Halloween '07

Best. Year. Ever.

AB was a little monster that day, starting from sunup to nearly sundown. Willful, stubborn, deliberately disobedient, testing limits, the works. In spite of this R managed to keep her happy long enough to take her to her school for the halloween parade and to Jumping Jacks for their halloween party. AB had a great time, though the care bear costume was a little hot and scratchy. If you're keeping track you might remember she had four new costumes this year (not counting her "play" costumes): A witch, a doctor, a care bear, and a spider!

She went trick-or-treating in the spider, and it was so very cute and perfect. R remembered to bring the stroller so when AB got "tired" of walking from house to house she would take a break and we would push her.

We went with a bunch of friends and their kids. The night started out great, we put some candy out and began the trek down the street. The man who lives at the end of the street really goes all out each year creating a "garage of horrors" through which you must traipse to get to the candy, which frankly should be gold wonka bars after all that bravery! AB held onto my finger and stolidly entered the darkness, barely concerned, not really afraid, concentrating on the candy and listening (I think, who knows) to my voice talking about how cool everything was.

We try really hard to make the "scary" aspect of halloween to be cool and fun and silly and all that, and it seems to have worked. She grabbed her piece of booty and we started back out. Just then about 15 people filed in, and she got a little worried about not being able to go right out but didn't really get upset.

A few houses down we faced a candy trap! For those of you less in the know (haughty tone) a "candy trap" is someone or something that pops out at you as you innocently seek candy. This person was kind enough to not scare the bejeebus out of our kids, but I wished we had been able to hang around to see him scare the bejeebus out of some teenagers. Man! He was dressed in lawn refuse and wearing a lawn clipping bag. Too cool.

More houses, more candy, more fun. Everyone was really nice and we had a fun time talking and chatting and carrying on. AB was riding in her stroller and I got a huge kick out of helping her in and out of her stroller at each house. Not sure why, probably feeling helpful I guess, or just enjoying watching her run to doors and talking to her about how much fun she was having. She really, truly "got" it this year.

We saw some really cool carved pumpkins, in the "hurling" genre. One of the houses had a candy bowl out and AB went up to grab "a" piece. She took a little too long. J was there and watched her grab several handfuls. R ran up and asked her, "How many pieces did you get?" She immediately replied, "A hundred!" Later she said, "A thousand!" Three years old! R helped her put all but a few back in the bowl.

It was our best, most fun halloween yet.