Halloween: Where Girls Can Be Boys

So apparently it's Halloween week on my blog.  Go figure.  With all the counting down the number of days before it gets here by the wee ones, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  They've long outgrown the stage where I can choose their costumes for them, so no more being a lion for two years then passing it to the next child to reuse the costume again.

The wee ones at least haven't changed their mind 18 kajillion times before Halloween itself, so I suppose I should be grateful for that.  This year, we had a ninja and Spiderman.

Spiderman is strong, right?

Yes, Spiderman has a strong personality....

So how long can she dress in a costume of her choice?  And more importantly, what did you (and your kids) dress up as for Halloween?

Allergy Free Trick Or Treating - Or Not.

While the wee ones love all parts of Halloween, there's a few small sticking points for us.  The candy is the big one, as Little Miss has a dairy allergy, and none of us eat HFCS, plus we avoid dyes and other nasties.  That limits the candy we end up eating each year, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's hard for the wee ones - especially Little Miss who usually ends up with just a few bags of pretzels - and I always have a stock of "trade" items on hand that are treats I know they can eat.  We're lucky, though.  A local organization put together an allergen free trick or treat for the special needs children in the area, knowing that so many are on restricted diets and can eat none of the candy they collect.

It's a brilliant idea, and I love that the neighborhood bands together to do this.  They even have tables at the ends of their driveways for the most part so the kids can trick or treat more easily instead of having to go all the way up to each of the houses.  One neighbor also creates an incredible haunted house for the kids to go through - altering the scary factor based on the requests of the kids going through in each wave.  This year, one person even rented a giant bouncy house so the kids could play once they finished trick or treating.

Except...

Here's where I start to feel ungrateful.  There were eight houses participating this year.  That isn't the issue.  My irritation - and I feel slightly justified in it because this was advertised as allergen free - is that this is what we collected from the eight houses:

So the most common allergens are peanuts, wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, fish, shellfish, and tree nuts.  Many more children have issues with corn, even though it isn't in the major 8 - yet.  In fact, companies are now required to label when their products have any of the big four: nuts, wheat, dairy or soy.  Most of the special needs children are on the spectrum (including Mister Man), and many of those are on gluten free, dairy free diets.  More avoid HFCS and dyes, including many who are diagnosed with ADHD.

I appreciate that many of the houses decided to go "natural" for the allergen free trick or treating.  But they missed the boat.  Natural is not allergen free.

The Pop Chips contain dairy.  The Barbara's contains wheat and soy and is produced in a factory with milk, eggs, peanuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios, cashews, walnuts, and coconut.  The breakfast cookies contain wheat, soy, eggs, and are produced in a factory with wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, eggs, and dairy.  The Back to Nature contains wheat, egg, milk, and soy.  The Sunkist "fruit flavored" snacks?  There's no ingredient listing on them, but I can tell you that fruit flavored snacks will contain HFCS and dyes.

So of the eight items we collected - oh, they also handed out prepopped popcorn in bags that contained dairy, wheat, and soy, I forgot that one - Little Miss can have one.  The big event that she's most excited about because she can actually eat the treats she collects was a bust because unfortunately people don't understand allergies.  She was inconsolable, and I don't blame her.  She was looking forward to this for weeks.

And I feel like a complete schmo for complaining, but... it's advertised as an allergen free trick or treat, and it wasn't anything of the kind.  And she's my neurotypical kid.  Try explaining to a more profoundly impacted child that the candy they can eat... they can't now.  It was so disappointing and so unnecessarily so.

The concept is brilliant.  And Surf Sweets has great allergen free candy.  So does Yummy Earth.  Indie Candy makes wonderful allergen free candy.  Strawberry Hill sells all kinds of allergen free candies.  There's even Glee Gum that is an allergy free alternative.  And that's just a small sampling of the companies I buy from regularly that I know are allergy free.  There's a ton more out there.  None of it was included in what the houses handed out this year, but it could have been if there was better education of what allergen free means.

I love the idea.  I love that the neighbors are willing to do this special event.  But creating the special event and then providing items that the children can't enjoy makes it worse than not having it at all.  Because they're kids.  And they don't get why they can't enjoy an event created for them.  Next year, we may not go because I don't want the wee ones to have this disappointment again - and I can't take on another project so it gets done right (so I say now; watch, I'll end up spearheading this in another eight months).

Because we have allergies in our house and because we know so many who have severe allergies, we always provide an alternative to traditional candy.  I wrote Monday about the book or treat option I'm having this year.  And I'm passing our Plants vs. Zombies trading cards.  And we have a small stash of "special" allergen free candy for those who request it.

What do you hand out for Halloween?  Do you have children with allergies?  How do you handle it if you do?

Updated: I have since found out that the treats that were provided by the neighbors for the special needs allergy free trick or treat was purchased by the special needs organization that arranged this.  So the people who put it together who are supposed to be smart about this and advertised it as allergy free were the ones who provided the treats that absolutely were not allergy free.  I've moved past disappointed to disgusted and very sad.  These are people who are supposed to know better!

Halloween Book or Treat

Halloween is almost here again, and I'm getting ready for the crush of children and teens who will bombard our house once again this year.  We average well over 350 trick or treaters each year at our house.  Our neighborhood is the place to be.

