The scary part of Halloween? Making the costume!
“I need a cardboard box big enough to fit a four year-old.”
Don’t we all? That line has earned me my share of raised eyebrows this week.
I’ve been dreading Halloween this year. Over the summer, my precocious Nathan saw the Disney movie Wall•E.
Five hundred times. On repeat.
He can recite the entire script by heart. So can I. The animated feature chronicles the life of a small trash-collecting robot who, over the course of 700 years and a syrupy Disney script, becomes a sentient being. It was 90 minutes of my son’s favourite things: trash, trash compactors, robots, guns and trash compacting robots with guns.
Last month, when we were eagerly discussing Halloween (or as I call it – send your kids to work day), I asked him what he wanted to be.
Wall•E. He wants to be the robot. Crap.
I realize I’ve been lucky enough to coast by over the past three Halloweens. The first year, Nate wanted nothing to do with the freaky ghosts and vampires that came knocking at our door. He hid behind me the whole time, screaming.
The next year, he wanted to be a fireman, but only went out for 20 minutes before collapsing with exhaustion. Last year he was a fireman again, and finally made the connection between the length of time spent outdoors and the size of his stash.
It was a good year.
So now Halloween is two weeks away and he has asked his Mama, a walking craft-phobic Pinterest Fail, to make him a robot costume. I am to arts and crafts what Trump is to temperament. Foreign and awkward.
This is what Wall•E looks like:
I spent the first week of October paralyzed, unable to draft a simple plan. I knew I should have studied to be an Imagineer.
Pinterest offerings
Finally, with Halloween fast approaching, I’ve been galvanized into action – collecting supplies, anything I can get my hands on, praying that I have enough paint to hide a multitude of mistakes.
I’ve watched YouTube videos, dissected pictures on Pinterest (damn you Pinterest), even checked online to make sure there wasn’t a Wall•E costume available (There isn’t. Unless you want to be a slutty Wall•E.)
As I get underway, I ask that you wish me luck.
Also, do you have a reciprocal saw I can borrow?
It’s killing me that my son won’t decide what to be for Halloween. I have a bad feeling I’m going to be up for 24 hours sewing the costume he finally settles on because have you seen the line-ups at costume stores in the last few days before Halloween! UGH.