November 2, 2014
Girls in Disguise
Harriet made a most excellent Zita the Space Girl this Halloween (thanks to my mom’s sewing skillz), and the swishy cape resulted in her being even more powerful than usual—check out her superheroic stance. We do love Zita, whose super powers result from her strong sense of loyalty, her tenacity, and talent for friendship. Space girl though she is, there is nothing otherworldly about her. When Harriet wore her costume to school, she took along a picture of Zita for educative purposes, as the character is not quite as well known in kindergarten as she ought to be. We were glad that rumours of all the other girls in the class dressing up as princesses had been vastly overstated. It was a good Halloween, albeit soppy. (The photograph here was taken earlier in the week as we went to a Halloween party. On the way home, a couple of big kids recognized Harriet’s costume and told her it was cool!) I kept being afraid that Harriet’s cape would trail in jack o’ lantern candles and go up in flames, but as the cape was drenched, it wasn’t possible. Fortunately.
We had fun reading Waiting for the Great Pumpkin this year, a new collection of old Peanuts Halloween comics. In which Linus protests to the dubious Sally that he thought all little girls were sweet and innocent and believed everything they were told. “Welcome to 1962,” is her retort. The whole book is funny and wonderful. It was good to read, along with Don Freedman’s Tilly Witch.
Iris was a pumpkin this year, because it was the costume we had on hand for people who are approximately the size of Iris. It does not seem so unfathomable, however, that she’ll be able to choose her own costume next year. She is pretty articulate already (particularly if you count “screaming” as articulate) and has strong opinions, so we were glad we were able to get her to consent to wear it. She had fun trick-or-treating, and seemed to get into the whole hollowed-out squash/knocking on strangers’ doors for candy groove of Halloween. Some people seemed suspicious that we’d sent her out with her own candy bag, as though we had other intentions for her haul than her consuming it. “No no,” we assured them. “Candy’s fine for babies. And she is particularly a fan of peanut M&Ms…” Just like her mother. Okay.