This year, I'm doing things a little differently.  Just a little.  I talked about how I'll be handing out free Plants vs. Zombies games, but that isn't the only non-candy alternative I'll be distributing.  But then I was cleaning out our bookshelf.  Again.  I'm not sure where all our books come from, but we seem to collect them like other people collect dust bunnies.

Many of them are books that the wee ones have long outgrown and are no longer interested in reading.  And we're lucky that they tend to take pretty good care of their books, so they're in good condition, too.  Suddenly, it dawned on me that I could very easily share our wealth of books with many of the younger kids who come trick or treating at our house.

So we're putting these books into a large bowl.  We'll have it available along with the candy so children can choose which they prefer.  Without a doubt, there will be many who will choose the candy, but I'm betting that there will be many who will choose a new-to-them book instead of the candy.  And I'll bet their parents will be thrilled.

Now that's a win-win-win.

What are you doing for your trick or treaters this year?

Wrong Closet

Yesterday was Mister Man's birthday.  He turned 9 on 10/11/12.  It was pretty cool, I thought - and yes, the post next Tuesday will be the recipe for the cherry cake with fudge filling and triple berry frosting I made.  Yum.

As we went through the presents, Mister Man was excited.  He got all sorts of fun things from my parents (and two books on Greek mythology from us that he loved).  My mom is never one to let one child have the spotlight and  the other child remain to the side, so much like we had the "birthday sister" when I was growing up, she made sure to have a present for Little Miss, though at least it wasn't wrapped.

As Mister Man worked his way down the pile (my parents tend to go overboard), her present became visible, and she loves her new Halloween shirt.

Mister Man got to his last box, and he soundly denounced it as "clothes."  He opened it up, and he was right - it was clothing.  He held it up to show us, and my husband and I looked at each other....

Personally, I noticed the hot pink on the inside of the collar and around the "Boo!" first.  My husband noticed the sequins first.  We both noticed that the cut of the shirt is a girl cut.  My mom still didn't understand.  She bought a black shirt.  Why wouldn't it be for boys?

It was only when I asked her if she had moved from the girl department before finding this that it really dawned on her.  Remember the nursery rhyme rewrites?  She's losing it.

And that black shirt?  Well, Little Miss two Halloween shirts now.

This May Be Our Last Year Carving Pumpkins

I love Halloween. I love the costumes and the excitement. I love the decorations and the costumes. I love the parties and the trick or treating. And of course, I adore carving pumpkins.

I have carved pumpkins almost every year I can remember, and that includes long before children, long before my husband. I remember giggling with a friend shortly after college when we gave our pumpkins bubble baths in the bathtub before carving them - just to be silly. I remember finding those way cool toys that are essentially miniature hacksaws that let you create your pumpkin with so much more detail than my giant knives ever could.

We've made pumpkin carving with the wee ones a tradition. They get pumpkins every year, and we clean them and carve them and roast the pumpkin seeds. When the wee ones were little little, my husband and I did all the work ourselves. As they've gotten a little older, we've expected a little more from them. They can help empty the pumpkins of seeds. They can decide on the design of the pumpkins, and this year we put Mister Man in charge of helping to poke the design into his pumpkin.

We made a mistake a few years ago, however. My husband discovered he could make extra cool pumpkins with patterns the same year we discovered those awesome tools. It's possible that they're packaged together and thus the discovery was made at the same time. The wee ones absolutely adore the very cool patterns, and now they want their pumpkins to have those same cool patterns. Yep, the patterns that take my husband forever to do instead of the fun freehand scary faces that I can make in fifteen or so minutes.

This year, as we prepared our pumpkins for the first cut, Little Miss announced that she wasn't going to clean out her pumpkin because it made her itchy. Mister Man started to clean his out but gagged and had to hold his breath every time he went near his pumpkin. My husband and I ended up cleaning out the pumpkins.

Mister Man was put in charge of poking holes into the pumpkin for his pattern. Twenty-three holes and less than five percent done, he decided he was tired and needed a break. He wandered off into the homework room, picked up a book, and we couldn't entice him to rejoin us.

Little Miss drew a traditional face on her pumpkin for my dad to carve - yay, no patterns - but she used a Sharpie. Did you know Sharpies don't come off pumpkins? It's an interesting look. She oversaw the majority of the carving after having overseen the cleaning of the pumpkin. Then she was done, too, and she disappeared until after it was time to put our pumpkins outside for display.

I'm thinking next year they don't get pumpkins. I think next year I get a pumpkin and my husband gets a pumpkin. And we carve them at night after the wee ones are in bed. It's the end product they love anyway because how awesome do pumpkins look as they glow in the night?

Wordless Wednesday - Halloween Costumes

I hate "celebrating" holidays early. I've posted before about how I want to savor the season I'm in now and not be rushed into the next holiday. Apparently I'm losing that battle. I saw Halloween decorations and costumes in stores in July. July, people.

Fortunately, Halloween is going to be easy around my house this year. Little Miss is going to be a storm trooper again this year, so that costume gets another workout. And Mister Man walked up to me the other day announcing that he'd made his own Halloween costume.

I was a little afraid when he first told me. If you're a parent, you can understand why. I asked him to show me his costume, and now... I'm pretty ok with it. Though I'm still giggling. But hey, that's $30 I don't have to spend on a costume, right?

