Malia decided that this was the year she was going mermaid. She picked out the pattern and the fabrics and even told me that she needed wavy hair because that’s what kind of hair mermaids have. My sis Rachael gave me a crafting tip and I glued shells onto bobby pins to make Malia’s coiffure as accurate as possible. I think the whole thing worked together very well and even more importantly, Malia loved it.
Last year I had to talk really hard to even get Matthew to dress up. I think he felt like dressing up was a little boy thing and he very much wanted to outgrow the little and move on to the big boy. This year I didn’t need to do any convincing. He wanted to be Dr. Strange. After consulting a number of internet photos, we looked at many different patterns to find just the right style for his cape and vest, he selected just the right fabric, and we shopped women’s boots for his footwear since he isn’t in men’s sizes yet and little boy boots have a tendency to be covered with pictures of superheroes, turtles, etc. A trip to the DI and a perusal of Amazon for an accurate Eye of Agamotto completed his look. We were both pleased with the results.
After marching around the neighborhood for a while, Malia came home and dumped out her bag of booty for the yearly ritual of sorting out the stuff that will kill her. For the first time ever, I had a child end up with more in the “safe” pile. I was pleasantly surprised, and Malia was thrilled, of course. I suspect the reason for the shift is the fact that this year our elementary went nut free. The only place in the school where nuts are allowed is in the lunchroom. All the classrooms are nut free. The school has done some educating and as a food allergy mom, I’ve done quite a bit of educating as well. I think the end result is that more people are aware of how the labeling works, how many seemingly innocuous foods are dangerous for kids with nut allergies, and just how many people are affected by food allergies. But no matter the reason, I had one happy mermaid on my hands.
And then, all hyped up on sugar, my topless mermaid dashed to open the door for those who were still scouring the neighborhood in search of treats. I’m not sure why she decided to alter her costume from its original G-rating, but at least she had a flesh colored leotard underneath!
Matthew was less interested in the candy (which is pretty normal for him) and just wandered around the neighborhood with his friends. But I’m glad he took advantage of his last year of trick or treating to enjoy himself rather than trying to grow up so fast. He has no idea just how quickly time passes and in future years, I think he’ll be glad he embraced this one last bit of childhood. Plus, he was really pleased with how his costume turned out and he was the only Dr. Strange in the whole school!
