Wheel of Costumes

Hello there!

I hope you had a nice weekend.

Of the myriad of decisions our school-age children make, arguably one's choice of Halloween costume is easily in the annual top 3.

With just over 2 weeks to go, I'll admit that Mom-E and I have been running a "stall" offense.

You see, about 2 weeks ago, our Transformer-obsessed boys, with Big Brother as their fearless leader, decided that they wanted our WHOLE FAMILY to be a "combiner Transformer" for Trick-or-Treat.

A "combiner" is when 5 or 6 individual Transformers combine to form a single, ginormous Transformer.  Those of you from my generation may know of combiners like Devastator, Superion, Bruticus, Defensor, Menasor, or Superion.

Did I mention that Big Brother wanted to hand-make each of the 5 combiner Transformers out of cardboard boxes?

And Little Brother is so on-board that he's been painting empty Capri-Sun boxes with WATERCOLORS to help prepare costume material.

Oh, and the best part is that when we become the combiner, Dad-E gets to carry two of the three boys (and Mom-E the third) around the neighborhood for Trick-or-Treat.  Which two doesn't matter, they're all heavy, especially when I start thinking about some of the hills.

And I'm sure that as a 2 year-old, Bab-E Brother will have no problem cooperating.  Especially because according to the older boys, "He wants to be a Transformer for Halloween, because we told him that's what he wants to be."

As recently as a few days ago, Big Brother was busy diagraming uninterpretable blueprints for how we were going to construct said MONSTER.

I meant to say TRANSFORMER instead of MONSTER, only I didn't want to.

Fortunately for us, children's minds about Halloween costumes change like the weather.

All of this is made more fun because - thanks to a donation by one of Gramm-E's coworkers - we have no less than 5 bazillion costumes at home.  Why would we want to wear one of those?

Oh, that's right, because that would be the EASY thing to do.

So, yesterday, Big Brother decided he was going to be Iron Man, complete with a Dark Helmet-style helmet from last Christmas.  Thanks, Aunt-E!

That sent Little Brother into a frenzy of costume changes more hectic than a hoard of supermodel divas at a fashion show.

It started with Wolverine, which was fine until he remembered that the Wolverine mask was not custom-made to fit HIS head.

It ended with a cross between a Red Power Ranger suit, and a white ninja mask belonging to Storm Shadow from GI Joe.

The best part is that Little Brother insists, no DEMANDS, to wear special gloves and boots with his costume.

And putting on said gloves and boots is a cross between scrubbing in for surgery and preparing for extended deep sea diving.  He puts on the costume, and then has me, one at a time, put on each glove, boot, and mask so that the costume stays tucked nicely inside.

Did I mention that the gloves are Lightning McQueen winter mittens?  And the boots are rubber galoshes with monkeys on them?

Priceless.

Oh, and the best part is that this whole costume frenzy took place while our lunch was sitting on the kitchen table getting cold.

I better go eat now - that food has been sitting there a long time.

Have a good week,
Chose your costume wisely (Mom-E and I will be wearing very authentic TIRED PARENT costumes, aka clothes),
Busy-Dad-E