that time the not-sleeping started for both of us and postpartum stuff was hitting me hard, and the thought of taking a tiny baby out of the house to join in the holiday festivities felt so completely overwhelming. But I forced myself to try, and I put his little lion hat on, and tucked him into the Ergo and left the house for a long walk at sunset. And I will never forget that walk, and the odd surge of hope I felt in seeing all our neighbors and their families. It was a little spark of light in an otherwise dark time, all the glowing pumpkins and happy children, and I remember thinking that next year Ewan would be one of those children and it would all be okay and we were going to make it through and it would be good. And oh has it ever. Oh my, has it ever been good.
So what do you guys have planned? Any other cute, bookish costume ideas? Feel free to share in the comments!