Halloween Cometh

And what do you know but we're supposed to have the wettest Halloween in 18 years. Gosh, how fun is that? What kid doesn't like slogging around the neighbourhood in the pouring rain in a soaking wet costume?

This is perhaps the first year in, well, years that we aren't Frantically Ready and Desperately Waiting for Halloween. When the kids were little I sewed spiders, lizards, fairies, Colorado Potato Beetles, kittens, and more. It was fun, mostly because a tiny costume takes seconds to make. Now of course they are far bigger in size, not to mention far more opinionated, and it's harder to work up the enthusiasm at the idea of spending a week sewing something wildly complicated for just one night. I spent the first part of the month arguing with Dominic, who had the idea of going out trick or treating dressed as an Angry Bird. The Boomerang Bird. The one with the long beak. "It will be super easy to make," he told me, "I have plans down in my room. I will show them to you. All you need is a box."

All I need is a box. If only life were like that.

Luckily the look on my face - when he added "You've left it a bit late, better get moving!"- managed to persuade him that he needed to pick another costume, given that it's THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN. Now he's going as a ghost - the Charlie Brown kind: white sheet with holes. I don't think I will need my sewing machine, either. Nice.

FDPG is going as a Mad Scientist. She originally wanted to go as the Headless Horseman, sans horse, but I worked my persuasive magic and talked her into being a Mad Scientist, as such a costume would involve items we already had in the house and it is, after all, THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN. Plus, we don't have a large suit I can cut holes in and at this stage I don't much fancy the idea of haunting the second hand shops for over-priced suits for her to hack at with scissors.

I'm sounding like a real downer aren't I.

At least their costumes will involve lots of glow-in-the-dark sticks from the Dollar Store. And FDPG gets to wear her Lucius Malfoy wig again, although for some reason she's decided to call it the Blonde Wig (odd considering that it isn't blonde). We had A Moment in one of those cheap jewellery stores today when I showed her some black-rimmed glasses and said "This looks very scientist-y!" and she said, looking oddly furtive, "I'm not going to be a dead scientist, or a diseased scientist, or anything weird looking, Mum." We stared at each other, me aghast at the idea that any child of mine should be so, well, so SEDATE at Halloween; she worried that I was going to insist she be a Dead Mad or Bad Scientist.

Fortunately we managed to compromise: she is going to wear a teeny tiny touch of white face paint and look ever-so-slightly dead (maybe with fangs) and I bought her an overpriced white foam stick that has an LED with 6 different lights in it to use as a Pretend Test Tube (it may or may not have a plastic skull stuck on it, evidence of An Experiment Gone Horribly Wrong). We are both happy with that outcome, although Dominic was annoyed that he didn't bargain harder about the Angry Bird costume.

I'm tempted to tuck Prunella the Moulting Chicken under my arm and walk around the neighbourhood in my dressing gown, telling the neighbours that we just woke up and we're not feeling very good. In all that rain we probably won't LOOK very good either.