Yesterday the Captain was asking me what I had dressed up as for Halloween when I was little. I remembered a princess costume that won Best Costume when I was in kindergarten (the first and last time I won a popularity contest) and a pink panther costume. After a lot of thinking, I also came up with an orange witch costume — my mother was completely opposed to black costumes, and as a public service, I warn you all not to bring that point up with FameThrowa. That’s only three, though, and since I had dressed up every year between the ages of 2 and 12…13, I got out my old photo albums to have a look.

You can tell that my child photo album is from a time when film was expensive, and the camera was only taken out on special occasions, because every page in the album — representing one year of my life — is identical. Each page has the following photos on it: me in a new Easter dress; me playing at the beach with FameThrowa; me and my sisters in our Halloween costumes; me posing behind a birthday cake; two or three shots of me opening Christmas presents. I must admit that I have over-corrected for this kind of photo taking in my own life, and instead of only taking special-occasion pictures — in fact, I often forget the camera in the hustle and bustle of birthdays and trips to the farm — I follow our kids around and snap hundreds and hundreds of shots of them in their everyday lives. I’m like the family paparazzi.

Anyway, at least there was a photo of every Halloween costume I ever had. And it’s no wonder I couldn’t remember any more. The list goes like this:

Clown (a baby costume my mom had made, that we all wore)
Clown
Princess
Princess
Princess
Princess
Witch
Witch
Witch
Pink Panther
Pink Panther
Dog

I guess I wasn’t one to complain about the need for something new!