Halloween is not my holiday. We totally skipped it last year and I wasn't upset in the least. Staying home while other kids were out trick-or-treating did not bother me AT ALL!! I have never been in to dressing up. I'm the one ready for Halloween to end so that we can focus on Thanksgiving and Christmas, two holidays that I do not want to skip...ever!
I like to buy Bobby a Halloween shirt for school to wear on Halloween day, you know a bright orange shirt with a jack o' lantern face, that type of thing. This year Bobby can wear man's size shirts so I googled "halloween shirt man" and got a whole range of things, which many were totally inappropriate. I was scrolling down through some super hero shirts and got very excited when I came across a plain Star Trek t-shirt with nothing more than a little emblem on it...."OMG, this could actually be a costume" went through my head. I just paired it with basic black (sweat)pants and he has a costume that to him is just like any other outfit that he wears on any other day. However, to everyone else, he is a Star Trek crew member. Perfect!!
A couple of weeks ago I tried it on him and just as I had suspected, he had ZERO issues with his Halloween costume. Of course, I had to take a few pictures of him in costume.
OK, now that we have a costume for Halloween, what are we going to do with it?? The Halloween parade at school is in the afternoon after he has already left for the day because of his modified school day. But this year the actual class party is scheduled before the parade. I talked with his teacher and cancelled his therapy for after school and we decided that Bobby would stay for the party and the parade. However, if he didn't want to participate (he lets us know in very obvious ways), I would just take him home.
I sent him to school already in "costume" so no one would have to change him. Easy peasy, his first successful Halloween costume. I offered to come in and take Bobby up to his regular ed classroom for the party since his autism teacher has another child in the classroom at the same time and I wasn't sure if she would be able to have just Bobby at this time. When we (Daddy went too, he isn't going to miss any occasions in Bobby's life if he can help it!) got there, Ms. Kim was able to go with Bobby, so we followed them up to the 4th grade classroom.
Now he wasn't 100 percent excited about this, after all, every other day around this same time when Mommy walks into his classroom, it is time to leave for the day. This time we are walking upstairs and totally changing his routine.
He sat down in his seat and waited for the party to begin. Thankfully there was popcorn in the treat bags so he had a Bobby approved treat to eat at the party. We dumped the rest of his snacks out and dumped the popcorn into the bag and Bobby partied on.
I took a few more pictures of all of the kids and Daddy and I took off to go get some good seats in the gym for the costume parade. Now the stress for me began.....worrying how Bobby would do in the costume parade!! Bobby didn't participate last year, I picked him up like every other day and he kept his normal day. The year before Bobby did participate in the costume parade....he sat down on the floor half way around the first lap (each class makes 2 laps around the gym) and refused to get up, all while Ms. Kim was trying to get him up and out of the gym. It was super hard to watch. I just wanted to earth to open up and suck Bobby and me in.
I couldn't get enough pictures of the first lap around the gym!!!
He was walking perfectly with Ms. Kim right by his side!!
Daddy and I wanted so badly to jump up and yell for him, to let him know we were there watching and how proud we were of him.....but we sat quietly in our seats just in case it would disrupt him in any way.
As he finished his first lap, I just totally welled up with tears. Daddy looked over at me and couldn't believe it, "are you crying???" I couldn't help it. Yes, I was crying. He did it, he walked his two laps around the gym with his class. It is not a big thing at all, yet it is a huge thing. It is one of those small, simple things that is a culmination of all of the hard work that he has been doing to get him to be able to walk along side of typical peers in a world that is not necessarily easy for those on the autism spectrum. Whoo hoo Bobby!! Mommy and Daddy are super proud.
Part two of our Halloween is generally trick or treating at Grandma's house. We did go to Grandma's house, but it was raining so we passed on trick or treating and hung out on her front porch and watched the trick or treaters come to us.
I know that he likes hanging out on Grandma's porch on Halloween because he looks at old pictures of this activity on his iPad all of the time. For some crazy reason, these are some of his favorite pictures that he looks at often.
Did I mention that it was cold? No coat for Bobby is getting to be the theme of our lives. But poor Grandma had to wrap up in a blanket.
Trick or treat was finally over and we were all freezing. Time to come inside and warm up. Yes, Daddy is a Star Trek Science Officer in his blue shirt! Bobby is a Captain in his yellow shirt. I honestly didn't know this information until Daddy clued me in!!! Live long and prosper!!
Daddy performing a Vulcan Mind Meld on Bobby (who is laughing like a crazy man!!).
Bobby was tired after this super long, fun filled day and wanted Grandma to put him to bed (and sing Hush Little Baby to him).
Grandma got Bobby this super cute sign for a Halloween gift (the picture on the sign is of the actual train that Bobby rode a few weeks ago).
This day had an even more perfect ending. When we got back home at 8:30, Bobby went right upstairs and got in bed and was asleep by 9:00 and didn't wake up until 7 this morning. Ahhhh, a perfect Halloween!!!
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