November 02, 2005 - tales of a Halloween freak -
Everett so loves Halloween that it took us weeks to decide what he'd be. Finally he told me he wanted to be baby Jaguar (from Go, Diego, Go and Dora the Explorer fame). I had an idea. "Could Truman be baby Jaguar, and you could be Diego?" I asked, thinking of the vest I'd recently bought him to make him so, so much like Diego.
"We can both be baby Jag-water!" Everett said happily. And so on the eve of Halloween (literally, the late afternoon of Halloween day) I sat at my sewing machine with a yard of fake fur (jaguar? leopard? who knows) making tails and spots. It was terrifically cute, and terribly last-minute. Luckily, Everett had fallen fast asleep.
On any other day, he would have snoozed 'til 8, but tonight was Halloween, so I woke my little hobgoblin, fixed what little I could with his costume, and we headed out into the drizzle. He remembered the "trick or treat!" from last year but had to be coached on the "thank-you"s and on how not to respond to the well-meaning question, "oh, are you a little tiger?" (hint: it's not "I'm NOT a TIGER!" and, don't tigers have STRIPES people?)
Soon Truman was asleep and headed home with Auntie Erin while Everett learned grown-up sayings like, "oh, those are GREAT costumes!" to a group of eight-year-olds, and "actually, I'm a BABY JAGWATER." He got lots of candy and quickly figured out how to get the kind he wanted. The round kind (Reese's) was his favorite, although given the opportunity, he'd take a carefully-selected handful.
We trick-or-treated until the lights were starting to turn off and the signs "out of candy" became more and more frequent. As we turned the corner onto our street, Everett said in such a grown-up voice, "And I thought it was going to be more scary!" He can't wait for next year.