Frankenstorm, Day 2 / Halloween

Frankenstorm blew its hardest, and there were times when I was confident the neighbor's treehouse would free itself from the tree, but in the end, we were left unscathed. The power never went out (thankfully!). Neighbors a few blocks away lost their power, and hadn't regained it as of around noon today, but it seems to be a relatively small patch of homes. There was one classroom at Connor's school deemed unusable for the day due to the hurricane, but Connor didn't know what damage there actually was to the room.

Halloween evening was warm enough for the kids to enjoy trick-or-treating, and though they went their separate ways this year, both had fun.

Connor has been reading the Diary of  Wimpy Kid series, which gave him a few good ideas for Halloween. First, he was insistent on going with a friend this year, rather than Helen. He decided that Helen slowed him down, and he wanted to cover a lot of ground this year. I think he forgot that typically he turns in before Helen does. Second, he encouraged Ed to throw a trashcan full of water on teenaged trick-or-treaters (Ed declined), and third, he was going to use toilet paper to wrap himself as a mummy. I upgraded him to cotton and latex free gauze, held together with latex free tape. Connor was not allergic to his Halloween costume, which was a bit of a victory, and it did not degrade as he was wearing it.

Helen's friend invited us over for dinner, a neighborhood bonfire, and trick-or-treating, so Helen went trick-or-treating with G. for a little while, and then finished her evening with a walk down our street. For treat tonight, she insisted on a pumpkin cookie from Grandma Carlene (they arrived today, thank you!) and a chocolate bar.

Both had quite a pile of loot. And if this year is anything like last year, I'll be tossing some of it out next Halloween. As much fun as a giant bowl of candy seems each year, it never quite gets consumed. In part, this is because Connor picks the crappiest candy available (Skittles, Starburst, think fruity and chewy and not chocolate). If he picked better candy, I'd eat a lot of it.

Helen wanted to be a ghost for Halloween, and we had discussed making the costume essentially the same as last year's pumpkin costume, but with a white fleece blanket instead of an orange one. Unfortunately, the hurricane disrupted my planned fabric store run, so I needed to make do with things at home. I actually like how it turned out, but it wasn't what Helen wanted. She did agree to have her photo taken just so I could see it on her. She didn't wear it anywhere.

I loved how the silk floated so easily, and with a little wind and movement, I think it would have been magical.

This morning, after deciding the ghost outfit was not what she wanted, she turned to the dress-up box and pulled out the cape I made Connor for his "hobgoblin" outfit from a few years ago, added a gold paper birthday crown, and picked up a sword. She declared herself Saint Michael and she was off to slay the dragons. But by this evening, she had decided on another costume.

In perhaps the greatest irony of all time, Helen opted to dress as Nicole, the little girl in the book "Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon".

I'm not making this up. The girl wears full-on dress-up clothes to non dress-up events regularly, but wears completely normal clothes on Halloween. I love her. Adults were awesome tonight as she explained to them that she was Nicole! From Herb the Vegetarian Dragon! They would nod as if they understood and tell her to take an extra piece of candy. It's hard to resist that smile.

Happy Halloween, everyone! And hope your power is on soon, if it isn't already.

Elaine