So ummmm can you figure out what he's supposed to be?

Storm Troopers On The Loose!

This Halloween was a little different from most of them. For one, the wee ones dressed in the same costume this year. It was a surprise for them, but one I knew they'd be happy about. I purchased Clone Trooper costumes for the wee ones back in April, and luckily they both thought they were the coolest things ever when I presented the costumes to the wee ones on Mister Man's birthday.

Mister Man was very into actually being a clone trooper, and he loved the idea of being part of the Star Wars franchise. In fact, while trick or treating, every time someone asked if he was a Storm Trooper, he ahhhhhhh very politely (ok, sometimes not) informed the person that no, he was a Clone Trooper.

They did make fairly impressive Clone Troopers though. Ignore the cute trick or treat bag, though. That sort of detracts from their look.

This is the same picture we take every year, but I no longer have a little lion and adorable little puppy dog. I'm ok with that though - most of the time.

This year, we trick or treated with Violet (still not her real name) who was conveniently Princess Leia. The Clone Troopers had someone to guard, which worked out nicely as an unintentional theme.

Unfortunately, Little Miss is still recovering from pneumonia. Although she'd been on antibiotics since Friday afternoon, I still didn't really let her do the full trick or treating. She was allowed to do four houses in our cul de sac, but that was it. The rest of the time, she got to stay at home with Daddy to hand out candy.

She was fortunately ok with that, and it didn't tax her too much, especially since it got pretty cold out there. By the time Mister Man and I returned from our trick or treating, it was in the 40s.

And yes, Little Miss was wearing her Mickey Mouse mask with her Clone Trooper costume. When we went to get her chest X-ray on Friday, the facility heard her cough once and politely handed over a mask for her to wear. She decided she wants to keep it for dress up now, and ... it worked out well while she was handing out candy with Daddy.

I hope you had a great Halloween, as well!



Current Giveaways:

Family 4 pack of tickets to Ringling Brothers in Chicago at the UC November 17 here
Family Taco Night prize pack here
Wendy's gift card here

How Long Can This Love Last?

With a chest X-ray this morning, it's official that Little Miss has pneumonia. Again. Fortunately, we caught it very early - the doctor didn't even hear anything in her lungs and it was fortunately still very small. That said, I think we're done with dairy for at least a couple weeks until she recovers. Coincidence that in 18 months being dairy free she didn't get so much as a cold and two months into reintroducing dairy she has pneumonia?

We are again home, and I have a short respite right now while Little Miss takes a nap. This is her third day home, and it's really starting to hit home to him that she's seriously sick and missing out on things.

This morning as he's getting ready for school:

Mommy, can you take Little Miss's temperature so we can see if she can go to school today? he asked worriedly.

Sorry, Mister Man. With a temp of 103.6 yesterday afternoon, even if she had no fever this morning, she still isn't well enough to go to school today, I explained.

You mean she's going to miss her Halloween party at school?! he wanted to know.

Unfortunately, she is, Kiddo, I confirmed.

But it's ok, because Grandma is going to come over to our house this afternoon and have a little Halloween here for her, right?

Yep, she'll be here when we go to your friend's party and will do something fun with her.

I think I'm going to ask for extra stuff at my Halloween party at school so she can have it at home later, he decided.

That's very sweet.

And, Mommy, the cookies we're taking to Henry's (not his real name) party this afternoon, can we leave some here for her so she can have a cookie at her party, too?

Of course. Of course we can leave a cookie behind for her. I love how he worries about her and wants to take care of her all the time, but especially when she's not feeling well. These are the days where my heart swells with pride. I can only hope that as they grow older, they don't grow apart and they continue to love and respect each other the way they do now.




Current Giveaways:

Family 4 pack of tickets to Ringling Brothers in Chicago at the UC November 17 here
Family Taco Night prize pack here
Wendy's gift card here
$40 gift card to 1-800-Flowers.com here

Ewww Pumpkin Guts!

I love so many things about Fall. I love the crisp weather (so long as it's sunny, with a mild breeze and about 72 degrees) and the leaves changing colors. I love making leaf piles and jumping in them, and oh the smell of them burning! Plus there's football and Halloween and all sorts of great stuff.

Today was our official pumpkin carving day, and it was quite entertaining. I have a small pie pumpkin from the field trip I chaperoned with Mister Man. He has a similar tiny pumpkin (whoo hoo - a tiny pumpkin and a single apple for $18.50!), and Little Miss had a slightly larger pumpkin from her field trip. That simply won't do. Fortunately, Aldi had gigantic pumpkins for $1.99, so the wee ones each chose one to bring home.

The first order of business was to dry them off from the soaking they've gotten over the past day - and yes, we need the rain. My husband was in charge of finding our pumpkin carving kit. He told me that it wasn't in the Halloween bin where it belonged, which saddened me. If it isn't there, it is gone. He insisted it might be in a drawer in the kitchen and proceeded to rummage through a few despite my repeated insistence that I use the drawers often enough and keep them clean enough that they aren't there. And that something like the pumpkin carving kit doesn't just "appear" in a drawer.

He came back upstairs a few minutes later hiding a bad that contained the pumpkin carving kit. That he found in the Halloween bin. Where it belongs. Ahem.

