My Favorite Garbage Truck

For Halloween this year, Connor wanted to be a garbage truck. He also wanted Ed to be a garbage can and asked me to be a raccoon. Helen had some roll in his garbage themed schema, but she refused. She stomped her food and said she was going to be a pumpkin, and so I made her a pumpkin outfit.

I stressed about the pumpkin outfit briefly, bought a yard of orange flannel (a couple of weeks BEFORE Halloween, as I learned from last year's costume quest that although fabric stores are typically vacant, they have enormous lines the week of Halloween). Then, I remembered that Helen is 4. Her idea of a pumpkin is probably radically different than a Hollywood costume designer's idea of a pumpkin. I knit the hat for the outfit in a couple of hours. I made the pumpkin in fewer than five minutes. All I did was fold the yard of fabric over, cut out a hole for the neck, tie it together with a ribbon we had in our ribbon box, and voila - a pumpkin. Helen loves that outfit, and every single person who saw her on the costume's inaugural run at Connor's school's Halloween parade knew exactly what she was and thought the costume was fantastic. And - since it might be SNOWING on Halloween here, wearing a flannel blanket is a perfect costume.

Ed took the more difficult task of coming up with a garbage truck outfit. With a few boxes, some straps from some decommissioned booster seats, and pads from a nearly decommissioned stroller, a garbage truck was born.

There's a box in back where the candy goes, and the white thing up front is trash-dog Pugsley, who has his own ghost costume (paper towel with a rubber band around it).

I might be able to go as a raccoon, just by being my normal under-slept person with baggy eyes. Not sure what ed's going to come up with in the garbage can department.

Elaine