In the U.S., Halloween marks the beginning of back-to-back holidays accompanied by celebrations and parties. As you drive through neighborhoods you see decorations going up and temporary costume stores popping up everywhere. When our daughter started school, we debated on whether to dress her up or not, knowing that finding a costume she would tolerate would be almost impossible. Most princess or superhero costumes are made of “scratchy fabrics” and almost all of Elizabeth’s clothes are 100% cotton or a cotton blend. Due to her sensory aversions, anything different might require a wrestling match and not worth the effort. She knows the difference too! When I introduce new clothing, I will tactfully show it to her and allow her to feel the fabric first.  Once she is comfortable, I attempt to put it on her. I say “attempt” because she will usually push it away at least once before allowing me to dress her in it. Many times, I’ve read that scratchy and silky fabrics feel like ants crawling all over an autistic person’s skin, so I keep this in mind when shopping for her. Costumes can be tricky since most of the cute ones are made of tule or manmade fabrics. We got lucky the first year with a soft and tolerable ladybug costume found by coincidence at an outlet store. The 2nd year wasn’t so easy. After looking for ANYTHING that might work, I settled for a DIY costume made of black cotton clothing and yellow duct tape, creating “bumble bee” stripes. I worried a little that some people might think that we were cheap and didn’t want to buy our daughter a nice costume. Looking back, I’m proud of my little bumble bee buzzing along in her school’s costume parade. My chubby girl was the most adorable bumble bee!

Elizabeth is non-verbal and exclusively fed by g-tube. Trick or treating is completely unappealing to her because she can’t ask for candy and will never want to eat it. We discovered one year that if you don’t say “trick or treat” you don’t get candy, so we found ourselves explaining at every candy stop why she wasn’t speaking. It got a little exhausting but once people understood what was happening, they would give her an unusually large amount of candy! As you can imagine, the night ended with a big mound of treats Elizabeth couldn’t even eat! All the candy would end up being enjoyed the next day by our coworkers.

October 31 is just around the corner, and I still don’t have a plan on what she will be…. I’m sure something will come to me as I diligently search Pinterest for ideas. Perhaps one day I will take a sewing class so I can make cute custom costumes for her and even others in the special needs community with similar struggles.