Halloween 2008

Tobey seemed to be as excited about Halloween than all the other holidays combined and I think I know why -- it's the only holiday where, at least the way we celebrate it which is costumes and candy, it is completely geared towards the kids. If it weren't for the kids, we would not bother with Halloween and I wonder if somehow our kids know that. A couple days before Halloween Tobey would randomly declare how he couldn't wait for Halloween to come. I wonder if we haven't hoopla-ed Christmas enough because you would think getting several toys for Christmas would trump a night of candy for Halloween. But then again, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, they all come with dinners or church services that aren't as exciting for kids. I'd like to change that sometime.

Anyway, this year, Tobey returned to the space theme and wanted to be an astronaut. AND he wanted to make his own costume. He's been really getting into recycled art -- I can't throw away a box or a plastic container without him asking if he can use it for his "art". I was actually quite thrilled that he wanted to make his own costume and even though it meant more work for me, I was happy to oblige. Thank goodness Eli has no such opinions yet and fit perfectly into a store bought tiger costume that Mom Chang gave to him back in June.

The costume didn't come without its hiccups of course, what's a homemade costume without problems? First and foremost is my continued battle with the iron patch. It started when ironing on Tobey's AWANA patches yielded no results and since I'm a lame seamstress, his little vest went empty all year until my mom came and sewed them on for me, just in time for the vest to be packed for storage. For this year's costume, I found USA letters to be ironed on to his sleeve. But it has to be ironed twice, once on the outside and once inside out. When I flipped it inside, apparently I confused myself because Tobey now has a USA patch in his armpit. And that is why I bought new and bigger U S A letters that you now see on the front of his sweatshirt, which were first ironed on but fell off, then hot glued and lasted until the laundry. Other interesting tidbits about this costume/jet pack is that now Tobey is introduced to the wonders of duct tape (and I, the wonders of ducK tape, not as sticky as ducT tape). Tom's contribution was the gray tubing that he bought at Home Depot while making a house run. And of course, the piece de resistance, our NASA logo which sports real glow in the dark stars. I'm going to store away this jet pack for next year, as opposed to last year when I let the boys play with my homemade fire truck made from a diaper box and they destroyed it by the time November 2nd rolled around.

Funny how since Halloween doesn't mean anything significant for me, I don't remember the throes of preparing for past Halloweens until I'm preparing for the current one. As I found myself wandering stores in search of plain white sweatpants (much harder to find than I thought), I remembered last year calling every Costco asking if they still had their fire fighter rain coats (Tobey was a fire fighter last year). Tobey kept asking when we can work on making his jet pack (just like his fire truck last year) and I procrastinated because I hadn't figured out how to make it yet. When Tobey said he was so excited for Halloween, I all of a sudden flashed back to last year October 30th when he wouldn't fall asleep until 10:30 because he was so excited. And when the activities of Halloween day came (packing and dressing him so he can take off his costume after the parade, dragging Eli around with me to Tobey's parade, planning to meet friends for trick or treating in the evening, visiting the contractors at our house in the day), it was almost enough for me to yell out -- why am I torturing myself over this meaningless holiday??

But in the end, the fun the kids have, even when it has no significant meaning whatsoever, made it worth it. Now I have 2.5 weeks to figure out how to make Thanksgiving more exciting. How about moving into a new house and having cousins over for the weekend? :-)