halloween

Halloween 2011

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This year, for the first time since Claire was a baby, we actually did trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood.  In the past, Claire has preferred to go trick-or-treating with friends in their neighborhood, but it did not work out this year on account of it being a Monday and not having time to get something like that together.  Claire handled the disappointment of trick-or-treating in the neighborhood with her family pretty well. 🙂

The dynamic duo working a house

Accordingly, it was the slowest, most low-key Halloween we have had in a long time.  Instead of running and giggling wildly with her friends, Claire, dressed as a fairy-Barbie, paced slowly along with us from house to house, keeping in good spirits but not getting to crazy.  In fact, Claire was so slow that she wasn’t even keeping up with Kit and me, and I was walking slowly from an injured knee (trampoline injury).  We think Claire was tired, maybe from the recent carnival.  Molly, dressed up as a ladybug, didn’t know quite what was going on, be whatever it was was pretty fun.  She and Claire go to go to each house together a team, where Claire would ring the doorbell, and they would wait someone to come.  While waiting for the candy, Molly tended to turn around a make sure Kit and I were still there waiting behind them.  Molly didn’t necessarily know she was even candy, but she did enjoy the process of collecting nice, wrapped objects in her little bag.  She did not actually eat any of her candy.  We do actually want to fatten her up, but not on Snickers and Blow Pops (yet).

This being a late night close on the heals the carnival, Kit and Molly pealed off around 7:30 to get Molly to sleep and hour late.  Claire and I kept going for a while.  Once home, Claire got to answer the door for some trick-or-treaters and distribute some candy, a duty which she seemed to prize.  Claire strategized about the order in which to consume her candy, two pieces per day, and ten went

Molly got to wear her costume to school

Claire’s very favorite treat was some crazy vampire teeth

Claire (and Kit and I) decorated a pumpkin
as Cinderella for a school project

Halloween 2010

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Halloween is upon us again. Just like last year, we joined Claire’s school friend Megan for Halloween festivities in their Mount Bonnell neighborhood. The neighborhood has an annual Halloween parade — actually, a loose gaggle of spooky kids and their accompanying parents, lead by ceremonial bagpipes. Immediately following the parade, the kids and accompanying parents fan out for tricks or treats.

This was technically Molly’s second Halloween, but it was the first one that Molly was actually awake and conscious for. Today, Molly found herself walking down the street among dozens of kids dressed up as cowboys, Sesame Street characters, princesses (including her sister), and of course Star Wars heroes and villains. They would go from house to house, knocking on the strange doors asking for candy. As Sally says in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, “Are you sure this is legal?” Molly, who dressed as a pumpkin fairy (whatever that is), loved it. She stayed up late and had no dinner aside from some bread and strawberries while on the move. Ordinarily, this would be enough to make her rather fussy, but she smiled and looked around with wide eyes the whole time.

For her part, Claire, at age four, has become an old pro. Claire wore her running shoes and literally sprinted from house to house trying to (1) keep up with her friends, and (2) maximize her candy intake. Claire, who dressed up kind of like Sleeping Beauty, ended the night exhausted and sweaty with a bag full of several pounds of candy. Claire had some indecision on her costume up to the last minute this year. Several months ago, she mentioned that she wanted to be Snow White, then almost changed her mind to a butterfly princess we saw at a Pottery Barn outlet. Afraid she would later change her mind and want to be Snow White in the end, we persuaded her to stick with Snow White. She wore the Snow White outfit once or twice before Halloween and looked perfect. But she got cold feet the day before Halloween and changed to a generic pink princess outfit she had from her dress-up collection, declaring herself Sleeping Beauty. We are not sure why she abandoned the Snow White idea, but we probably pushed Snow White too hard. We were trying to avoid the exact situation we got in, switching costumes at the last minute, except in reverse! Oh, meddling parents! Still, both girls looked cute and had a really fun time.

An Unruly Bunch

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Here are the photos of Molly’s class wearing their Halloween costumes. You can see Molly in the right-center area slightly behind a large blonde boy wearing a silly sweater. Molly apparently loved wearing her pumpkin fairy outfit and complained when they took it off.

A Cat Ran on the Sidewalk

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One of the Halloween activities in Claire’s class this year was for each kid to make up a Halloween story on their own.  The teachers transcribed the stories, printed and laminated them, and posted them on the wall for everyone to read.  Claire’s read as follows:

A cat ran on the sidewalk.  The doggie got the cat.  The mommy forgot her purse.  The little lady laughed.  The little lady wore a hat.  She also had thousands and thousands of coins.

Most of the other kids’ stories were pretty nice too.  A couple were scarcely one sentence long.  And one or two were just descriptions of Star Wars battles that had nothing to do with Halloween.

Halloween

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Technically, this was Claire’s second Halloween, but it was sort of her first “real” one. Last year she was not really aware what was happening, but this year she is starting to grasp it.

Claire’s first clue was the Emory Halloween party for kids last Friday evening. This was her first chance to show off her giraffe costume, and she got to meet and greet with her friends Reese, who was dressed up as Buzz Lightyear, plus Baby Davis and Chrissie’s Baby Luke.

Next it was “Boo at the Zoo” on Saturday. The zoo was decorated up for Halloween and jam packed with kids in costumes. Most of the kids were running around happy, but there were a few grumpy princesses and pirates with skinned knees. Claire was awestruck from all the excitement. The highlight for Claire, and many other kids, was meeting Curious George in person. We managed to work our way in to Georgie, who was surrounded by a gaggle of excited kids. One kid gave a really long, heartfelt, almost tearful hug to George. Claire stood in front of him and just gave him a big smile, saying, “Bye Georgie!” as we eventually dragged her off.

Finally, on Halloween night, we did some real trick-or-treating. Here is another advantage of having a kid. No, not all the candy which we confiscated from Claire. Halloween gave us a reason, or excuse, to go knock on our neighbor’s doors and say hi. It would be weird to do that any other night of the year. And it would be weird to do that on Halloween without a kid by your side.

The first stop was Melissa, who is a big fan of Claire’s and had asked us to bring Claire by. We had the usual nice chat with Melissa and then moved on Lynn two houses down from us. She was happy and surprised to see Claire, as were our next door neighbors, Ella and Fay. The last stop was across the street to Dustin’s house, where we also met his girlfriend Caroline, and then we headed home to put the two foot tall giraffe to bed a little late, exhausted but happy.