Tristan dressed up as Ferb from the TV show “Phineas and Ferb” for Halloween. He also dressed as a dragon against his will on a prior day.

Tristan has been very interested in pumpkins, so he got to gut and carve three with his dad – Phineas, Ferb, and Perry. I didn’t get to watch the process as I was tasked with removing Tristan’s sister (a rather busy and explorety one) from the premises. They’re pretty damn good for the efforts of a 5 year old and a dad who doesn’t fancy himself to be artsy.

We attended the annual trick or treat in downtown Campbell with Tristan dressed in last year’s dragon costume; Ferb clothing had not yet arrived. We went to this event last year with Tristan’s friends Mateo and Evianna. This year we didn’t run into them there, but we did go with quite a crowd. We went with three families with kids in Tristan’s present or former class. His friends Kingston, Nicholas, and Alex and siblings Marcus and Lauren were our other companions. The party covered one side of the main drag and about half of the other side before it got way too busy and our kids (and selves) had had quite enough.

We did not go to Tristan’s school event because it was held at the same time as the Campbell trick or treating, and we wanted to spend that time with his friends (and mine!).

Tristan’s Ferb costume arrived yesterday and he was very excited about it. It’s a little bit of a tricky costume. The pants and shirt are a distinctive color and style; they are fairly easy to ghetto-rig by using loose fitting clothing. However, I didn’t get to choose sizes I would have liked or find accessories to make it more believable.  Also, the green hair spray we got from Cheap Shit R Us or wherever I picked it up from was kind of weak. Not to mention the fact that Tristan is fairly particular about how his hair feels, so he didn’t want the distinctive spikes that make Ferb look like Ferb. He ended up with a couple of ponytails in dull green hair. But he really enjoyed having green hair.

This morning, Tristan’s school had a Halloween parade, which was a fairly bullshit event where the kids got to be walked around in a giant square while we parents all held iPhones or similar up to try to take pictures. It was fun to see Tristan and his class walk around, and it was a lot of fun to sit through the class circle time and watch all of our kids be, well, themselves – but in this structured setting.

This evening we went trick or treating in the local neighborhood. For this I dressed as Perry the Platypus. The entire family went, with James pedaling the cargo trike with a half-costumed Kirianna inside and Tristan dragging me as fast as I would go from house to house. He made a strong breakthrough this year with regard to Halloween (and holidays in general). He was very interested  in the trick or treating ritual; he figuratively exploded with excitement and was quite the impatient little punkass while the rest of us got ready. The process of door to door was a lot of fun – Tristan ran eagerly, knocked patiently (as patiently as a Tristan can get), waited, said an assortment of things ranging from appropriate to silly, said thanks spontaneously a lot, and enjoyed the hell out of the process. He participated in a catch the water in a cup game and did just as well as an older kid next to him. We covered about two blocks – probably a mile worth of road. Tristan got loads of candy and the process actually went very fast and painlessly!

And he’s about to go to sleep dressed as Ferb. Win.