Sunday, November 23, 2008

Halloween 2

This is being posted way late.

On Halloween, we went out trick-or-treating.

We made some modifications to Johann's robot costume to shorten it up. Unfortunately, when he was trying to get up a step it was obvious that we had not done enough. I wound up cutting slits up the front to allow the cardboard to bend with his legs. This made him happier in his costume.

We completely abandoned the robot helmet in favor of a stocking cap with some lights attached by Velcro. It wasn't as cool as the robot head but it was more functional.

Even still, I don't think Johann really liked being in the costume. His mobility was hindered, the hard sleeves made it so he couldn't touch his hands together and it made it really hard to carry him from house to house.

But we went out. Arial's mom was visiting and she was nice enough to hand out candy while we went out (that way no one had cause to egg our house).

Trick or treating was a lot of fun (when the people with lights on where home). A lot of the houses we went to had stairs to climb to get to the door. That was hard for both Johann and Frances because of their costumes (Frances had a long dress-like thing that she was afraid to trip on). Some of the nicer people sat at the bottom of the stairs giving out candy.

After about 40 minutes, Johann grew tired and asked to go home. Arial took him, while Frances and I stayed out for a bit longer. Frances was a trooper but there was this one house that had spooky music and skulls on the stairs. We started up the stairs and she became to scared and wanted to leave. I thought that was fine. It was actually pretty spooky.

The next house they just had one of those bowls with a motion sensitive hand that "grabs" at you. Frances didn't want to get the candy because she was still spooked. I encouraged her to get some and she did. I thought she was very brave.

After that we went home and the kids had fun eating candy.

While we were out, I saw a happy little kid about Johann's age dressed as a cowboy. That meant a cowboy hat and a neckerchief. There's a lesson in that.

mwz

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Halloween 1

This is being posted extremely late. Sorry.

The Sunday before Halloween we went to a Halloween carnival at the local rec center. Frances went as a butterfly and Johann was a robot. Arial made a pretty skirt thing for the torso of Frances' costume. With wings and antennae, she looked very cute.

I had a hand in Johann's costume. We spray painted some boxes silver and then I hot-glued on various electronic components. It looked pretty cool although there were some issues. His mobility was hindered because the torso was a little too long. Even more worrisome was that the helmet was relatively heavy and we had a tough time keeping it on his head (it was a box that was way bigger than his head, it fit more like a space helmet than a hat). We wound up using little sticky Velcro tabs to attach it to the torso.

Before the carnival, there is a "parade" where the kids walk to the carnival. We thought that would be fun. What we didn't think of was the wind.

We parked at the start of the parade (about a quarter mile from the rec center) and got the kids into their costumes. People seemed to like Johann's costume even though he could barely walk. The parade started (going in the opposite direction as the rec center). Johann and I quickly fell behind but soon Arial and Frances came back to us and declared it too windy to do a parade.

Arial suggested we take the kids out of their costumes and drive to the rec center. I stupidly said that we should just walk. It didn't seem that far but what I didn't count on was the wind.

Like I mentioned before, Johann couldn't walk very fast and the wind was quite cold. I needed to pick Johann up and carry him but there was really no place to grab him with his costume in the way.

I gave the helmet to Arial and the fan on the back promptly broke off (a sign of things to come). Then, I scooped Johann up and lay him across my arms. That began a long, cold, tiring journey to the rec center.

I had given him my stocking cap since he didn't have his helmet to keep warm. It managed to blow off his head. Arial had to come back and get it. From then on Johann was concerned that the wind would blow off his hat.

We finally got to the rec center. Some of the electronics were coming off but nothing too bad. However one of the shoulder straps was broken and the glue on the Velcro sticky tabs pulled off. I think that caused by a combination of the cold affecting the glue and spray-paint separating from the cardboard.

After finally getting in and giving up on the helmet (which didn't have anything holding it on his head since the Velcro fell off) we went into the carnival.

They had a bunch of stations where the kids would do something like "pin the nose on the felt jack-o-lantern" and then get a small prize. Both kids had fun with that although Johann seemed a bit bewildered when some stranger put a blindfold on him and spun him around.

They both enjoyed the ball throwing events while the "fishing" (put a string over a divider and someone clips candy to it) is always a bit strange.

Eventually, Johann became really tired and tired of having his mobility hampered. So, we took him out of his costume. I took it back to the car and the wind threatened to tear it apart even more. Stupid wind.

Arial and I didn't really have that great of a time because we were kicking ourselves for trying to do the parade. But I think the kids had fun (or at least an experience), so I guess it was worth it.

We needed to make major costume modifications before trick or treating.

mwz