Our kit also includes the oh so cool patterns that make for a truly awesome looking pumpkin. The wee ones each chose a design for their large pumpkins. I ignored the designs and simply began hollowing out my pumpkin for my freehand carving. I'm just fine with my just-the-same-every-year pumpkin with eyes, nose, mouth with teeth, ears, and eyebrows. And you know what? Carving a pie pumpkin is a whole lot easier to do than my usual big one.

After my husband transferred the patterns, I cut off the tops of the wee ones pumpkins. After explaining to Mister Man that either he cleaned out the inside of his pumpkin or it didn't get carved, he put aside his sensory issues and gingerly began removing the guts. (And yes, I know he has sensory issues. I know it's not easy for him, but I also know what he can do and that he needs to be pushed to realize that many things aren't as bad as he thinks they are in his mind.)

Little Miss had no such issues with her pumpkin.

While he didn't exactly enjoy cleaning out his pumpkin, he did a pretty good job of it. Once he finished, he decided he wanted my husband to do the carving of the design so it would look better rather thna doing it himself (probably a good call considering how long it took my husband to do the carving).

Instead, we began work on his little pumpkin, which he decided he also wished to carve. The top again came off, and he proceeded to clean it. This one, I made him carve himself, reinforcing that this was for fun and that he should just have fun with it because pumpkins aren't supposed to be perfect anyway.

That went well for awhile until he accidentally broke the mini-saw he's using (it works on pumpkins but it isn't sharp enough to break skin if you run it against your hand - and I was standing a foot away watching carefully). After replacing the broken saw with another one we had - yay for cheap carving kits! - he continued carving with a little help from me since he wanted to do lots of curves.

He quickly completed his and waited patiently for my husband to finish carving the big, special pumpkin. The look on Mister Man's face when he finally saw the completed product was priceless. He loved his pumpkin - and my husband insists it was worth his time (and the lack of the wee ones' involvement) for that reason alone.

Little Miss also has a very cool pumpkin carved, but by 1:20 I could see that she was fading and getting unusually crabby. I sent her upstairs for a nap, and she is currently sound asleep. If she wakes up soon, I'll add pictures of her with her pumpkin, too.



***

Current Giveaways:

Wendy's gift card here
$40 gift card to 1-800-Flowers.com here
Two Aquaphor Wonder Sets here

They Get The Magic

Before I forget, new giveaway up at my review blog. And more to come in the next week or so!

***

In Halloweens past, it's been more fun for me than for the wee ones. While they were interested in trick or treating, it quickly wore thin, and they were done. The costumes were fun, but they didn't really get into it.

This year? Oh, what a difference a year makes.

Granted, Little Miss decided at the last minute that she did not want to be Tinkerbell (as she'd been demanded for the previous ten months) but instead wanted to be a goblin. Uhhh, yeah. Momma don't make a goblin costume a) at the last minute b) after spending money on a Tinkerbell costume c) because she doesn't know what a goblin actually looks like or d) all of the above.

She went as Tinkerbell after I promised to put two layers of pants on her and threatened to take away the opportunity to go trick or treating. And she loved being Tink.

The first really cool part about this year is that a group I'm a part of put together a gluten free / casein free trick or treating event so that Little Miss was able to collect candy that she could actually eat. Mister Man was also invited along as a sibling, which meant that he saw his best friend from his first year of preschool and had a blast.





That's also where Little Miss started demanding two layers of pants under her costume. Bad mommy, I didn't think about how cold it would be Friday night. She had bare legs, although we were only out for a little bit as "just" fifteen or so houses were participating in the GFCF trick or treating.



The good news is that the wee ones followed the trick or treating rules I laid out for them. I did have to add a new one: after you ring the doorbell, count to fifteen slowly. If no one has answered the door by then, move on to the next house. The little buddy who saw Mister Man and immediately screamed for us to wait for him and joined us on our trek for the neighborhood benefitted from that rule the most, I think!

We actually did our entire neighborhood, and the wee ones wanted to keep going. Of course, as we went along our neighborhood, the coats, hats and mittens came out of my backpack. We stopped at home twice to dump candy and get a drink of water. But they had so much fun, we went to the neighborhood that connects to ours.

Smart me? I drove to it. And we lasted about ten houses into that neighborhood before they were done. And when they were done, they were D.O.N.E. Fortunately, I organized our trick or treating so that we weren't too far from our car at that point.

And getting home quickly meant that they still had plenty of time to hand out candy at our house, an honor they practically fought over. Our grand total was 339 this year, far less than the 462 we had last year. Our neighborhood is still a magnet for those who live elsewhere and have ahhhh greater acreage than we do. I took a quick snap of one car driving into our neighborhood to drop off kids at the very beginning. Within a half hour, streets were completely filled on both sides with cars parked, trucking in kids to trick or treat in my neighborhood.



Yes. That really is the kind of car we see driving around in our area.

And yes, I did the candy sorting. We had the Snickers pile, the corn syrup pile, and the you can choose from this pile. And wow is it hard to find candy that doesn't have corn syrup in it. Reese's and Mister Goodbar, along with two bags of pretzels were the only ones that made the cut. It's possible others might, but boo to Hershey's who refers me to the website for ingredients and nutritional information when looking at the package yet refers me to the package when I go online.

We're already asking when Halloween is next year.







