Halloween Countdown #7

​Growing up, my kids loved history. And music was a big part of our lives too, both listening and eventually also playing music. Sometimes, they liked to mix history with music. For example, if Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture boomed from our stereo, the kids scrambled to grab their “guys” and cannons and they acted out the War of 1812. When they dressed up as medieval characters, they usually created back story that involved real kings and their nemeses, and they acted out the stories with added soundtrack by playing pieces like O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. So of course, it was just natural that the year we played around with the idea of doing Medieval for Halloween, they quickly developed ideas around the characters they wanted to be.

​Pierce chose King Richard the Lionhearted, and we made him the royal purple threads needed to portray Rick while on crusade. (Plus, purple is Pierce’s color, so that worked out well.) The velvets, satins, and sequins were especially exciting for me to create with. Charlie, being Charles, decided on King Charles II, not necessarily because of his reputation but because his name was cool. Spencer chose Robinhood, because he’d loved Robinhood since he was tiny, watching Errol Flynn and his band of tight-wearing merry men jump out of trees to sword fight. (He had a poster from the movie on his wall and often acted out scenes from the film.) Spencer’s arm was broken at the time, so we worked into his plot development that he’d taken an arrow in battle and so needed the sling. Molly wanted a woman character just as tough as any of the medieval male figures, so she went as Joan of Arc. She channeled an uncompromising and assertive Joan.
 
Our friends, the Vyvleckas, who are quadruplets three years younger, joined us that year (1999) in our theme, and their mom made incredible outfits for them. She and I both had the same perinatologist when we were pregnant and so we decided it would be a good time to go visit him. When you’re pregnant with quadruplets, you see a lot of your doctor and his/her team, so we all got to know each other quite well. It was always fun to drop back in periodically and show them how well the kids were doing and how all their hard work paid off helping us stay pregnant as long as possible.
 
At Dr. Wolfson’s (Bob, as we got to know him), ten of us clamored at his office door then piled into his office. All eight kids gathered around him and posed for pictures, knowing he was the guy that saved the day many times for us all. It was great fun to see him again, and to be able to tell him once more, Well Done!
 
So for my Number 7 pick, I choose our Medieval Halloween. It was fun to share, both with other quadruplets and with Dr. Wolfson & Company. It was cool  to incorporate real history in our costumes and learn about past kings, martyrs, and heroes. And it was especially pleasing to finally get to use that sequiny fabric to make their chainmail. I’d wanted to incorporate that into our costumes somehow since I’d used it in red to make Dorothy’s slippers, back in ’94. But I’m getting ahead of myself…