Susan Senator

One of the ways I enjoy being a mom is making stuff with my kids, like baking with Nat. These days he is in a pretty good frame of mind, as long as neighbors turn off their outside lights when it is daytime, so he is pretty amenable to projects. The other two boys are not as easy. But Ben asked me to help him make his Halloween costume, and that is right up my alley.

Ben is going to be a Super Mario Fly Guy for Halloween (pictured right). This is a character that is an enemy, someone you have to avoid when playing. The challenge for this costume was the face and the propellor. As you can see, the face looks like it can come off, almost like a paper plate. So Benj imagined it as a paper plate stuck on like a mask, holes cut, and a black stocking behind it, over his head. I made the paper plate into a secure mask by threading a needle with a cut rubber band, piercing small holes for the ends, and knotting the ends of the band.

Then we cut the eye and mouth holes. Then Ben drew propeller blades on cardboard, and I cut them out. The tricky part then was making an axis that could pierce the cardboard blades, hold them together, and stand up straight inside the red sweatshirt hood. I used two paperclips: one I unbent, and made into the axis, and pierced the sweatshirt hood with its end. The other clip slid over the center of the propeller and held it and the axis in place. Voila! It even spins a little. It is a totally adorable bad guy, so Ben. Just don’t tell him the “adorable” part if you know what’s good for you.

Now the next challenge: getting Max to tell me what he’s going to be, if anything, and seeing if there’s a way to help.