Hawwoween Identity Crisis

Tonight I went trick or treating with Jeff Gordon, Harry Potter, and an astronaut.

Dora came too. And after I took these photos, a mysterious girl wearing what she called a "beggar's skirt" flitted around our group pretty much avoiding the camera completely, but in the picture below, she's the blonde.

Dora's mom and the beggar's mom also came because it's okay for Dora the Explorer to run around with only her map, a monkey, and backpack in Nickelodeon land, but on the tough streets of Tampa, she needs some adult supervision.

Not that this adorable astronaut couldn't have protected her.

I love the picture of Harry Potter below. See his lightning-shaped scar just below his hairline? And note the palm trees reflected in his glasses -- how totally Florida!

We kept Harry's hair long for two weeks longer than we normally would have just so it could be messy like it's supposed to be for tonight. But even Harry is insisting on getting it cut tomorrow.

Our astronaut pooped out after about 20 minutes of trick or treating and decided to hitch a ride in the wagon, where he proceeded to eat a good bit of his candy. I didn't realize how much candy he'd eaten until I was cleaning out the wagon and found all the empty wrappers at the bottom.

Sweet Dora was actually sooooo cute as Dora that we all promptly forgot her real name and started calling her Dora from the moment she put the wig on. Everyone, including complete strangers, called her Dora, all around the neighborhood all night long. It was, quite frankly, impossible to call her anything else. Not too long after we started trick or treating, she ran up to her mom and said, "Mommy! Evwywon thwinks I'm the WEAL DOWA!!" But she sounded a little stressed out by it, as if she was afraid she was actually turning into Dora and wouldn't be able to turn back into herself. Later in the evening, when a woman saw her and said, "Oh hi Dora!!" She said, "No, I'm not weally Dowa . . . onwy for Hawwoween." When she got back home at the end of the night, you could tell she was just emotionally spent from worrying she was actually Dora. Once the wig came off, I think she was so relieved when she realized that no, she was not going to have to have a monkey for a best friend and rely on a talking map to tell her where to go for the rest of her life.