Life With Elise: "Trick-or-Treat, Smell My Feet, Give Me Something Good To Eat!"

The obvious differences and age gaps between our kids can sometimes cause more drama around times such as Halloween. Ty is just now old enough to enjoy the church carnival (“Fall Festival”). Lane is at the age where all he wants to do is join up with his neighborhood friends and knock on as many doors as possible before having to head in. Elise just tags along wherever we go… Because of these differing wants and needs, this was our busiest Halloween to date! We hit the church first, then off to our neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating with GiGi (my mom), back in the car to drop by a few family friends’ houses, and then finally back home to collapse from exhaustion.

Our church, Cottonwood Creek Baptist, has a Fall Festival full of games, food, bounce houses, and other fun stuff on the night of Halloween. I took Elise up with me a little early to volunteer at a ticket table for an hour. This left my husband to get the two boys ready-- and their costumes were both home-made involving face paint, hair spray paint, and several costume props! So, needless to say, I was a tad bit nervous about the outcome of leaving them all alone to get dressed.

My fears were quickly squelched as soon as I saw my newly-turned 3-year-old running toward me completely decked out in his Oscar the Grouch getup. He was no longer my Ty-Bo (nickname), he was now OSCAR through and through! Chris made his costume out of a pail, spray paint, scraggly yarn, hot glue, pajamas, and store bought eyebrows, which he made into a “uni-brow”. This costume took several weeks to put together, and I think it turned out wonderful! Chris is very creative. I usually come up with the idea and he figures out how to make it happen.

Lane looked the part as the Monopoly Man. He wore a sash that my husband made of our Monopoly game cards. A $6 hat and $3 mustache later, and he was set! I made him a money bag out of an old pillow case, and Chris spray painted his hair silver (we didn’t want to mess with a bald cap). Lane had waited so long to choose a costume this year, that I had to threaten him with my rule of --- “No costume, No candy!” That seemed to put a little fire under him.

I sent Elise to school in a leopard outfit to match her costume theme for later that night. I didn't want to send her in her dress/costume, because they do so much with her there that I didn't want to risk messing it up.

I searched diligently for a costume, but didn’t find anything I really liked, so I found a little leopard dress, and thought it was really cute. I found some cat ears and glued on some pink pom-poms to match her dress. I knew that these ears would only serve their purpose in select pictures, because --

#1: Elise has microcephaly, which has left her with a very small head (skull), about the size of a 9-month-old. So headbands, hats, even silly ears or antennas to go with costumes are always out of the question,

and

#2: Elise is constantly hitting herself in the chin and temple or banging her head around on her wheelchair headrest (part of her self-injurious behavior), so anything that isn’t clipped in very tightly to her hair goes flying! I’m pretty sure I have spent a large part of her life retrieving bows off of the ground and affixing them back into her hair. It would be so easy and less stressful for me if I were to just forget the darn bows, but that is just impossible for me. I will be replacing bows for the rest of her life- you can count on it!

By the time we returned home at the end of the night, our church had posted Ty’s picture on their Facebook page as the best costume of the night.

Congrats, Daddy!

I don’t have many pictures of Elise this year. She started out pretty well, but eventually the hitting began. Thank goodness she fell asleep and took a pretty good nap. I usually take her up to houses and get candy for her with her brothers, but not this year. I didn’t feel right taking candy for a child who was passed out cold! She can’t eat it anyway, so it was Lane and Ty who noticed their candy stash cut down by ⅓ this year!

Chris created the can and lid by cutting off the bottom of a pail. He lined the inside of the pail with foam so Ty could step into it and it would hold itself up without the use of straps. He took the cut off bottom of the pail and turned the edges under to make the lid/hat. He super glued a kitchen drawer handle to the top to look like a trash can handle.

We ran into a handful of older people or people from other countries who didn’t know who Oscar the Grouch was. They usually thought he was some version of a swamp monster or something!