This year my kids chose to be Dr Who (Tom Baker) and Spock (TOS). Sweet deal because these are pretty easy costumes to pull off. We make the kids costumes every year, much like we do ours for conventions.
There is something very special about little nerd kids.
(Dad, seriously, we need to make sure the pattern is sewn right.)
Especially when they express their dedication to a specific character, much like cos-players do for conventions. (It’s only logical I dye my hair to match Spock’s, Mom.)
I also use the term ‘nerd’ loosely as whatever definition it ever had is completely lost in the pop culture realm holding geek and dork and whatever…However, these two are nerds like it is 1975. ♥ While we were trick or treating, every older guy knew who Starla was. Often we heard “Hey!! I haven’t seen a Spock in years!” or a random “Beam me up Scotty!” (Which was never actually said in the original series…) Sadly, not one single person knew Trent was Dr Who. Mind you, we live in a very small area and British television isn’t really hip to the jive in Iowa…except in our household.
While these two went from house to house, Rory and I staid back on the sidewalk watching our kids with absolute parental love. I don’t think I could have been more proud of my children. Starla was scanning every house with her homemade tricorder and Trent never once lost character, using British slang and odd Baker references the entire time. They had some story about why Spock and The Dr. were traveling together, because this was not just getting candy, these two WERE their characters.
Although no one knew who Dr Who was, with any school friends we met along the way, Trent proudly demonstrated pure Time Lord pose, remarking, “Now they know Dr Who!” He was so excited to get to “teach” his classmates in passing about this marvelous character. At one point some snotty child asked Starla if she was a boy or a girl and Starla merely rose her eyebrow, much like Spock would have, if asked such as obvious and human like question.
Our weekends are filled with Star Trek marathons, meals are met with humorous one liners from the good Dr. and craft time is only put on pause for reading time. Markers and little scraps of paper are all over the house along with piles and piles of books and comics. We take our children’s interests very seriously, which was aided by primarily exposing them to the things WE loved very early on.
I have concluded this is the formula for producing a child that isn’t an asshole. Lots of chores, lots of family time, and lots of science fiction.
Also, Halloween is a pretty big deal for my husband and I. It was on Halloween, almost half of my entire lifetime ago, that we kissed for the first time. It was also on Halloween, years later, when Rory asked me to marry him. So, I can not help but spend this time reflecting back on how our offspring have turned out thus far. Halloween is our family holiday, much more than Christmas or Easter…we don’t even get dressed for those holidays…
Love,
The Lanes
