Halloween

Oh, where do I begin. I think I have a Halloween hangover.

When Max was first diagnosed I imagined Halloween being the worst holiday ever. Au contraire. Max embraces the night of the dead with his whole being. Sometime in June he started asking "How long til Halloween?" As the costume magazines started to arrive (in August?) he started to pour over them. Had me circle all the ones in his size. He then would go back and forth between pages saying "I want the mask from this one and the sword from this one, and the scary hands from this one..." On and on and on. I had to look at the magazines dozens of times to the point where I just wanted to throw them all out the window.

Max is always describing inventions, creatures, suits, cars that he is imagining. Last spring, he and David sat down to put one on paper. Max talked, David drew and this is what they came up with:

Since Max kept wanting to be every creepy, gory thing he found in the magazines, I suggested we try to build his alien costume. After some coaxing (he really wanted to BUY one) he agreed.

I bought a cheap alien costume and we built from there. Some styrofoarm, duct tape, wire, pipe cleaners and glow in the dark paint and here is the result.

I don't think it turned out too badly. Notice the "tentacles at the bottom.

He was pretty proud. People asked him what he was and he would say "I'm a martian. Martians are from Mars." He told people he designed it himself. He walked up to each door and said in a big theatrical voice, "Trick or Treat." He even scolded other children for not saying it.

However, he also told just about every person he encountered that he was allergic to peanuts. "Is this candy safe for me? I'm allergic to peanuts. If it has peanuts in it I can't have it." After a few houses I told him that though I was glad that he was so aware of his allergies and knew how to protect himself, I wanted him to just say "Thank you." and at home we would trade out the trick or treat candy for safe candy. Is this the right way to handle this? I am actually proud of him for always standing up for himself and recognizing what he shouldn't have. He even turned down a back of Cheetos someone was handing out. "No thank you, I can't have that. I'm allergic to cheese." I didn't even know he knew what Cheetos were. At the same time I want to teach him to be gracious with others.

With the number of Max's allergies, he coudn't have much of what was handed out. Once we were home and I gave him his safe candy, he was okay with this and I believe he had a great time trick or treating.

Owen was a puppy. He has been wearing this toy cloth bucket with a puppy face on his head for the past few weeks. So I sewed a few black spots on a pair of blue pajamas, braided some yarn and pinned it on as a tail. He was a super little trick or treater; following his brother to knock on doors, insisting on carrying his bag even though it dragged on the ground. He doesn't like to pose for pictures so here he coloring at the school Halloween party last weekend.

I'd like to add the part about how I tricked my kids into eating vegetables before trick or treating by making a "Witch's Brew" for dinner but I'm tired and coming down with a cold so I'll close here.