Trick or Treat?

Are you ready for Halloween? The Prouty family is not!

We hold our breath every year as October rolls around, wondering what our oldest, Michael, is going to request as a costume.  FYI – Michael is obsessed with sea life.  He has told us since he was three years old that he wants to grow up to be a deep sea diver.

Two years ago, much to our Halloween horror, Michael told us that he wanted to dress up as a jellyfish.  That’s right, a jellyfish.  My husband, Scott, viewed it as a challenge.

Scott wound up designing a costume using a lamp shade.  He took the fabric off of an old lamp shade and replaced it with a light blue tulle-like fabric he picked up at Wal-Mart.  He then sewed a hat into the new see-through shade, so that Michael could wear it over his head.  He then added some sheer tentacles using the same tulle and some blue nylon rope, and – voila!  We had a jellyfish.  People recognized and enjoyed Michael’s costume, but he was a little unnerved by their laughing.  I had to keep telling them they were laughing at it because they liked it so much!

Last year we breathed a sigh of relief when he told us he wanted to be a ghost.  It doesn’t get much easier than that.  His younger brother Liam wanted to be a cat, another easy costume.  (Now that I look back on it, he looked more like a mouse.)

This year, little brother Liam changed his mind about every other day.  First it was a fireman, then a vampire, then a spider.  But he’s finally decided on a pirate.  We picked up a pirate’s hat, sword, and eye patch this past weekend.

But Michael wasn’t going to be that easy.  We were sitting on the couch earlier this month when my husband asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween.  He answered without hesitation, “a horseshoe crab.”  Scott closed his eyes and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand in defeat.

So here we are on Tuesday night, discussing the design of the horseshoe crab costume.  You’ll have to wait until next week to see what we come up with…