Boo
Carrie-Bri and I have this sort of unspoken agreement that she creates Puck’s Halloween costumes on an annual basis. (Not sure what she gets out of it except the admiration and respect of other parents who wish their costuming skills were up to equal snuff.) In fact, I think it all started when she dressed Puck up as a chili pepper at six months old, but he was already too huge and busting out of the costume…
Anyway, Puck’s trashcan costume was further embellished with rubber cockroaches, flashing lights (for safety), and more trash before the big event.
Earlier…
Pumpkin carving with Mom. Puck wasn’t too excited about digging out the guts with his hands. Go figure. But when the face started taking form, he wanted to participate.
“Can I punch it out? I like to punch it out.”
Out came the first eyeball. Puck sniffed the orange chunk like a cat.
“Take a bite,” Grandma Combs encouraged him. “Go on. Take a bite.”
To my surprise, he did.
“This tastes GREAT! RAW PUMPKIN DINNER!”
Added to Grandma as guests for the night were the entire Rye family (visiting for a few months from Ethiopia), Uncle Mo and Aunt Petunia (who wore cut-outs of kitchen spices on her shirt going as one of the “Spice Girls”), an old high school friend of the adults, Theodore and Gloria, Izzy, Annamaria, and Thunderbird. Only El Oso and Linnea-Irish were missing due to the youth retreat. Full house.
This meant chili, hot dogs, and seven dozen Krispy Kreme donuts from Grandma. Most of the women mingled at the dining room table while Carrie-Bri, Rose, and I listened to the dads talk Jack Buck and Bob Costas for awhile in the living room. The people Uncle Mo gets to meet. As I left, Rose was laughing about Bob’s pink eye during the Olympics.
Trick-or-treating sent Puck and the two little – and eloquent – Rye boys with “adult” supervisors: Francis, Joe, and Thunderbird. Also Judah. Trash can, locomotive operator, and fireman.
About an hour later, the loot came back: mostly chocolate. Puck was allowed one pack of sour Skittles, while he and the little boys played sling-the-tiny-frisbee-across-the-floor in the living room. When the youngest Rye boy got tired of tackling Puck, he decided to throw all two and a quarter feet of himself into Grandma instead, knocking her glasses off her face in the process. Fortunately no harm was done, and Grandma laughed pretty hard.
By the time the dog-piling was over, it was almost nine o’clock and time to call it a party.