So how was your Halloween?

Halloween: My Way

We've already started celebrating Halloween around here.

We're lucky in that a neighborhood somewhat near us had twenty houses participate in a casein free gluten free trick or treating experience. We were invited due to Little Miss's allergy, and it was a blast. Mister Man got to see a friend of his from preschool who he hasn't seen in too long. It was pretty cold, but they made it through with smiles on their faces.

Starting tomorrow though, we go by my rules for Halloween.

My Top Ten Rules for Halloween:

Rule #1: We go potty before we leave the house. I'm not begging to use a random neighbor's bathroom this year. So skeevy and gross last year.

Rule #2: I carry the candy backpack while the wee ones carry their small trick or treat sacks. After every third or fourth house, the small sacks are emptied into my backpack. It keeps my hands free and prevents whining from the wee ones that their bags are too heavy or that they spilled all over.

Rule #3: The wee ones walk on sidewalks and driveways and don't run across yards. First, I want them to respect other people's property. Second, it's been raining way too much lately, and I'd prefer to avoid the mud and muck on their shoes and God only knows what else.

Rule #4: If they want to trick or treat, they do it properly. The ring the doorbell, then step back. They must say trick or treat. No grabbing allowed. After candy has been received, they must wish the homeowner Happy Halloween and say thank you. Again, it's probably more strict than most parents, but it's what I model for them, and it's the level of propriety I expect. And they know it. And while they need small reminders as we go along, they pretty much know what they need to do.

Rule #5: No running ahead. Our neighborhood is a magnet for ... nonresidents. Our streets are lined on both sides, filled with cars during the trick or treat hours. There are people and cars everywhere. While we have sidewalks, it's still not the easiest thing to keep track of everyone, and I refuse to risk it. And I'll go back to the polite thing. Mister Man's social aptitude has increased hugely, but norms aren't easy for him. Having the rules and understanding why they're there help him grow his social skills, too.

Rule #6: You don't refuse what's offered. I have to admit that Mister Man did this at one house tonight. He was polite and said no thank you -- then added that he didn't like it. It's trick or treating. People don't care if you like what they're handing out, and it hurts feelings when you refuse what they offer. Again, this is a bigger social lesson than trick or treating that I'm trying to impart.

Rule #7: Mommy has her own treat. In my neighborhood, the adults carry cups. At various stops, people will offer to refill what you're drinking. Some have wine, some have beer, and some have Jell-O shots. And really, what other reason than this do you need to be happy living in my neighborhood?

Rule #8: Trick or treated candy is used to supplement our candy bowl. Last year, we had 462 trick or treaters (my husband graphed it in half hour increments). The vast majority of these people don't live in our neighborhood. I can't afford to buy candy for 462 people. Little Miss can't eat dairy. Neither of the wee ones ingests corn syrup anymore (whenever I have control over what they're eating). That knocks out much of the candy they collect. We sort through it when we get home and take out the "icky" candy and place it in our candy bowl to recycle for the trick or treaters who have yet to come to our home.

Rule #9: The wee ones choose as much candy as they are old. We don't eat a lot of candy and sweets. And they don't miss it. They love collecting it, but after that it just sits there. We now have them choose the number of pieces that matches their age. That's what they get to keep and eat over the next week or so, and then we're done with the candy.

Which brings me to the most important rule:

Rule #10: Whatever candy is leftover gets donated. There are so many people who have so little for various reasons. And so many people who are so grateful for just some little thing. This year, Mister Man's school is collecting leftover candy to send to a second grader's uncle in Iraq. He then plans to share it with his entire unit. And you know what? We'll be contributing a pretty decent share to that shipment. I have a feeling we'll all feel pretty good about that.

So what are your rules for Halloween?

Halloween Recap

Boy, did we have fun last night! The whole evening was full of moments of note. But first, some pictures!

Spider Man flings his webs!

And he's doing something her, too, but I'm not sure what!

Yes, it's actually warm enough on October 31 to eat a picnic outside for lunch! Note: Little Miss is a witch here.

Our annual annual Halloween picture on the steps. Yes, Little Miss is now a princess. But not just any princess. She's the golden flying princess. With the tiara that I ended up wearing halfway through the night. I'm now officially a tiara wearing blogger!

Ahhh, you've noticed that it's now warm enough that we're not wearing jackets and short sleeves are fine. So weird. Oh, and masks are allowed for trick or treating but not at school, so Mister Man now has his mask on.

Sad Moment:
The families that were supposed to join us for trick or treating and dinner after both had to cancel. One had to fly to Cincinnati because her grandmother is dying and she needed to get there to say goodbye before it was too late. The other wasn't as dire, but both children have nasty colds, so she was out, too. This is the first year that another friend of mine that we have trick or treated with every year since we moved here has been in Kansas City. I really missed having her with me. Very weird walking the neighborhood by myself.

Surprising Moments:
Little Miss, the girl who last year cried her head off when I told her only four more houses and refused to stop trick or treating, decided about a third of the way through our neighborhood that she was done trick or treating. Fortunately since my neighborhood makes lots of circles, we were within sight of my house and I sent her home and watched until my husband took her inside (it was still daylight then).

Mister Man chose the option of going through the haunted house that one of our neighbors set up. He doesn't like being scared. And he did ok.

