2013 Catch-Up: Halloween!

When I was a kid, Halloween was my holiday, my favorite holiday.  I could not get enough of the costumes, the trick or treating, and the candy ... it was all so awesome.  Needless to say, it's not always easy for me to remember that Baylor really doesn't like this holiday at all; the only part he can really get behind is the candy, and that's the exact part I wish he wouldn't care about.

I can understand why Baylor doesn't like this holiday, and I am all for "protecting" him from it as much as I can, but at some point I have to be realistic - most kids really like this holiday, get excited for it, and want to dress up to the hilt.  So this year I was determined to get Baylor as into this holiday as I could.  I knew I probably wouldn't be able to warm him up to the idea of costumes, but I could try to at least get him in the spirit of things.

Mollie, of course, didn't need any coaxing; she loves to dress up and was gung ho about the whole day.  So she didn't bat an eye when I gave her a "pumpkin" orange for breakfast that morning, though she wouldn't eat the celery "stem" no matter how much I asked.

Hoping to get Baylor into the swing of things, I re-imagined his typical lunch for the day.  Instead of cold grilled cheese bites (terrifying in and of themselves, if you ask me) he had "troll fingers".  Instead of red grapes he had "purple monster eyeballs".  And instead of carrots he had "pumpkin teeth".

I got a little too into it, though, and decided that the carrots really needed to look like teeth.  So I spent the better part of my alone time that morning whittling carrots into tooth shapes, molars, incisors, and canines.

I wish I could say that he ate his lunch really well, but that was the beginning of a rough patch with him eating any of his lunch, so most of it came back home with him at the end of the day.

His time at school went well enough; he participated in the school-wide costume parade and did the activities at his class party.  All in all, his school Halloween experience was a success!

Unfortunately, the day was drizzly and grey, not the best weather for trick or treating, but the kids were not going to pass up the chance to get as much free candy as they possibly could.  Mollie decided to add a little something to her Minnie costume at the last minute: a pair of glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth she got at Baylor's class party.

Seriously, she wore those things almost the entire time we trick or treated.  She'd smile at people when they'd come to the door, and by the end of the night she had been dubbed "Scary Minnie".  It was awesome.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before we left, we took the annual pre-trick-or-treating picture, sans vampire teeth, and the kids looked beyond adorable.  In case you were wondering, Baylor is dressed up as a Detroit Tigers fan, something he already is, which is a prerequisite for any of his Halloween "costumes".

 Both kids were really excited about the whole event, but Mollie really got into it, running from house to house as far ahead of us as we'd let her.  Neither of them would really say, "Trick or treat!" but Baylor stuck with his "may I have some candy, please" and people seemed okay with that.

By the time we got back to the house, the kiddos were soaked ... and so was their candy.  Anything wrapped in plastic was just fine, but those wrapped in paper didn't fare so well.  A bunch of stuff had to be stealthily thrown away, and the rest of it had to be toweled off.  But the kids were thrilled with their haul and enjoyed separating it by color ...

... and type of candy.

Before we herded them off to bed, they snuggled in with Daddy to watch the last bit of Jeopardy, I believe, and to finally warm up.

It was a great night, albeit a wet one.  Baylor made some good baby steps this year, and hopefully next year he'll make even more progress in at least accepting this holiday for what it is.  Mollie, on the other hand, will likely only get more and more into it as the years go by.  We'll see!