By which I mean that no sooner was Sandy over than Halloween was upon us. In fact, Halloween started before Sandy arrived, because our neighborhood costume parade was last Friday. I'd found suitable underpinnings for Luke Skywalker at the eleventh hour in the thrift store, we'd been lent a Jedi cloak, and Mabel had her dress all ready and waiting.
Here they are, posing for all they're worth. Note the Skywalker furrowed brow and the Princess one-foot balance.
We walked around all the stores, collected candy, posed briefly for the judges, who were not much impressed by such lack of originality, and watched the magic show afterwards. A good time.
On Sunday we bought a family of baby pumpkins at the farmer's market for Mabel, and one large one for Dash to carve. Mabel already had one from her pumpkin patch field trip earlier in the week. As soon as we got home, before we could even make lunch, the pumpkins had to be carved. I did the dirty work (the gouging) and let Daddy do the artistic bit.
On Wednesday morning, after two days sequestered in the house due to weather events, everyone was happily (on my part anyway) dispatched to school. Mabel's school doesn't do costumes on Halloween, which may be a little disappointing for some, but I think is a great decision on the whole, given the proclivities of preschoolers to sometimes lose their tiny minds when "fun" is thrust upon them.
Dash's school does a "book parade" wherein you are required (advised? requested?) to dress as your favourite book character and bring the book to prove it. Without much forethought he was happy to do the same as last year - Peter Parker. He wore his Spider-Man costume under his regular clothes and carried a camera. It may have been a little subtle - I'm not sure many people realised he was dressed up at all. The red mask was peeking out of his jeans pocket, but even that might not have given the game away to any but the most tuned-in of observers.
The final nail in the coffin of Halloween was, of course, last night's trick-or-treating. Coming off two days of napping (and associated late bedtimes, because for every hour-long nap, she goes to bed two and a half hours late) Mabel did not, on no account, get a nap yesterday. So by 5:30, when the time came to suit up, she was a little fragile. First there was a breakdown over the fact that I was trying to get her to wear a thin fleece sweater under the princess dress, and then a total loss of sanity over the fact that Mummy wanted to stay at home with her glass of wine to hand out candy while Daddy took the kids around the houses. We compromised with a thinner long-sleeved top and a bowl of candy left on the front step beside our flickering jack o' lanterns.
One jaunt up and down the street, a lot of candy in two bags, not too much sampled as soon as they got home, and eventually, not so late as it might have been, the whole spectacle was over for one more year.
Apart from the candy, which will drag on and on and on, well into the Christmas season, one dessert at a time. This morning Mabel asked for breakfast dessert. I suspect the disappointment will be just as piquant tomorrow morning.
Yes, the little ones do seem to freak out a bit when fun is thrust upon them !
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