Thank God for Ninjas and plastic swords

"Mom, can you make my Halloween costume?" "Uh...sure I can sweetheart, what do you want to be?" How lovely of him to ask me to make it for him. I'm thinking I'll be able to buy some sort of costume and embellish it in some way and viola costume made.

But no.... Teddy wants to be Iron Fist for Halloween. Iron Fist, I mean - really?!! What the heck is Iron Fist and how many 10 year olds who aren't Brad's son actually know what or who it is? It turns out he's some sort of super hero; complete with big, huge, and absolutely imperative chest tatoo. Let me repeat that.... chest tatoo - it takes up nearly the whole chest and Teddy is SO excited about it - see an image here.

Did you look? Did you see that big, huge, collar thingy that is sitting there defying gravity? Okay, let's think about this. I can do this. I can do anything. I need... what... tights? Okay, tights might take care of the legs, but what about the upper body part? And Halloween, in case you've forgotten, is on October 31st and it can be pretty cold on that day, so how do I keep him warm when the Iron Fist's 'shirt' is basically opened to the waist and let's not forget we have to be able to see the tattoo. My first thought is, I can paint the tattoo on his chest. I'll use acrylic paint or even Halloween make up and it'll wash right off the next day. But what about keeping him warm? I know, I'll get a beige colored t-shirt and paint the design there. Now, how do I do that collar? Am I going to actually have to buy lycra fabric and a pattern, OMG, when is that possibly going to happen.

Wait, wait, wait. I know, I know, I know. I just need to put something else in front of him and hopefully he'll fall in love with something else.... right? So under the guise of going to get Jackson a costume we took both boys to a costume store, and sure enough, Teddy's eyes bugged out at the red ninja. And then when you added the plastic swords that go with the outfit.... well game over. So I bow down to the ninja gods and am ever so grateful to the plastic sword goddesses as the balance of my October just got a heck of a lot easier.

Camela