Jack Bowser
I experienced twinges of sadness this Halloween, as I've watched Lauren and Maddie back away from the festivities. Luckily, Leah has no intention of letting go just yet. By the end of each summer, she announces her costume choice. Her picks used to be easy -- Hello Kitty (several times), an apple, a blue crayon.
Then her YouTube prowess grew, and she found clips of retired, little-known PBS characters. This year, Leah decided she wanted to be Jack Bowser, a character from the revival of The Electric Company (off the air since about 2011, I think), who stars in 24-second parodies of the TV series 24.
Jack's narrow escape from exploding pizza has about 98,000 views. The majority of them probably come from Leah.
If Jack Bowser costumes ever existed, they probably didn't come in adult sizes. A giant headache for a parent with a history of pushing the easy button on costumes, right?
It wasn't, thanks to the miracle workers at Leah's school. The costume project also provided Leah with a giant opportunity to practice so many functional skills that I hope her taste for the obscure continues for a few more years. A typical teenager can undertake something like this without much difficulty, but planning, focusing on a goal, and completing all of the needed steps are skills that have never come easily to Leah. Pulling off Jack Bowser took some work:
Leah had to communicate the idea for the costume to her village at school, and figure out the costume pieces she'd need to make.
She takes weekly outings as part of her work-study program, so her team set aside some time one week to take her to Party City to shop for costume components.
In his Electric Company career, Jack's total airtime was less than seven minutes, which means there are no retired Jack Bowser costumes on eBay, or templates or directions to download. Leah had to think about the shapes and sizes of Jack's face and tail, and look around Party City for items she could use.
Leah looked for blue objects that she could repurpose for Jack Bowser. It took some vision. The pom pom headband and socks became Jack's ears. Leah decided to use a party mask to make his face, and planned to cut the brim off a small sparkly hat to create his nose. A pale blue unicorn horn became his tail. She also found a fuzzy blue thing that allegedly is a monster hat. Per her village, it was on clearance and Leah announced that Jack might need it. He didn't.
She had to focus on needs over wants during the shopping trip, bring her purse to the store, and pay for her purchases. Leah is pretty good with money at home or school, but it's hard for her to generalize her skills to a bright, loud, busy store. Overload can easily get in Leah's way, and she tends to compensate by pulling out all the bills in her wallet. An ATM card helps with this, although I think practicing with cash is important too.
Back at school, she had to transform the pieces into Jack Bowser. The ears were a little beyond Leah's skill set; her social worker spent an evening engineering them, even pulling her husband in to help.
Leah happily wore the costume to her school's fall festival, and again on Halloween night in our neighborhood. I enjoyed having one offspring who still likes to trick-or-treat. Apparently I'm not ready to quit Halloween either.