Trick Or Treat

Nathan decided over a month ago that he wanted to be Wall-E for Halloween. Nicholas then said he wanted to be Wall-E, too. Nathan was very upset at this idea, and cried about it for a bit until I explained that they could BOTH be Wall-E. Then there would be two Wall-E's. And from that point on, whenever anyone asked Nate what he was going to be for Halloween, he told them "Two Wall-E's." Which could be very confusing.

I looked for Wall-E costumes, but could not find any in stores. I found some online, but for $50 each, and I refused to even consider them. That's $100 (for those of you slow at math) on costumes that would be worn once, and probably then discarded, since once kids reach a certain height they become choosy about what they will dress up as.

So I found boxes and purchased poster paint. Last weekend I set the boys up with paintbrushes, and the boxes became grey. And then while they were sleeping I added lights and stripes and the name, so people could tell what they were. The masks were purchased at a party store - obviously they were meant as favours, because they came in packs of eight. The boxes are held up with straps made of duct tape.

The boys were the only ones at school with costumes they made themselves. Everyone else had snug poofy costumes, or complete princess outfits, or otherwise purchased stuff. And there were a few problems. For one thing, the armholes were far apart, so objects could not be passed from one hand to another, or from one hand to their treat bags. Nathan's arm holes were also placed far back in the box, so he couldn't always judge where stairs began, and triped up almost every front porch we encountered. Also, the boys couldn't lower their arms. There was also the problem of recognition. For while Wall-E is, by far, the best movie ever made in the WORLD within the walls of our home, not all children have seen the film. Nor have their parents. In fact, a few parents were surprised the boys had seen it. And some people had never heard of the cute little robot at all. And a few people were conviced that they were supposed to be Wally, the Green Monster, mascot of the Red Sox. Don't they look alike?

As for Andy's costume, he wore the tiger costume I purchased for a 2-year-old-Nick, the costume Nick then refused to wear and which I then placed on Nathan, stuffing Nick into the smaller monkey costume instead. It fit Andy very well.