Awkward Mom vs. Halloween

What is truly scary is that for weeks I will be finding more random sticky patches around here than usual. 

Awkward Grandma loves Halloween. Like LOVES it. Here is a quote from a letter my father sent me while I was in college; "Your mother is decorating with her usual subtlety: the 5-foot bat really adds something to the front hall." Halloween is smack-dab in her favorite time of year, and my mother never under-does anything, let alone the time of year she loves the most. We are talking wall to wall cobwebs, 7-foot-tall singing Frankenstein Monsters, bushes burning with red lights like they are guarding the gates of hell, pumpkins galore, enough tootsie-pop ghosts to intimate the Ghostbusters, and, naturally, 5-foot front hall bats. I have never known a quiet Halloween; in fact, I don't really think that is a thing.

I inherited my mom's sense of the overdo. Super Kindergardener got the dress-up gene. Super Preschooler got her festive glee. And Super Toddler got Awkward Grandma's fearlessness. (Seriously. My mom told me that she laughed the whole way through the Exorcist.) Add into this mix Awkward Dad's sense of unabashed and unashamed fun, and you have one very powerful Halloween.

Since my mom loves Halloween so much, we pretty much celebrate all month. Halloween itself is a delightful cap on the end, but the true fun for her (and esp. Super K.) is the decorating and dress-up selecting. Super K. (who also inherited his grandmother's love of matching and a tendency toward bossiness...oh, let's rather call it born leadership abilities) decided early in October that the theme this year was going to be Star Wars. He decided to be Luke Skywalker. He declared that Super Preschooler was going to be Obi Wan Kenobi. Super P. is pretty easy going, so he said sure. He had one caveat and that was that he was going to be old Obi Wan, not young Obi Wan. He still has not explained this, but Super P. likes his secrets. Super K. was going to make Super Toddler dress as Leia, but his friend Awesome K. decided to go as Leia, and while 2 Leias would have been fine, Super Toddler's natural talents lie in a different direction:

Namely, on the dark side. 

I, or rather Super Fetus, went as the Death Star, and Awkward Dad told everyone to use their imagination and pretend he was Chewie. The man has been working a lot, so we let it slide. My costume was no great shakes either; a gray shirt, with the words "That's no Moon" written on it, so I am not in a position to throw stones anyway.

Now, Halloween itself, while a blast and truly fun, was very rainy. It rained all day, and I am not talking about a little drizzle or some gray clouds. No, this was rain, all the way. And since we have a leak right by our front door, even the poor person handing out candy (who was me) got wet. In the house! Whatever. 12 sugared-up kids and their tolerant parents had a fun time. At least, I did and everyone else is too polite to say otherwise. I am calling it a win.

But the true win? That was the weekend before when we got to go to Hallowe'en at Greenfield Village. Just look at the way they spell Halloween! You know right there that it is gonna be cool. And it was. Plus, the queen of Halloween herself, Awkward Grandma, was there with us!

What? You don't own a casual cobweb cape?

I could wax poetical for a very long time about how much fun we had, but you all have other ways to kill time on the internet, so I will focus down to the fact that Super Toddler was very appropriately dressed:

The child forged ahead, cape a'flapping, the entire night; undaunted by any and all manner of ghoul. She would march up to elaborately-dressed guides, set on enormous platforms in the middle of the path, looking even tinier than she already is and shout Happy Halloween up at them, fearless and gleeful. She figured out the trick-or-treating aspect rather quickly for her first go and soon had a bucket brimming with treats. She laughed at the actor reciting the Tell-Tale Heart. She barreled through teenage blockages in the path with the contempt they deserve. She waved to witches and gabbed with goblins. And she was the only one to watch the Headless Horseman race around after Ichabod, as her brothers huddled at my sides and hid. In fact, before she was captured, I think she was on her way over the fence to push Headless off that beautiful horse of his so she could climb on. She a sight to behold, as she crunched over the umber carpet of fallen leaves, weaving in and out of the swirling smoke machine wisps, in the magical October dusk that Awkward Grandma loves so much. I am just elated that her grandmother was there to see how much Super Toddler takes after her.

I'm not exactly saying that my mother and my daughter have the combined spunk, nerve, and sheer bull-headiness to take on the entire galaxy and become the most powerful sith lords in existence. 

I am just saying that if the cape fits........