My son a creative force. I admire that Colin feels like he can do anything. When I ask him to draw something, he never says he can’t do it. He just starts drawing. Colin wanted to create his own train costume for Halloween this year. A few weeks ago, we got a few boxes down from the attic and he tried them on. He said he needed a second smaller box to attach to the front of the big box for his funnel. My husband I and explained to him that would make the box front heavy. It would make it harder for him to walk around. He didn’t care so we went along with it.

Here are the supplies we used:

• 1 large box and 1 smaller box
• exacto knife (to cut the boxes)
• aluminium foil (for the funnel)
• small plastic funnel (for the funnel)
• toilet paper roll (for the base of the funnel)
• cotton balls (for the “steam” in the funnel)
• glue gun and glue sticks (to attach the cotton balls to the funnel)
• foam Halloween stickers (bought at Michaels)
• light up Halloween pumpkins (so he could be seen at night)
• clip on purple glitter pumpkin (for decor)
• clip on purple glitter spider (for decor)
• 1 roll of silver Duck tape (for the funnel)
• 1 roll of purple Duck tape
• black poster board (to cover the box)
• scissors (for cutting tape)
• white vinyl (for the letters)

Colin did all the measuring, paper cutting and taping with guidance from me. I handled all the exacto knife and glue gun work. At one point he stopped and asked me if I could do all the hard work and he would do the fun stuff. I told him it was his idea/design so he needed to do the work. After a few hours, we were done with the initial box and it came time to decorate. Colin had reasons for putting EVERY item on the train where he did. For example, on the back of the train, he put a pumpkin sticker and a candy corn sticker after the S in EXPRESS so it would form an exclamation mark. Colin wanted me to hot glue the silver glitter pumpkin to the back of the train so it could be the couple up. I thought that was cute because the stem formed a little hook. In one corner of his train, there are three candy corns above crossbones because he wanted to have a campfire!

Colin was so proud of his train when he was done! He wanted to wear it everywhere! He lets out a constant choo choo as he goes forward and beeps when he backs up.

We took Colin to a trunk-or-treat at our local library that featured different types of vehicles like police cars, buses, trolleys, semi-trucks, etc. Our little train fit right in with all those vehicles.

Colin received so many wonderful compliments on his train. As he received each compliment, he stood a little taller and his smile got a little wider. His confidence soared! Several kids asked to try on his train. A police officer wanted me to take a picture of him and Colin with his police car. The librarian took a picture of Colin for the library Facebook page. The firemen made a big deal over his train and Colin was over the moon!

When we left the trunk-or-treat, Colin looked at me and said that he thinks we did a good job on his costume. I reminded him the costume was all his idea and he said that I was a good assistant! Love my boy!

I am happy that he received such wonderful recognition for his work and that he feels so much pride in what he accomplished.