Batman makes a pretty good tiger, don't ya think?

We had a great time last night, and thank goodness for the extra hour’s sleep! (Not that I got to bed at a decent hour, mind you, Calli was too wound up for that…)

Before I regale you with our tales of Ghoulish adventure, however, I need to give you a little background…

For a few weeks now, the Justice League have been living in our house. Calli has decided that she is the Flash, Mommy is Hawkgirl, Kat is Wonder Woman, Tristin is Batman, and I am Superman. She addresses us accordingly, making for some great lines when taken out of context:

‘Whatcha cookin, Superman?’

‘Why ya cryin, Batman?’

‘Aw, Batman, you’re sooooo cute!’

‘Batman can’t talk. He’s a baby!’

More recently, she switched herself out and became Strawberry Shortcake. The logic of a three year old…

This is a tender caress, and not a slap... Honest!

...See? They love each other!

As I was preparing for the first Halloween party of the day, I asked Calli what I should wear. I didn’t put together a costume, so I was just thinking of throwing on the Beetlejuice or Jack Skellington T-Shirt and calling it good.

But when I asked Calli for her opinion, she screwed up her face in that ‘Are you crazy?’ way and said, ‘You’re Superman.’

So Superman T-Shirt donned, we went out to the car. She kind of wandered around in her Wonder Woman costume, and I said ‘Calli, come on, climb up in to your car seat!’

‘I’m Strawberry Shortcake!’ came the reply, since I had not addressed her correctly.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘I thought you were Wonder Woman?’

The crazy look again. ‘I’m Strawberry Shortcake DRESSED like Wonder Woman!’

‘Well, OK, Strawberry Shortcake-Wonder Woman-Diana, get in the car!’

This seemed to appease her…

Some Halloween highlights:

Wonder Woman takes a respite in a spooky graveyard...

The first party was at the rec center near our house. Calli nailed the bean bag toss, but didn’t want to put her hand in the dark boxes with gooey stuff inside. Also, she wouldn’t eat anything. The hot dogs they were grilling smelled really good to me. I kept dropping hints, but Daddy wound up going hungry…

We went back home to pick up Mommy and Tristin and drove a half hour to the second party… which had been canceled. That was a repeating theme this year: all the events that we’d gotten used to going to were scaled back or canceled altogether. Maybe that’s a topic for another post on the economy…

The kids had fallen asleep, so Mommy and I stopped for a Larkburger. (Which makes up for the lost hot dogs, because these things are crazy delicious.) We were also in the mood for Frosties, so we swung through Wendy’s. Calli woke up by this time, and wanted a ‘toy and burger’. Wendy’s has this nasty habit of putting CDs of children’s audiobooks in their kid’s meals. What’s a three year old do with that? I asked for a toddler toy, and they didn’t have any. Cripes! What a Halloween this was turning out to be!

So we booked it back home, listening to a God-awful story about a kid afraid of Halloween costumes. (Doubly irritating because it booted my Halloween Mix out of the player, but nevermind…)

We got home as Batman started getting fussy. So Mommy decided she’d stay in with the little one, and Calli and I would Chick or Cheek.

The Adventures of a cold Super Hero!

By this time, it had gotten dark and COLD! I put on my Spider-Man coat, and Calli put on her coat over her costume, leaving only the tiara and a bit of starred blue skirt to identify her. She then decided the tiara was better served as a necklace.

The first house we went to, the man that came to the door said, ‘Oh, my! You’re cute just as you are!’

‘She has a costume!’ I blurted, ‘It’s just all covered up because it’s cold!’

‘Well, you’re supposed to put the costume over that stuff!’

‘Yeah, I guess!’ I said, irritated at him for critiquing our Halloween habits, and irritated at myself for sounding like a petulant child.

I told Calli that no one was going to know she was Wonder Woman unless she wore her ‘crown’ on her head, and she let me adjust it. Everyone else knew she was Wonder Woman, except the guy dressed like Wayne from Wayne’s World that kept calling her Supergirl. ‘No! I not Supergirl! I Wonner Woman!’ I don’t think he heard her…

One house was really scary! It was all dark and had spooky sounds and screams coming from it. There was some kind of black curtain hung around the porch that blew in the wind.

‘Wanna go in the scary house?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s tooo scary!’ Calli said, clutching my hand.

‘Then let’s run past the scary house! Ready! Say, You’re too scary, scary house!’

And we did…

We lasted about a half hour. It was just too darn cold. But Calli had a great time.

Wonder Woman ... and Friends!

For all the screw ups of the day, the big payoff was when, after showing off the loot to Mommy, I was downstairs making hot chocolate and hot apple cider, when Calli came down and said, ‘You were awesome, Superman!’

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘You took me to Halloween.’ *Big hug*