Shopping for a Halloween costume for my 2-year-old daughter proved trickier than I expected.

Nearly every costume I showed Maya brought her to tears, or even prompted loud sobbing. Sure, I wasn’t expecting her to like the Yoda costume that I tried, on several occasions, to get her to wear, but my girl cried even when I showed her a Supergirl costume, and she plays superhero at home all the time.

Our search started a few weeks ago when I was trying to get outfits ready for the costume birthday party for one of Guillermo’s friends. Guillermo was easy enough because he wanted to be a ninja.

Maya thought she wanted to be a pumpkin so we went to the store to try to find such a costume. We didn’t find that, but her eyes lit up when she saw row after row of costumes all in her size. She seemed to like many of them, but when I handed her the costume packages, she started crying.

“Nooo,” she wailed when I gave her the Supergirl costume.

“Nooooo,” she cried when I tried a bumblebee costume instead.

“Noooooooo!” she shouted when I pressed my luck with Yoda.

Against my better judgment, I even pointed out a few princess costumes, hoping she’d say no because otherwise I’d face the wrath of my husband, who has tried to sway her away from anything pink and frilly after reading an article about Disney selling Fairy Tale wedding dresses.

Her eyes lit up, but only for a few minutes before the tears started falling.

We left the store empty-handed, and she went to the party without a costume.

Then, the other day, she decided she wanted to be a witch. I was all for that because all I would need to buy would be some makeup and a witch’s hat. But when I found the witch’s hat at the store and put it on her head, she started crying really hard. “No like it!”

We looked at other costumes again but she nixed all of them, including my second attempt at Yoda. Then, she spied the costume she wanted, a blue and white checked dress that would turn her into Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. It was my turn to reject the costume. There was no way I was going to look all over town for sparkly red shoes.

We left without a costume, again.

But today everything fell into place. While picking up Halloween decorations, Maya found a pair of purple wings.

“Butterfly,” she said with sparkling eyes as I lingered near the other costumes.

“You sure you don’t want to be Yoda?” I tried once more.

She ignored me while smiling admiringly at her new costume.

Sometimes a girl just knows the perfect outfit, even if she’s only 2.

Natalie appears Sundays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Natalie at A Day at the Park.