Oliver's Chicken Costume

Oliver is at an age where he could pick his own Halloween costume.  For weeks we've been asking him what he wants to dress up as.  At first he said a "scary moose."  I researched moose costumes and had figured out a basic, but doable, moose costume I could make for him.  I was just about to start collecting the pieces to his costume when he suddenly changed his mind.  He wanted to be a chicken.  I have no idea where that idea came from! 

Nothing was going to change his mind, because trust me, I tried.  I had suggested ideas that were more practical for him to wear, cheaper to make (given he was going to wear it for a max of an hour), and easier for me, a person with no sewing skills, to construct. But he stuck to his dream to go as a chicken, so I spent the next weeks stalking blogs on Google for directions on how to make a chicken costume and worrying that I wasn't going to pull it off.  The costume design I thought was the most doable involved what I learned was going to be about $30 in boas.  And the investment in the boas wasn't even going to guarantee that Oliver would actually look like a chicken and not, well, a kid with a bunch of boas wrapped around him. 

Meanwhile, I still hung to hope that Oliver would change his mind and suddenly Halloween was a week and a half away and I hadn't even started on his costume.

A co-worker with a son a year older than Oliver heard about the chicken costume dilemma and had two pieces of advice for me.  First, make the chicken costume happen, she told me.  Second, forget the DIY.  Just buy the costume and pay for the express shipping if I have to. Her reasoning was that there are only so many years where kids get so excited about Halloween, so if Oliver wants to be a chicken, make it happen for him. 

A half an hour later, I ordered the costume, and yes, even paid for the express shipping.  Oliver was one happy little chicken and I learned my lesson.  Next year there'll be no second-guessing about a store-bought costume.