October brings many wonderful things to El Rancho Fiasco.

Crisp, clear mornings. Yellow aspen leaves twisting in the breeze.

Vegas odds makers who, even after eleven weeks of college football, have yet to figure out that the Cornhuskers never cover the spread. The disappearance of my stainless steel Williams-Sonoma pasta claw for scooping out the slimy innards of pumpkins.

And 15 pound bags of miniature chocolate bars hidden at the very back of the pantry. It also brings conversations such as this:

"So, what do you wanna be for Halloween this year?" I asked the six year old.

He thought about it for a beat or two, all the while looking at me as if appraising whether or not I would understand his request. "The solar system."

"The solar system? Like the entire galaxy? All of it? Planets? Stars? Space dust? The whole shebang?" I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as the crafty, make-it-yourself parts of my brain rattled noisily and began to short circuit.

I watched his shoulders droop slightly. I had failed the appraisal. I didn't 'get it'. "Or we could just buy something," he said, "You know? Like last year."

Oh, ouch! Last year he wanted to be the Golden Gate Bridge. The twins were just three months old at the time and still eating more often than they slept. And I told him I couldn't do it.

I just couldn't, in my sleep-deprived state, face the hours of custom costume making as I had in past years. So he went as a store-bought dinosaur. And I had two extra servings of guilt when I followed him around our cul-de-sac watching him trick-or-treat.

Ding-dong!

"Trick or Treat!!"

"Oh, look at you! Are you a dragon?"

"No, I'm a dinosaur. I wanted to be a big bridge but my mom said no because she always has to feed my brothers."

Bewildered looks from the Candy Giver in my direction and then a couple extra pieces of candy for him, Little Mr. Spill All The Beans-o-saurus.

Honestly, I should've seen this coming. In September, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science presented a program at his school about space. He came home and talked for days about the planets, the stars, and the sun.

He knew about solar flares and the imagined climate on Pluto. About the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. He spoke of black holes and space debris.

It was all very impressive considering his own mother once referred to a light year as "the same as a regular year, only less filling" and during grade school told this classic joke:

How are toilet paper and the crew of the USS Enterprise alike?

They both circle Uranus, looking for Kling-ons.

But, unlike his mother, my son was a studious learner and he wanted to be The Solar System for Halloween.

So this was the year I'd have a chance to redeem myself. To once again become as popular as I had been two years ago when I created his Traffic Light costume, replete with working lights.

I have to say, it turned out well! And more important, when he put it on, the six year old was more excited than he's been since my husband showed him how to use the auger on the toilet. (I, being devoid of a Y-chromosome, am still trying to figure out the lure of plunging a giant corkscrew into the plumbing.)

On Halloween night, the little guy trick-or-treated all over the neighborhood, proudly telling everyone at every door all about the planets and showing off how the stars on the front actually lit up! And he came home with enough candy to start his own chocolate factory.

We ended the night, as is our odd Halloween tradition, at the Country Buffet for dinner. (One can take the Mister out of Iowa, but one cannot squelch his odd love of plastic dinner trays, steam pans full of baked chicken legs, and 208 square feet of salad bar.)

Then it was home to put the Universe in the shower. "Hurry up!" called the Mom, "Time for bed! And don't forget to wash Uranus!"

Oh, c'mon. Somebody had to say it.