Fire Trucks and More Fire Trucks

Since wanting to be a fire truck for Halloween, Mozart has become a little obsessed. To be honest, his obsession probably was in place long before that, but that is when I became aware of it. And when I learned he wanted to be a fire truck (not a fireman, mind you) I got to work.

I hummed and ha'ed, built a fire truck in my head, put that design to paper, made a list of supplies, went all over town to try and find them without breaking the bank, and put my plan in motion.  Unfortunately,I don't have pictures of the various stages, buy I'll try to r explore explain:

In my head I thought of a cardboard housing with suspenders to hold the whole thing up. Wheels would have to be off the ground, and the cab of the fire truck could double as his treat bucket. And, of course, there would be flashing lights!  'Course since it's a Halloween costume, and likely to be trashed, one wouldn't want to spend too much money, so I figured using duct tape for suspenders would do.  I thought of paper plates as the wheels and paper fasteners to attach them.  I went out to Home Depot to get spray paint, the duct tape and some reflective tape.  TW went back to HD to get some draft insulation tape a and a nozzle to use for the fire hose.  Then off to the dollar store and found some stick-on touch lights to use for headlight/brake lights.  Made a ladder from cardboard and more duct tape.

My first try was a little front heavy.  It was already listing forward and there wasn't even any candy in the cab yet, so I shortened the cab by half, and at Mozart's request, added handles.  Up until this point, I hadn't been able to find any flashing lights, but a trip back to the dollar store solved both the handle AND flashing lights problem! Below is the final front view.










And here we have Mozart in action!  He'd gotten some loot, so the front is again listing forward, but he was still having a really good time here.

I'm sure we would have won some sort of prize for his costume - we got TONS of complements, but the costume judging was held after the trick or treating, after the parade, and a long walk down a hill, and frankly by the time he we got down there, he was completely melted into a screamy mess.  And, you know, a screaming toddler is MUCH less cute than one who is not screaming.  So, yeah, we didn't win anything.

Even though he was thoroughly miserable by the time the evening was over, he requested wearing his costume several more times and we even went on a couple other outings in full regalia.  Until I just couldn't keep it together.  Below is the just after the truck's last outing.

I thought that the whole fire truck theme would have calmed down after Halloween, but Mozart, it turns out, REALLY likes fire trucks.  We went to visit with the fire fighters and see the real trucks on several occasions, and while he had wanted a tractor, for the longest time, for Christmas, from after Halloween right up until Christmas, all he wanted from Santa was a fire truck.  Somehow, Santa got the message.

And now the young man wants a fire truck birthday cake!  I've got to put my creative hat on again and figure this out.  I'd really, really like to have a cake without red dye #40, but I can't think of a way to make a RED fire truck (and not a pink or purple fire truck).

We'll see.

I'll post once I figure it out. Or don't. Regardless, I'll post results.