It's the scariest night of the year. Actually, for the
record, I don't find Halloween all that scary. Except for when the nondescript,
windowless, white panel van rolled down our street with small children
trick-or-treating on either side. However, creepy might be the better word for
that, not scary. For Ellie though, the first trick-or-treater of this year
almost single-handedly wrecked her entire Halloween but that's a story I'll get
to later.
With this year marking Ellie's third Halloween, after some
deliberation, Bethany and I decided it was time for Ellie to have a Halloween
costume. While thinking through some of the options at our disposal, we
remembered Ellie had received a Minnie Mouse-themed dress from one of Bethany's
co-workers that she absolutely loves. Therefore, we figured it would be fun for
Ellie to dress as Minnie Mouse.
Of course, a big part of any Minnie Mouse costume has to be
the ears. Without them, you're just a kid with a picture of a cartoon mouse on
her chest. Therefore, my mission for the day was to create a set of ears to go
with Ellie's dress. Starting early this morning, I found an old box in the
basement and cut out a pair of circles using one of Ellie's bowls as a pattern.
Then, I covered each circle in black duct tape.
At this point though, I reached an impasse when I realized I
didn't know how to attach the ears to Ellie's head. My impasse would remain
unsolved until an afternoon trip to Target gave me what I needed to complete my
project: a headband from the $1.00 aisle. With our purchases in hand, we headed
home to complete Ellie's costume.
In case you're wondering what all goes into a homemade pair
of mouse ears, the list is simple.
- One $1.00 headband from Target
- Two circles cut out of cardboard
- One roll of black duct tape
- One old t-shirt (blue)
- One really old pair of underwear (black)
- One staple gun
In case you're wondering, the underwear was used to cover
the ears with fabric as I thought it looked better than duct tape. Don't worry;
they were clean. As for the shirt, I cut strips of fabric and tied them into a
bow to create a version of Minnie's iconic bow. The final step was to assemble
everything using the staple gun and duct tape. Honestly, it didn't look too bad
if I say so myself.
If we're being serious, all of the work on the costume didn't
really matter to Ellie one iota. What really mattered to her was taking part in
her favorite part of Halloween, handing out candy. Unfortunately for Ellie,
that was almost ruined with the first trick-or-treater of the evening.
The three of us had been anxiously waiting in our living room
for the first kids to arrive. While Bethany and I were just sitting on the floor
chatting, Ellie excitedly peered out the window. All of a sudden, Ellie began
screaming in terror and took off, bounding up the stairs to safety. At that
same moment, the doorbell rang out. As I answered the door, I saw the object of
Ellie's fear: a kid in one of those inflatable dinosaur costumes.
Our best guess as to the reason for Ellie's fear? If you've
ever seen one of those dinosaur costumes, then you realize that it's not easy
to tell there's a human inside. That's especially true when you're two years
old. Lucky for us, as soon as the dinosaur had left the premises, Ellie
wandered back downstairs and excitedly handed out candy to any who rang our
doorbell.
The moral of the story for this Halloween for Ellie? Simply
put, she probably shouldn't watch 'Jurassic Park' anytime soon. Actually, for
all I know, 'The Land Before Time' might even be too intense for her.
#DaddyWrite
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