I shared this post on my personal Facebook on Saturday night, after coming home from our church’s Trunk or Treat and it so perfectly captured my exact feelings on how our night went, and our Halloween in general, that I want to share it again here. I was so humbled and touched by the response (look at the comments on that post). I received so many messages, comments, and shares, from friends, to the Battlebot community, to total strangers who were touched by Sawyer’s love for Battlebots and the tender mercies I saw unfold that night. God knew exactly what my little boy needed that night, and made it happen. My heart is so full. Here is the text of the post:
“Lately, this kids had a rough time. He needed a win, a pick me up, and tonight he got just that. For months, he has begged to be Chaos Corps – Bombshell for Halloween. Anyone who’s talked to him for more than five seconds, probably has heard him talk about BattleBots (he’s obsessed) and since he’s been awesome through some tough stuff lately, I wanted to make it happen. So for the last month, we’ve been drafting, building, painting, making this Battlebot costume together, and he’s been so excited, wanting to try it on every day and telling everyone about it. Then, this morning, the day of our church’s Halloween party, he got nervous that no one would know who he was (which they probably won’t- it’s not a super well known), and he got sad. All that excitement dimmed, and my heart hurt for him. I even considered texting a friend of mine to tell her what the name of his costume was, just so someone would seem to recognize him. I wanted so bad for him to just have a great night, and I didn’t want him to worry about anything except having fun.
I would have been happy for him just to be happy and proud of the costume he’d worked so hard on, but he got so much more than that. Before we even walked into the building for Trunk or Treat, a boy said “Mom! He’s a Battlebot! You’re Bombshell!” and I saw Sawyer’s eyes light up (Thank you Aundrea Baker DeMille for having an awesome kid who knows what Battlebots is). For the rest of the night, he was so happy. He was so excited to go on stage and show off his costume, and when he sat down, he looked at me and said “Mom, they clapped for me! They like it!” He was beaming. I was so happy. He’s a good kid, and he needed that so badly. He didn’t even hear when they called his name as the 3rd place winner for the kids his age, because he didn’t even realize there were winners, in his mind, he had already won, but he carried that ribbon around in his pocket the rest of the night. Best Halloween ever.
PS- because it got asked so much tonight- google “Bombshell Battlebots” to see the Battlebot he’s suppossed to look like, and the hat, glasses, and beard are all meant to look like the guy who controls it. And, thank you @BattleBots on ABC and Chaos Corps for being an awesome obsession for my kid.”
It really was such a good night, and all of your comments and nice messages just filled my heart to the brim, especially the amazing generosity and kindness shown to Sawyer by the Bombshell team, Chaos Corps, themselves. Earlier this month, I took him up to the Atlanta Maker Faire. He eat, sleeps, and breaths Battlebots (as in literally ask to watch it the second he wakes up and builds fake Battlebots all day and wants to fight them against me haha) and so when I found out that one of his favorites would be there for him to see it in person, there was no question that we were going. The team members who were there were SO nice to him. I was so grateful for the way that they showed him the different parts, explained to him how they worked, and let him touch and ask questions as much as he wanted. A lot of people would have just ignored the four year old kid who was shy at first, but they were awesome to us. He stayed at their display for about a half hour, inspecting each part and asking tons of questions and telling them his favorite fights from Season 2. Then, he went and got Rhett, who had been watching a racing event with my Aunt, and taught everything to Rhett that they had just taught to him. After that day, Bombshell has been his #1 favorite Battlebot and he has been building his own pretend bots at home even more, and trying to utilize some of the things that they showed him that day (like how he asked if he could have the chain off of my bike because he wanted to hide it in the shaft of a bot just like they did and use it to turn a vertical spinner, which he had already created by taking apart one of my pizza cutters. I love his desire to build things and know how things work but we’ve had to have some chats about what can and cannot be taken apart, I am running out of kitchen ware and his brothers are tired of their toys being dissected haha).
Last night he had an awesome time Trick or Treating and was so proud of his costume and his giant bag of candy. He wouldn’t even take off the box part of his costume to sit down on the golf cart and he never wanted to stop trick or treating, so we stayed out 9:30 (there were still tons of kids out too! Yay for crazy fun families like ours haha). It really has been the best Halloween ever and gave this kid (and his Momma) and much needed awesome weekend.
Leave a Reply