Neat Moment:

I went running yesterday (yeah... I brought all my stuff to Florida and went exactly zero times), so Mister Man was in the Kids Area while I was running. When I picked him up, one of the women who works there had painted his face. This isn't your usual thick blob where you squint and are told it's a sun and then figure out that yeah, I guess it's a sun. She's good. And apparently she did this out of the goodness of her heart, which was pretty neat. He ended up with a great spider on one cheek and a spiderweb on the other. He was so proud!


Unusual Moment:
Neither wee one wore a coat the whole time we were out. Little Miss had a short sleeved dress on. And I didn't need a jacket. It was warm out. It was 73 degrees when we started out. It was only 62 and 65 for a high in Orlando the last two days we were there. Those poor kids in the comfy Elmo costumes. They must have been roasting!

Phew Moments:
Little Miss decided that she'd be the golden princess for trick or treating. While the witch was fine for school, it required a turtleneck underneath it, and it was too warm for a turtleneck. Oh, and it was sort of too short for her this year. Oh, and then she decided that she was a flying princess. Who flies using pixie dust. And shoots webs from her hands. Yep, the golden flying princess slash spider. Creative little cuss, isn't she?

As of this morning, we have both our pumpkins. Nothing was smashed this year, and no shennanigans, even with a Friday night Halloween and tons of parties and bands of kids wandering around until after I'd gone to bed.

High Point:
The wee ones had no meltdowns the whole time we trick or treated. In fact, we covered the entire neighborhood. All 120 houses. And they held hands and crossed streets together and were overall very sweet. In fact, they even handed each other candy rather than just shoving their shares into their buckets and running along. Oh, and neither of them asked to eat any candy the whole time we were out.

Low Point:
Mister Man decided he had to go potty when we were very far from our house. I told him that we could either ask a neighbor (we don't know anyone on the part of the neighborhood, of course) to use their potty or find a dark house and head behind. He chose to ask a neighbor.

Creepy Moment:
The neighbor he asked gladly let him use the potty. And that neighbor appears to be a divorced dad who doesn't know how to keep house. I was embarrassed to be in the house. Especially when Mister Man didn't lift the seat and instead sat down. I didn't know he had to go that kind of potty. Whoops!

Entertaining Moments:
At one neighbor's house, the dad answering the door told Little Miss that she was really pretty. She didn't respond. Mister Man chirped in happily Thanks! Needless to say, we all cracked up. Mister Man totally didn't get it.

Whenever someone would tell Mister Man that he looked strong or asked him if he was Spiderman, he was very honest. Inside my costume, I'm just a regular boy or Those aren't my muscles; it's just part of the costume.

Little Miss eventually grew tired of her costume. Somewhere along the way, she took off her earrings and put them in her pumpkin bucket. She eventually explained that her tiara hurt, so off her head it went and onto mine. Then I noticed she was carrying her necklace in her hands, so I put it around my neck. What next? Why her dress of course! She complained near the end that her dress was hurting her. Since it was still over 60 degrees at 7:45, I had nothing on her under the dress save her Elmo underwear. I refused to let her take that off. Besides, it was way too small for me.

Oh, and one of our neighbors was having a party for her daughter and her daughter's friends. They're in the round part of the cul de sac, and we have an island in the middle of the cul de sac. Navigating this with cars parked along the edge of the street by teen drivers is probably not the easiest. I heard a giant crunch as we were walking back to our house at the end of trick or treating. One of the party guests had backed his dad's car into the brick mailbox. Whoops!

Record Breaking Moment:
The 342nd person who trick or treated at our house. And the 343rd. And the 344th. All the way up to the 372nd. Seriously. We had 372 trick or treaters tonight. And yes, the streets were packed with cars from people who drove in from other neighborhoods. I tried to take some pictures, but my camera didn't like taking pictures of the cars in the dark.

Aha Moment:
As we went on from house to house, some of the families offered the wee ones a choice of candy versus handing them a piece. Inevitably, they chose a Baby Ruth or Almond Joy or Peanut M&Ms or Mike & Ike or some other candy that wasn't a Twix or Snickers or Kit Kat. Next year, I'm teaching them how to choose candy!

Disappointing Moments:
I kept having to remind them to say thank you. They got the trick or treat pretty well, and they'd say it when I reminded them, but I had to remind them about 98% of the time. I was hoping that they'd be able to eventually remember on their own. Even more disappointing, I got many, many comments about how polite and well-mannered they were. If that was well-mannered, what were the rest of the kids doing?

I also was wearing Little Miss's ring. It was way too big for her, but she wanted to wear it when we first left the house. After she dropped it the nineteenth time, I put it on my finger. Not surprisingly, it was a bit small. And it fell off when I was transferring candy from their small buckets into my backpack. I heard a clank but didn't realize what it was until about twenty feet later when I realized it wasn't on my finger anymore. We went back, but I couldn't find it.

Yay Moment:
After we got back from trick or treating, I took a flashlight and went back to look for the ring. Unlike the (pretend) walkie-talkie we lost last year, I found the ring!

