Halloween of Heroes

Gotham City had nothing on King of Prussia this Halloween, as two superheros descended on the city to restore order and "die bad guys" for its unsuspecting residents.

The day I brought home those costumes and the boys tried them on for the first time, their transformation to Batman and Robin began.  And it was awesome.  The couch became the Bat-Mobile, their hands became 2-way radios so they could summon each other's help, and their former identities as "Liam" and "Joergen" were no more.  I discovered the latter when calling the boys for dinner that night (after they'd spent over an hour chasing those elusive bad guys), only to receive the news from Batman that he hadn't seen "Liam" in a long time-- so strange! He was here a little while ago!-- but he would help look for him.  Batman then ushered Robin out of my sight to the living room, where they wiggled out of their costumes and nonchalantly strolled back into the kitchen as their former selves.  Liam then exclaimed, "Mom, have you seen Batman?  I just heard you talking to him...!"

LOVE!

Seeing the boys take on these new identities - and especially Joergen, who really seemed to morph into a different personality all together when he'd put on that Robin costume - was nothing short of awesome.  They had decided weeks ahead of time that this was what they wanted to be for Halloween.  Liam and Joergen love watching the old Batman series from the 1960s (all the fun of Batman without the violence- it's great!), and Liam was quite adamant that his needed to be the blue Batman, thankyouverymuch.  Joergen, on the other hand, was quite adamant that he wanted to be The Joker to Liam's Batman.  I was hesitant to jump on that idea (those Joker costumes are just so creepy!  And our time with cute innocent costumes is so limited before they only want to dress up as gory slasher-movie types and zombies, right?), so Dad had a brilliant idea.  He brought up the Target website with all their Batman-themed costumes, showed Joergen the page of all his choices, and said, "Joergen, show us who you want to be for Halloween."  Joergen emphatically pointed to a Robin costume and said, "Dat one. Joker."

YES!  You can be "JOKER" for Halloween, Joergen!  Done and done!

The boys took advantage of every opportunity to dress as their alter-egos.  A couple of days before Halloween, we went to a party sponsored by the sororities and fraternities at Villanova.  Candy, games, face-painting, and cute sorority girls?  Liam was in heaven.

Liam getting his face painted

Joergen playing a bean-bag toss

Cheesing it up in the student center

At school, Liam got to bring in his costume for a Halloween parade, and I was excited to snag a spot on the parade route :)

Liam and his teacher, Mrs. Trumpler

VFPNS Pre-K Class

Finally, Halloween arrived, and the boys couldn't wait to trick-or-treat in both our old neighborhood with me and our new neighborhood with their butler, Alfred.

What used to be our most frightening holiday of the year because of Liam's food allergies has now, 3 years later, become one of our favorites.  Believe it or not, Liam loves to dump all the loot out, locate the labels, search for ingredients that aren't safe, and sort out the good from the bad.  I think it lets him feel in charge of his allergies, which is just so important!  He also dictated and signed this special note for the Great Pumpkin, when he left all the unsafe candy out for him that night:

The next morning, Liam and Joergen were thrilled to discover a Batman book and a new movie, The Croods, left by the Great Pumpkin in return.

Their superhero costumes still get worn pretty often, and they are hoping that Santa replaces their "hand radios" with real walkie talkies this Christmas... it was the only thing they asked Santa for this year!