Halloween (dad)

Ready...set...go!!!!
Wednesday morning. It's Halloween day, one of my favorite times of the year. If a vote ever came about to make it a national holiday I'd be the first one to the poll. I have nothing but fond memories as a young child celebrating Halloween. The cool night air, the dim orange light of jack o'
lanterns, the smell of the slowly cooking pumpkin, the excitement of everyone in the neighbourhood out of their homes and in the streets running around from house to house to show off their creativity in exchange for some sugar. What a perfect end to summer before everyone north of 40 hibernates for the next 6 months. I love it even more now as I get to watch my kids experience this spooky and playful event.

This year was a little more special than previous years. Because some children are either to ill to leave the hospital or just not well enough to be out door to door in the cold, McMaster has its own trick or treat event. At 10:30am on Halloween we pulled into the hospital parking lot. We went up the elevator to the second floor lobby. When we looked around we could see people in costumes from one end of the corridor to the other and on both sides of the isle. There was approximately 200 people standing around. I initially thought that all the trick or treators were lined up for candy. I then noticed that many were adults and that the kids were around the corner lining up and getting ready to go. The 200+ people were handing out the candy!! The line finally started forward and the candy began to fall into nevans giant spider-man pillow case. He quickly realized that candy could be grabbed from either side and so started weaving back and forth trying to get as much as he could. Nylah however being only 2 and not remembering last year was a little overwhelmed to say the least. She did not know why she was there or what was happening. She walked reluctantly from one end of the hospital to the other in nearly a straight line staring up at the make-up and mask faces. I had to keep asking her to keep walking or she would have stopped in shock of the pure volume of people. It didn't help that she was wearing a big eyed spider man costume, black mesh tutu and her always too cute pig tails pulled through her mask. She was SPIDER-GIRL!!!  A real character she is but not easily found on the costume shelf. Mommy found an infant one for $5, cut holes in the mask for the pigtails and put the tutu between the shirt and pants. That girl was the cutest kid there that day.

Her idea to be spider-girl of course was modelled after big brothers request to be the evil black spider-man from the third movie. Black spider-man is a one piece suit complete with bulging muscles. Once inside Nevan became a muscle flexing, posing egomaniac! His confidence was sky high in that suit. We decided to let him wear it to clinic the next day to see if it would help with his anxiety but that`s a story for another day. After gathering an entire pillow case of treats from 2 floors at the hospital we decide to leave. I thought it would be nice to have just one visit to McMaster that didnt involve medicine or pokes or anything related. We didnt even go to his clinic to say hi, he would come dressed in costume for them the next day.

While on our 1 mile candy hike a reporter stopped Nylah and I to take a picture for the Hamilton Spectator. I tried to get nevan and mommy in the picture but they had gone ahead to far and the reporter snapped his picture and moved on. Nylah was definitely the show stopper of the day!

After a great morning at MacMaster we came home to begin carving our pumpkins. Aunti, Uncle and baby Elliot (baby tigger) joined us for the festivities. Ill give you one guess as to what nevan wanted as a pumpkin carving. Yup Spider-man! Luckily Auntie has excellent drawing skills. 3 hours later and we had a spiderman pumpkin, an owl pumkin and a Number 1 pumpkin for baby Elliots first Halloween.

With the low temperature and wet ground we decided it was best if Nevan not go door to door this year. It turned out to be a fun night anyway. Nevans cosutme not only gave him super strength but the mask was the perfect protection from germs! The kids were both excited by every ring of the door bell. What a great day.