The Degrees Of Mom

As we go about our daily lives, we see all different sorts of parents. Some are the ones we aspire to be, some we feel sorry for, some we shake our heads at, and some well some just shouldn't be parents at all (see the ones driving from Iowa to abandon their teenagers "legally" in Nebraska). How can we really tell which mom is which kind? It's easy:

Ideal Mom:
This mom created her child's Halloween costume from scratch (and yes, she's also throwing the class's party). She started on the costume back while summer vacation was still in full force, browsing catalogues for ideas before running them past her child. Her child may have chosen the most complicated idea, but she's going to go through with it anyway. In fact, when the costume is completed on the third day of school back in September, you can't see any seams, and it looks professionally made. While we aspire to be her, I'll admit that I also hate her a little bit.

Great Mom:
This mom talked to her kids in September about what they wanted to be for Halloween, and immediately found the perfect costumes online and ordered them. When the costumes came and the kids changed their minds (not that this ever happens), she calmly returned the costumes -- because she smartly kept the receipts -- and bought the new costumes.

Good Mom:
This mom helped her children decide what to be for Halloween based on their interests. She may have steered them to the more approporiate and cheaper costumes, but she let her children choose what they wanted to be for Halloween and went with the flow. It's possible that one of two of the favored Halloween costumes were gone by the time she went costume shopping, but everyone is happy.

Creative Mom:
She puts together a totally rocking costume with just a bit of this and a bit of that already sitting around the house. She takes an old sock, some gum, a belt, and an electrical cord and all of a sudden, her offspring look like a working microwave oven. These moms baffle me, to be honest. I look at those items and see the words Goodwill flashing in front of my eyes. Personal issue, I know.

Me:
2003 - I borrowed a costume from a friend with children and dressed Mister Man in a borrowed pumpkin costume. At three weeks old.

2004 - Mister Man was a dog. The costume was made from felt, and the hood wouldn't stay on his head. All in all, it was a pretty cheap costume.

2005 - I found a lion costume on sale after Halloween 2004 and bought it for $5. Mister Man was a lion. Oops, the costume was too big. I tied up the tail so that it didn't drag on the ground and trip him. Again. Little Miss wore the borrowed pumpkin costume.

2006 - Mister Man was the lion again (for school). It's possible that his ankles were exposed due to a growth spurt. Fortunately, he received a train engineer dress up costume for his birthday, so he wore that trick or treating. Little Miss was the puppy.

2007 - Mister Man was the engineer again. We lost the plastic walkie talkie somewhere on our trick or treating route, and I spent an hour with a flashlight retracing our route with no luck (I get points for that, right?). I'm silently cheering that this costume is one size fits all up to 8 years old! Little Miss was a witch that I found for $5 somewhere. It's possible that the dress was long enough that she tripped over it. Repeatedly.

2008 - Little Miss is steered into being Tinkerbell because we have a Tinkerbell dressup costume in our dressup trunk. She's thrilled as she's absolutely obsessed with Peter Pan. Mister Man refuses to be the engineer again (drat!). He wants to be Spiderman. I talk him into being a baseball player -- we already have a jersey, shoes, a mit, jock (1st birthday present from a friend of mine), and glove. And he can use Daddy's eyeblock. Since we're planning to have him play tee-ball next summer, we can get the pants now when they're cheap! Whoo hoo!

Oops. I went to Costco with Mister Man. He saw a Spiderman costume for $19.99. He never asks for anything and generally finds things he wants to buy for other people. He asks if he can please, please, please be Spiderman. I think back on my Halloweens prior and agree.

Last night, I pulled the Tinkerbell costume from the dressup trunk in preparation for today. She begs to try it on, and I tell her she can wear it for just three minutes. We put it on, and it slides off. Hmmm. I put it on again and redo the Velcro. It's loose, so I check the size 4-6X. It's long enough, but she's only 26 pounds at 3 years plus (and 38 inches tall). Hmm. I try pinning it. It requires pinning an overlap of almost seven inches. I put the wings on, and they immediately fall sideways. As she turns around to look at me, I see that a nipple is showing. I instigate a tantrum by explaining that the costume is too big for her, but maybe she can be Tinkerbell next year.

I head out to do some costume shopping. The night before Halloween, and I go costume shopping at 7pm. Party City? It's a madhouse with full-price costumes that are primarily for adults and nothing cute, so I walk out. Target had nothing (Target let me down!). Wal-Mart's next. They had literally three costumes in a 3T size. All of them were really flimsy, and I couldn't justify paying the $12.88 for a costume even I didn't like. Instead, I bought a turtleneck and some tights so I could maybe keep her warm (and covered). I start thinking that if I put a winter coat under the costume, it might fit.

This morning when Little Miss woke up, I explained that she could either be the witch from last year to school or wear a golden princess dress that we have in the dressup trunk that I know fits her. After some pouting about Tinkerbell, she decides on the witch. Oops, the hat is missing. Fortunately, she doesn't remember that it had a hat. And instead of dragging on the ground, it's now a calf-length dress. She's happy enough, and I'm planning on the winter coat Tinkerbell outfit for trick or treating.

It's now 2:35pm and 73 degrees. This is warmer than it was the last two days I spent in Orlando. We're not wearing a winter coat under the costume. In fact, I may not even make her wear a turtleneck to keep warm. Now what?

Nope, I don't even fall on the mom scale for Halloween. I'm going to go hang my head in shame, as I start planning on costumes for next year.

