Trick or Treat

Ethan was a dinosaur and Alex was a lion but what was Mama going to be? I had originally planned to be a clown because Ethan liked Ronald McDonald so much but then last week at Walmart, Ethan started seeing costumes and telling me I should be that. So I kept asking what he wanted me to be. He had it narrowed down to a ghost, a scarecrow, a clown (with pink hair) or a witch. I told him I didn’t have a hat for the witch so he kind of dropped that one and then slowly the ghost stopped being mentioned also. But he kept waffling between scarecrow and clown. So today we finally head to Walmart to get whatever I’ll need to do whichever costume it is to be. For a scarecrow, I needed some hay which I had planned to use the Alfalfa we get to line the rabbit cage (which he eats also) since I could use it for the rabbit later. For the clown, I need the white make-up and spray for my hair. We’re in the aisle and Ethan is still waffling…until he sees a clown wig with pink, green, blue & orange hair. “You gonna be a clown, Mom.” OK that’s settled. What color hair? Orange, Blue, Green, Pink? “Green, Mom. You need green hair and I need green hair, too.” No baby, you have your dinosaur costume, you don’t need green hair. “But I do, my dinosaur needs geen hair.” OK, we’ll color the front of your hair green for your costume. “OK” We got the glow lights Ethan wanted for he and Alex and off to home for naps.

Ethan, Alex & I took a good nap together in my bed (a rarity these days) and Steve slept in Ethan’s bed. Alex woke up before I was ready as I had a massive headache and Ethan was still out, so like a good Mom, I put him off on his Daddy (smile). I took him into the other room and deposited him with Steve so I could come back and lay down. My plan wasn’t really to sleep for another hour as I thought Ethan would be up any minute. I just needed to lay down on my other side to try to aleve the headache which pounding. However, since Ethan did sleep another hour, I did, too. This put us a bit behind when it came to getting costumed up but who cares – naps are awesome.

I put on black baggy sweats and a pair of Steve’s blue shorts over that. Then I put on a white long sleeved shirt and had one of Steve’s shirts to wear over that but it matched a little too well so I opted for a white/red striped short sleeved shirt instead. I then proceeded to spray my hair green – I learned that for my dark hair, for any future spraying coloring adventures, I’ll need 2 cans of spray. I then used my “KISS” makeup to make a nice white clown face complete with red nose, red cheeks, a green eye, a blue eye and huge lips. Ethan loved it – I was the clown he was looking for. “But I don’t know what Daddy’s going to be.” Since Daddy has to go to work when we finish treating, we explained that Daddy can’t dress up. “I don’t know what Baby Pete [the bunny] is going to be.” We then explain that the bunny can’t dress up either. Since Steve put the boys’ costumes on them while I got dressed (sans green hair for Ethan cause he forgot in his excitement that he wanted to do that, thankfully), we were ready to go.

Since last year we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood and found out that very few houses participate and it’s pretty fuddy/duddy – we opted to drive to a nearby neighborhood and try that instead. Paydirt….a lot of houses, a lot of kids, easy to do in 30 minutes and get enough candy that Ethan thought he had enough. He walked the whole thing and exhausted himself but enjoyed it. At the first house though, Ethan didn’t quite understand the process. He had candy in his basket already from when he came to my office yesterday and my boss gave them both candy. So the guy came out with his bowl of candy and Ethan gets in his basket and gets candy out to put in the guy’s bowl. The guy and I both try to tell Ethan he’s doing it backwards that he needs to get candy from the guy. So Ethan has to get his candy back out of this guy’s bowl and then get something for himself and then we’re trying to get him to help Alex and get something for Alex and he gets something else and puts it in his basket – cause he’s totally confused now. The guy finally takes over and gets something for Alex’s basket and Ethan says thank you and Happy Halloween and we let the next kids up to the door. Really cute.

Alex walked to a couple of houses (including this first house that confused Ethan on process) but as that was slow going, we got the pictures we wanted of that and let him ride in the stroller. There was even one house with a huge spiderweb display in the front yard complete with mini-graveyard that Alex, Ethan & I got to pose in front of for a picture and then back in the stroller and back on track to more houses. The houses with steps, we pushed Alex as close as we could and then Ethan would carry his and Alex’s bucket to make sure Alex got candy, too. When we passed kids dressed in somewhat scary attire, Ethan would lose track a bit of where he was going as he had watch those kids like a hawk – Steve was keeping track of him as he almost walked off the sidewalk a time or two because of this. He didn’t get scared though as Steve kept telling him those were just kids like him dressed in costumes…he still watched closely to make sure.

After about 45 minutes, we hit every house on the little block we’d chosen and made it back to the car. But the night isn’t over, we have to go see aunts and uncles, too. We called Rog & Eileen to see where they are knowing they could be visiting their grandsons. We were correct so we headed in that direction before leaving Lexington. On the way out of our neighborhood there is a giant inflatable pumpkin that hasn’t been inflated much in the last several days. I’m on the phone with Megan while Steve is driving because Ethan wanted to tell Aunt Megan Happy Halloween. All of a sudden from the backseat we hear loudly, “slow down, Dad! The pumpkin!” That’s right folks, the pumpkin was finally inflated and Ethan wanted to make sure we all saw it. There are no ghosts, pumpkins or other Halloween decorations in our neighborhood that Ethan can’t pinpoint exactly and he’s excited each time he sees them but “Slow Down, Dad!” was incredible funny.

After visiting the Star Wars troop of Amy, Adam, Isaac & Ian and enjoying some ice cream with them and Aunt Eileen and Uncle Roger and Sarah, we headed to Uncle Keevin’s house as Ethan needed to see Uncle & his puppy before he’d think his Halloween was complete. Alex was completely content to go home and go to sleep following the trick-or-treating so at this point, he’s just along for the ride. When we got to Uncle’s house, he turned the porch life off temporarily and started to sneak out in his costume – a scary mask. Ethan had started to the door and Steve says, “don’t scare him.” I look up to see Ethan edging his way back away from the steps and back towards the safety of the car and Daddy. Steve says, “you’re scaring him” and then assures Ethan it’s just Cody…guess again Daddy, it was Uncle. Uncle turns the light on and Ethan, with Daddy right there and assuring him it’s ok, starts back up and then when he’s in the house and realizes it’s just uncle, all is well again. Uncle just doesn’t understand that while Ethan appears to be a big boy, he’s still only 3 and still learning about masks and stuff. We had a good visit with uncle and I got to wash my face (which made both me and Alex quite happy) and then headed for home.

Our official trick-or-treat night didn’t end until around 10:15 when we finally got home but we had a great time. It’s so much fun experiencing these things with the boys. I forgot to mention that Alex, my little lion, growled as we approached every house or more specifically every person, which completed his costume quite nicely. We have some cute pictures and as always, I’ll add them soon. Hope everyone else had a Happy Halloween! I know we did.