Trick-or-Treating 2012

 

This was Clara's first year to really trick-or-treat.  I took her last year with my friend Dorothy and her daughter Summer who happened to be in town visiting, but since Clara was only five months old she didn't get to eat any of the spoils and didn't understand anything that was going on.  But this year, we had a blast.  Since the beginning of October Paul and I have been helping Little Miss to practice saying "trick-or-treat!" so she would be ready for the big night and she actually became fairly proficient at the phrase.  She could do all the syllables and got the right vowel sounds in there most of the time so that it usually sounded something like "dit-oo-deet".  So it wasn't perfect, but it still bagged her candy everywhere we went.

Clara wore her Halloween costume (Little Bo Peep since mom and dad didn't actually dress up with her for trick-or-treating) all day long since I took her over to Willow Glen for their toddler trick-or-treating event in the morning.  I loved Willow Glen's approach - they have the toddler-age crowd go from 11:00-12:30 down the quaint little street lined with bookstores, clothing boutiques, awesome restaurants (including our favorite Greek place - Opa!), and home decor stores.  Then the older kids get to go from 3:00-4:30 or something like that.  I left the stroller in the car and Clara walked by my side holding my hand nearly the entire time (and it is a long street!) and said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" and "buh-bye" everytime she was prompted until she finally got the hang of it and would walk right up to the person with the basket of candy and meltingly squeak "dit-oo-deet", take the proferred candy, drop it in her plastic pumpkin bucket, and then move on to the next stop.  I was so proud.  And I know it is super prideful, but I loved having so many people gush over Clara's cuteness and ask me if I had made her costume myself. 

Paul made it home from work just in time to eat dinner with us (turkey meatloaf, pumpkin mashed potatoes and asparagus - so yummy!) and then we went around the corner to trick-or-treat with friends from church.  We started just as it was getting dark and spent an hour going up and down one street.     

Clara literally ran from house to house, knocked on doors all on her on, charmingly chirped "dit-oo-deet" and did super until someone gave her a purple lollipop that she just could not wait to eat. After that things went downhill pretty fast as she kept pulling the lolly from her bucket until I had Paul hide it in his jacket until we finally gave in and let her have it at which point she just wanted to be held and suck on the grape deliciousness which she periodically waved against my shoulder and hair in a rapture of candy-joy before sticking it back in her mouth. Ick. I took it away from her before she finished (because it was actually a quite large sucker anyway) and she wasn't as happy about trick-or-treating after that (and also, it was almost bedtime and she was way overstimulated and had too much sugar in her system).

Oh, and I think this old man's mask contributed to her rapidly deteriorating interest in knocking on doors.  He was actually such a nice old grandpa guy but wow, that mask was intense for Clara-girl and she was none too happy about the trick part of trick-or-treat and only wanted to be held from then on. 

When we got home we had a beastly time getting Clara down for the night.  She cried and cried (totally not normal) and ultimately didn't go to bed until two hours past her usual bedtime and even then we had to just let her cry herself to sleep because she was so exhausted, poor thing.  Or maybe she was just prescient enough to know that her daddy was sorting her candy and taking all the good stuff while she was in her crib. 

There is no more candy in the house now though.  What Paul we didn't eat last night was set out on the porch with the candy we were giving away and the bowl was empty when we went to bring it in last night at 9:30.  I feel like Clara has been having too much sugar lately anyway with pre-Halloween candy (which is why she knew what suckers were and why she obsessed over them when she got some) and Paul and I for sure have been having too much sugar so we are attempting to cut WAY back on sugar consumption for the month of November.  We'll see how that goes since we both have pretty fierce sweet tooths. 

It was a great Halloween and a great October.  As one final Halloween treat, here is a video of Clara trick-or-treating at a couple of doors last night.  If you watch and listen closely, at the second house you can see Clara say "trick-or-treat".

Happy Halloween!