Halloween, Neighborhood Style

Halloween where I live now is a big deal. This is only our third Halloween, so we're still getting it all figured out, but it's definitely been a blast so far.

We were lucky that the first year our next door neighbors -- the ones with no kids, so they'd think about the importance of this -- warned up that they'd given out a couple hundred lollipops the year before. My husband kept a tally last year of trick or treaters. Grand total? 342. Seriously. And he didn't count parents or double count the few groups that came through twice. Oh, and yes, I had to dip into our collected candy to have enough for everyone who came to the door.

How do you get so many? It's actually pretty simple. We live in a neighborhood with 118 houses. We have sidewalks. Oh, and the rest of our school district -- or at least the vast majority of the elementary school district -- lives on acres. Literally. Two of the five towns nearest us have a five acre minumum, and the others are one or two acres. That doesn't make for good trick or treating. I'll have to take a picture this year of the cars filling the streets with people who hop out to trick or treat where I live. And yes, we only give one small bar to those people while giving three or four to the ones who live in our neighborhood.

I've also started hearing a lot about places that do trick or treating not on Halloween. That seems odd to me, and luckily it's Halloween only for us. The elementary buses drop kids off right around 4pm, but we start seeing middle schoolers are early at 3:20.

I'm only mildly disappointed that I'll miss out on one of the more disturbing sights this year. One street over, there's been a woman who year after year has dressed as a slut-witch and been drinking at neighbor's within shouting distance of her house. As you approach her house, she shouts "The candy's on the truck! Take just a couple! The candy's on the truck!" over and over again. This is the mom of a high schooler and a college aged kid. You can imagine how she looks in the slut-witch costume. It's kind of like driving past a car accident. Unfortunately, she moved this year and a middle school teacher now lives in her house.

On the plus side, we have neighbors five houses south of us who cook hot dogs as their treat every year. I missed this the first year when Mister Man was three and Little Miss was in the Baby Bjorn, but I heard about it just after I returned from trick or treating from my husband who was anxious to know what I thought of the hot dogs. While I briefly considered walking down to get a hot dog, it wasn't quite worth it. Last year, we planned it so that we got there about halfway through trick or treating so everyone got a snack before we continued on the inner ring of houses. And they were actually good hot dogs! Here's hoping the economy hasn't put the kibosh on that one.

There is a darker side to Halloween in our neighborhood, though.

I'm consistently disappointed by the language and behavior that I hear from the older kids who are allowed to trick or treat on their own. The way they talk about other people -- including those within earshot -- is deplorable. And the amount of swearing is really sad. I hate having the wee ones exposed to that. I've unfortunately never caught up to them to discuss it with them (I'm stupid like that but you'd be amazed how frequently it works), so we frequently have a sit down break to "count our candy" which gives them a chance to get out of earshot.

And last year, we had a disaster. Every year (ok, except this year because we're in Orlando until the day before Halloween), we carve pumpkins. Essentially that means my husband painstakingly carves his single pumpkin for about five minutes while I spent hours completing the three for me and the wee ones. They go out on our porch to avoid putrefying in our house immediately and stay there until I need to toss them.

Trick or treating ends at 7pm by us, although we still have teens coming until almost 7:30. Turning out the lights is the time honored way of saying you're done with Halloween, but being a schoolteacher and teacing middle school in district, my husband won't turn off our lights until everyone around us already has. He has a huge fear of being egged or worse.

Last year, the lights went off, and we started putting the wee ones to bed. Unlike this year where a certain body part of witches is already freezing off, it was fairly warm, so we had the screen door open. We could hear laughing in the street as a band of kids wandered around. Then we heard silence for a moment, assuming they had moved on. Nope. Shortly thereafter, we heard a HUGE splat. It was pretty unmistakeable.

The porch light immediately went on, and we could see all four of our pumpkins smashed in the middle of the street. Needless to say, I wasn't happy, but the perpetrators were long gone, although my husband did go in search of them. From talking to people I know, ours were the only pumpkins targeted.

Thanks a lot, boys. And yes, I'm going to make the radical assumption that it was boys. When the wee ones woke up, they were devastated that their pumpkins were smashed. I still get periodic questions about why someone would smash their pumpkins in the street. Of course, my plan had been to tell them that Halloween was over so we got rid of their pumpkins, but my mom told them what happened before we could warn her.

This year... it won't be so easy. This year, my husband will stand in his costume -- a dark Scream outfit, sans mask -- in the landscaping in front after the lights are turned off. This year, we'll wait. We know it's coming. They don't. When they approach our house, my husband plans to scare the crap out of them. My hope is that he gets a chance to let them know that they're crushing small children's imaginations when they do things like that. Or at the very least that he sees who is doing it and goes to their parents -- except he's already told me that he won't. *I* might though if I know the parents.

So be warned. Halloween may be over when the lights go out, but that doesn't mean it's ok to smash pumpkins. Ever. And as the wee ones get older, they'll continue to have conversations from me about what proper Halloween behavior is -- language, attitude, etc. Anyone want to guess how often we get a simple thank you? And once they're done trick or treating? Come on inside to eat some pizza and watch movies with your friends. Roaming bands of kids is not ok. Here's hoping that other parents (particularly those in my neighborhood) get on the stick. But with the ding dong ditching making a comeback, I'm guessing that isn't going to happen.

Boo!