Peanut-Butter-and-Bacon Sandwiches: I Survived Another Halloween!

Why do I get myself into this stuff? Why can't I leave well enough alone?

Halloween Rule 1: Kids are not allowed to discuss Halloween costumes until school starts in September. Why? Because they'll change their minds a dozen times and drive me insane with it. (If you care, I have a similar rule regarding the enjoyment of Christmas music, books, and movies.)

Halloween Rule 2: Once I buy a prefab costume and/or supplies to make one, there's no turning back.

Halloween Rule 3: Do not poopooh The Oracle's predictions that Precious Daughter's costume will not be completed until moments before heading out to mooch candy, and it will require a monumental amount of swearing and aggravation on my part.

Mighty B. wanted to be a soldier. He originally wanted to be a skeleton until I casually mentioned seeing a soldier costume in the store. He wanted it. I went back and took a closer look, and it was cheesy. I wasn't going to spend all that money on a cheapy costume. I thought I'd try making one instead, but I couldn't find military-styled camouflage fabric, just the kind crosshatched with printed trees and twigs for the outdoor sportsmen. I procrastinated and didn't buy the cosume until 10/30 (the day of his school party, source of the below picture) and was rewarded with 50% off.

Forgive me for gushing about how handsome my son is. He says he wants to be a soldier when he grows up. We'll see. I think what interests him right now is the weaponry.

Precious Daughter first decided that she'd like to be Eglentine Price (name that movie!), but I told her very few would remember the character without a lengthy explanation even if they remembered the name of the movie. She then said she'd be either Sharpay Evans (High School Musical) or simply "a Diva." My head resounded with cries of "BOR-ING!" especially when she dressed as Hannah Montana last year, and she'd pretty much look the same this time around.

(Give up on that movie name? It'll be at the end.)

Poking around online, I spotted a simple-looking pattern for a magician's cape and hat. Hmmm... I suggested it to Precious Daughter, and she liked the idea. We picked black satin for the exterior and a pretty black fabric with irridescent stars on it for the lining.

Star fabric was hideous to work with. My sewing machine hated it. The needle made an awful thock-thock-thock sound with every puncture. It even got jammed in the feed dogs (those metal treads that move the fabric along) and down inside the machine where the needle dips to pick up the bobbin. Horrid stuff. The costume was supposed to include a cummerbund, but working with the star fabric sans the satin was even worse, so I ended up (Heaven forgive me) using red duct tape to hold the cummerbund together and tying at the waist.

The felt hat came out really soggy looking despite my efforts to stiffen it up. At least it fit. Oh. See that wand? That stupid wand cost eight bucks. The packaging promised a dozen magic tricks. I thought the thing would open into a cutesy little bouquet or conceal a scarf. Nope. it includes instructions for a dozen tricks, the creeps. The wrapper doesn't say "instructions" anywhere.

But the stars on it glow in the dark.

I didn't have a costume for Kryptonite. I simply ran out of time. I feel a little guilty, but it's tempered by the fact that she spent our entire trip in the stroller beneath a gigantic black umbrella. Nobody would have seen it anyway.

Trick-or-treat time was solid rain. It drizzled as we left, and it drizzled for 90% of our walk around the block. As we turned the corner onto our street, it started raining buckets, so we decided to skip the side street we would have otherwise visited. Even so, we still had over six pounds of candy.