These are the choices I just offered my twelve (it'll be a miracle if he makes it to thirteen) year old son as choices for a Halloween costume this year. I know it's early for discussions about costumes but it takes time for me to come up with brilliance. I need time to steal ideas from the Internet. For Himself this year, I have been pushing for Sharknado. It would be insanely easy since I am an expert at the tornado costume. When my Tessi was sixteen months old and already a tornado in real life, I made her into a tornado for Halloween. Wrapped her in tulle stuffed with batting, stuck toy cars, cows and trees into it. It still stands today as one of my better costumes. Right up there with Steve from Blues Clues, Ben 10 and my couples costumes of brick and brick layer and Gatekeeper and Keymaster.
I realize that dressing Teddy in a full body suit of tulle will guarantee daily beatings at high school and even I'm not that heartless. I offered to just make the costume just a hat, not the full body suit. I would get big Dr. Suess style top hat, wrap gray crepe paper around it and glue in some toy sharks. He can take it off for the Bobbing for Apples contest, obviously. I thought this was an excellent compromise.
But no. The coolness is too is strong with this one and felt no burning need to compromise. I stood behind him his chair, whacking the back of it, deliberty wrecking his ability to play his computer game trying to force him to capitulate. He refused and just kept repeating no. Three dead game lives later he spit out, "Parkour, I'll go as Parkour!"
For those of you not familiar with Parkour it is a technique of movement involving running, tumbling and using point A to propel you to point B. It's used a lot in in city areas where people fling themselves against walls and pylons in order to climb them. Almost like watching some Jackie Chan movie but with no Karate moves. It's insane to watch. The humorous thing is that the word Parkour comes from French and it is pronounced par-core. If you are not careful and you find yourself saying it quickly or are a 12 year old boy (mentally or physically) and you want to shock people (say perhaps your mother) its very easy to pronounce it as Park Whore.
Immediately I stopped messing with Teddy's chair and just stared at him. He didn't realize that I, being merely his lowly, simple mother, knew what exactly Parkour was. I gave him a few seconds of enjoying his perceived victory and then I volleyed with my rebuttal.
"Alrighty, Parkour it is...." I spoke slowly, letting each word sink in. Including the correct pronunciation of Parkour. I then described what we would do for his costume. Black leather mini-skirt and fish net stockings, a red spandex top with coordinating red high heels with full drag queen hair and makeup. Then I would staple pieces of Tessi's Barbie play set (she got the Pre-school Teacher or the I'm a Mommy set, I can't remember which) to his shirt. Park Whore.
Game, set, match.
There wasn't an actual resounding THUD sound as his jaw hit the floor, but it was most assuredly implied. Oh yes, young Padewan, I have heard of Parkour and oh yes, by God, I CAN turn it into a Halloween costume. Clearly he underestimated my street savvy. Also he refuses to accept that I am physically incapable of using my powers for good as well as evil. It's a shame really. Well, it would be a shame if it wasn't so incredibly funny to watch his eyes bug out of his skull when he realizes what's happened.
He begins sputtering, "Wha? No, wait.. No, I was joking, I don't want to do that!" Really, that's a shock. "Ok, what do you want to be? I need to know now so I can start working on it." I say, using his familiar bored tone, giving him another chance. "NOTHING, I don't want to be anything!" He screeches at me with all the animosity a pre-teen can muster....which by the way, is a lot.
He wants to be nothing for Hallowen. We've officially reached the cool stage I see. Fine. Not willing to concede defeat I tell him that's perfectly fine and inquire as to if he remembers Connor's Star Wars party last year. Since he's finally cottoned on to the fact that I have brought my A-Game to this discussion, he very quietly and cautiously nods his head up and down. "Good! Since you won't be in costume for our Halloween party you can be the official Cabana Boy for the party, just like you were for Connor's party. Since everyone else will be in costume you will be everyone's special helper."
At the last party we had roughly 100 people and he bloody well remembers it. At least 40 of them will be adults eager to make use of a servant. Not to mention Connor and ALL her friends will be lining up to get a crack at him.
"NO! Wait, I don't want to do that! Y ou can't make m...." he begins bellowing but stops mid sentence when he sees my one eyebrow go up and my eyes peer at him over my glasses. Oh wow, I love it when my kids tell me I can't make them do something. Sometimes it's enough to make me chuckle all day.
As I left the room, I very politely asked him to make up his mind soon so I can plan accordingly. Finally, he accepted his defeat and wisely chose to say nothing.
That's two days in a row now where I have won no matter what my kid choses to do. I'd better be careful, I could get used to this, a lot.
