Blonde Ambition

on Halloween, going Blonde, and bit parts

“We’re being the bit parts from Encanto,” Stevie laughs as I post on the clown WhatsApp thread a picture of Luisa and Pepa, the sister and aunt, respectively, of the lead character Mirabel from the 2021 Disney (imo) masterpiece about trauma. I’m looking for costume pieces.

Just four days shy of Halloween, Maya has made a hard pivot away from wanting to be Anna from Frozen (“and you be Elsa, mama”) to wanting to be Mirabel’s “perfect” flower-adorned sister Isabella, because her best friend from school is going as Mirabel.

Not that I’d done anything towards making Maya an Anna costume, but another friend from school’s parent assured us they had one we could borrow. This same friend from whom we’d just acquired hand-me-down red Crocs adorned with the Jibbitz of every Frozen character!

“I want Isabella dress,” Maya whines as I pull her down Figueroa. We’ve already hit up Bridge Thrift, where I almost lost her in the racks. Bearded Beagle yields nothing, though I think I’d like to go back for the bin of $5 scarves (maybe a yellow one I can tie around Pepa’s hair?), and we walk all the way down Figueroa in the wrong direction before I realize and turn us around, dragging her towards Wasteland. With the music thumping, I lose sight of her for a minute and find her by the entrance near the gumball machines with the security guard looking on in knowing amusement.

“If they’re lost, you’ll find em here,” he chuckles. Maya is a great sport about all the shopping, even when we return home empty-handed.

The mom of Maya’s best school friend has been handmaking her Mirabel costume for over a month. I Google, “Encanto Isabella handmade costume” and there’s a link to a dress on Poshmark that doesn’t necessarily look handmade, but it looks fine (not too cheesy!) and it’s only $14 and for a 3-5 year old. Sold!

I click “Buy” and with shipping it’s $21.95, but it’s Monday evening and Halloween’s on Friday. So I wonder what are the chances I’ll get it in time? I see the seller’s in Los Angeles, so I message her: “any chance we can get it by Friday? Or I could pick it up if that’s not too weird lol”

“Sure, you can pick it up. I’m in Sherman Oaks/Studio City.” Woof.

“That’s the same one that’s for sale at Target,” Stevie says over my shoulder.

Last year, I decided that Maya still looked enough like Pubert Addams (the newest addition to the Addams family clan in The Addams Family Values) to finally realize my vision—she really looked like him the year before, but I was still in the postpartum k-hole and didn’t get it together in time. So I got to go as Morticia and Stevie as Gomez. Maya and Stevie got to wear matching mustaches, and I got to wear a wig and a tight dress. It was perfect, really playing to our strengths. I had a fantasy that she would be Pubert again this year, and every year until puberty. But alas, she already has opinions.

The supporting cast of Encanto doesn’t really play to our strengths. Stevie would be good as the estranged uncle Bruno, but Maya’s school best friend’s daddy has already taken the part.

“I wish there was a sexy character in Encanto,” I grumble to Stevie on Tuesday morning.

“Isabella is the sexy character,” he informs me. Great, my daughter is out-sexing me already and she’s only two and a half.

Stevie tells me I should be Pepa, the aunt whose “mood effects the weather.” Sounds about right, but I don’t really want to be Pepa. She’s a bit character at best, and yellow is not my color.

I decide that Stevie should go as Luisa, the muscular older sister, because he’s got the muscles for it, and I’ve always wanted to put him in drag. He agrees. That’s a fun costume.

“You could make a raincloud out of cardboard,” Stevie offers, arguing Pepa’s case. Fine. I put my ego aside, and decide to commit to the bit, filling out the supporting roles for Maya’s dream of being Isabella.

Halloween is for kids, right?

I recently bleached my hair full platinum, a look I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the nerve before now. I texted a pic to my friend: “midlife crisis.”

“I like your yellow hair, mama,” Maya said, eyeing me approvingly when I returned home from six hours at the salon. People really do treat you differently when you’re blonde. Elsa, also platinum, was a natural fit, and a role I was starting to embrace. Beautiful ice queen? Sure why not. Ironically, her moods also effect the weather. Hmm.

Stevie was ambivalent about me going blonde (“I like au natural”), but says I’m nicer as a blonde. I know what he means. There’s something lighter about me. I feel less like the creature from the black lagoon as I hobble out of bed while it’s still dark, pulled by the siren song of Maya wailing for me from her crib. I catch myself in the bathroom mirror, and although still bent over, limping inexplicably, there is something more pleasant about my whole demeanor. My triangle of sadness seems less pronounced.

TBD on our costumes. Stevie and I are giving Maya to her adult best friends for a sleepover on Wednesday, during which time we’ll stay home and watch a movie. Ahh that sounds amazing. On Thursday morning, we’ll drive to Sherman Oaks/Studio City to pick up Maya’s Isabella dress. Then we’ll go to It’s a Wrap and try to pull our own looks together. I’m keeping the option open that I might hard pivot to Madonna.