Halloween is tomorrow.  My 13-year old has decided he doesn’t need to work so hard to get candy. He stays in and gets the leftovers without stepping outside of the house.  (Ahhhh, if work could be as easy!)

My 11-year old, Andy, still goes trick or treating.  He has had trouble coming up with a costume.  His hint to a great costume was that his friend who he would be going trick-or-treating with was going as “Brain Boy.”  I was told this entailed putting on a hat that resembled a large brain. 

So we brainstormed on what Brain Boy’s companion should be. Muscle Man? Girly Gorilla? Until we broke out the Halloween decorations and found a mask with two eyeballs protruding from long springs.

And that led to Mutant Man, complete with tentacles and a third hand growing out of his head.  A black ski mask, an old pair of black gloves stuffed with Kleenex, a black top, and some masking tape to spell out Mutant Man completes the outfit. My son is pleased with his costume and he has taken to saying repeatedly in a gravelly voice, “Mutant Man, Mutant Man, Mutant Man.”  He is practicing for the part.

I realize that as my sons get older, the fun is in the inventing of not only the costume, but the character. It’s no fun being something that everyone knows about already.  New characters, like Mutant Man, are there for the imagination to conjure up and for the mother and son to cobble together.