November 21
In which it is NOT too late to talk about Halloween.
Halloween is just about the perfect holiday for the kid who loves to pretend. Tonight, by way of example, I am just returned from putting Frederick the Mouse to bed.
"My last name is Digi. I'm Frederick Digi, but you can just call me Frederick," he explained.
I'm not sure where he came up with the name, but he was adamant about it. And, to provide you with the backstory, Frederick Digi the Mouse had just hatched from an egg. Pretty much everyone and everything hatches from an egg in O-World.
So is it any wonder the kid had the time of his life on October 31?
Most of these pictures are from the kindergarten Halloween parade. None of the children were allowed to wear a mask with their costumes nor were they permitted to bring any weapons. Owen, who was planning to be a Star Wars Clone Trooper, was pretty mcuh blown out of the water by those rules and, instead, re-hashed his equally original Spiderman costume.
Given the plethora of other Spidermen, he still looked a little clone-ish.
The samuraii in white is Kamraan from down the street. Kamraan had never played with guns before. Then Owen went for a playdate. Guess which little boy asked for light sabres and rifles on his 6th birthday?
Back at home, Owen continued to wear his increasingly bedraggled Spidersuit (note the fraying mask) while he engaged in his new favorite sport: Animal Torture. You can see him with his number one victim, Trixie, wearing the traditional doggie devil Halloween wear.
He almost refused to wear the Clone Trooper ("Jedi Clone Trooper," Owen will insist) costume when it came time for the actual trick-or-treating but, given how much the idiot thing cost, Dad kind of insisted. We went with policeman Sam and ninja Lilly from next door. When Owen saw Sam's costume, he very much wanted to go as a prisoner. While I admired the more creative turn, the $#% clone suit really was ridiculous and I had to stand firm.
Of course, part of what made the suit expensive was our decision to buy him the electronic helmet that goes with it. It does have an array of sound effects and is very cool, but it is so huge it makes him look like a Star Wars bobble-head doll. When it came time to go door-to-door, it was really too heavy to wear so he reverted to the original mask.
Sadly, the neighborhood we live in is not Star Wars literate and so the second time someone told him he was a very cute Buzz Lightyear, Owen screeched at the top of his lungs, "I AM A JEDI CLONE TROOPER!"
We had to have a little chat about manners after that one.
"At least pretend," I told him.
