The musings of David and Claire…
Everyone has different events or actions in their life that they define as moments when they transitioned from children into adults. Well I’m 35 and have clearly been an adult for quite a while now, but I had one of those events tonight. I cooked my own Lobster. I bought two 1.5 pounders for dirt cheap at Shoprite ($3.99 / lb), sliced their brains in two, and then steamed them for 10 minutes. Delicious!
We had a reasonably warm afternoon today for trick or treating which was pleasant as most other days this week would have required the kids to wear coats, negating the whole point of the costumes. Luckily we were able to walk about without extra layers so our neighbors were ‘treated’ to Evan as a little pirate and Brynn as a “scary butterfly” which was her costume idea and something we actually managed to accommodate to her satisfaction. I was just pleased that she didn’t insist on going as a princess.
The morning started with the daycare parade and that went reasonably well. Last year Brynn was in the two year old group which means they all walk outside, see their parents and burst into tears. No good photos from those kids! The one year olds are hit and miss; some are oblivious and others flip out. Evan looked absolutely adorable in his costume but when he saw us he got a little upset that he couldn’t stay with us. He was ok at first, but after seeing us again he had a bit of a meltdown and went into limp mode which is just the worst. Seriously, how do kids all know that going limp is so effective?? The best trick is what I think of as the ‘wet noodle’ which is when you hold them and they reach their arms straight up, go limp and then flop back and forth in an effort to slide out of your grasp. It is almost impossible to hold them if you don’t have two hands free. With their arms raised there is nothing to grab onto. Anyway back on track, Evan wasn’t at that point but I did watch him go limp repeatedly while holding his teacher’s hand and she had to keep yanking him to his feet.
Brynn’s Pre-K group are the big kids and they were all totally fine this year, having lots of fun and goofing around together. It was nice to see her enjoying the parade. What a difference a year makes!
When the first trick-or-treaters rang our doorbell, Brynn flipped out trying to find her candy basket and then had a huge tantrum when they left without her. Never mind that they were complete strangers! She doesn’t really understand how this works but she was so excited to get the whole thing underway that we were essentially forced to head out trick-or-treating immediately thereafter and it was actually was quite fun at first. Both kids would walk up to the door, Brynn would ring the doorbell, Evan would wander off and kick the garage or poke pumpkins or chase squirrels or run on to the road, and then someone would answer the door and Brynn would say “Trick or Treat!!!” and the occupant would marvel at their adorableness and hand over candy and Brynn would say thank you and then turn to us and make some delightful comment like “This is so much fun! I love Halloween!!” and the occupant would swoon and we would move on to the next house and repeat.
But then Ev got cranky and wouldn’t wear his hat and then he wouldn’t walk and he demanded huge quantities of lollipops and the sugar rush set him off on a mad spiral of “I must push the stroller whilst crawling on my knees down the sidewalk” (seriously), followed by I must chase every dog I see, I must grab all the candy I can, I must be held, I must walk, I must be pushed. You get the point. Sorry for the run-on sentences but I hope I’m capturing the spirit of a rambunctious 18 month old who can’t speak a word and yet has all the opinions and outlandish demands of a toddler, so it all went a bit downhill after the first block. But then we bumped into some neighbors who have a 4 year old girl and she and Brynn get along well so they upped the cute factor considerably with all the giggling and the holding of hands and running through the piles of carefully raked leaves etc. Sadly our pictures from today are pretty pathetic so I am putting up an album in the gallery but it’s not going to effectively showcase the cuteness of the day. And I just have to say that Brynn is so awesome now that I really can’t believe she’s still only three. She was at the point today that she had no interest in going to the houses that just leave the candy bowl out. She only wanted to go to the places with people who were home because what fun is Halloween if you can’t talk to people. It turns out that it’s actually not at all about the candy.