That’s Scary

Ella’s in a little “That’s Scary!” phase. I wasn’t sure how she’d do with the whole spooky Halloween thing. The other day, she told me her soup was scary. Shoes – scary. Chairs – scary. Pajamas – scary. Lillian – scary. Needless to say, an entire holiday centered around scary could really shake things up. However, we used the days leading up to celebrate Halloween and fall and all it had to offer and focus on the fun.

Our day by day spookiness recap:

Thursday – Lillian had her ECFE class and the children were able to dress up in their costumes. The dinosaur was very excited to be able to leave the house in all of her carnivorous glory. Luckily, despite her ability to ferociously growl, she did not chomp down her mouse, Elmo or monkey classmates. However, Buzz Lightyear was in the house, so there was some back-up. Later that night, the early childhood program threw a Halloween party. I would classify it as partially organized chaos. It was slightly overwhelming and the girls were a little nervous throughout. But, they were happy to do the various stations, see their favorite classroom assistant, Connie and were very amicable to leaving. Once home, we watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” which they watched with mild interest.

 

 

Friday – Loran and I ran the Scare in White Bear 5K. The girls rode along in the Burley. This year, it was moved to the evening rather than early morning. Tiki torches lined the path and people were all decked out in costumes and glow sticks. We had a great time, the girls enjoyed the ride (Ella fell asleep). Loran and I ran it together – despite the fact that Loran hardly runs and usually runs one 5K per year, and I trained for a 5K all summer, running twice a week – he was hard to keep up with. I definitely ran faster because of him (and he was pushing the stroller) and at the end, as we reached the finish line, he reached for my hand and we held hands as we crossed. Our official race times are: Loran 35:29 and Christy 35:31 (remember we crossed the line at the same time) My clock had us in at 35.05 and says we ran 3.29 miles, but whatevs.

Saturday – we took a hiatus on Halloween.

Sunday – the carving of the pumpkin! This was Lily’s first carving experience because last year she’d already gone to bed. It was Ella’s first time being brave enough to touch the pumpkin guts. Both loved picking out the seeds and attempting to scoop with the spoon. Lillian made a few poor choices with her spoon and making contact with people’s heads. Otherwise, it was a good experience.

 

Hand down the diaper is our newest party trick.

Monday – the big day! Ella had a Halloween party at school where they created Halloween Brew. Ella was in charge of supplying snake eyes (peanuts). The girls tore into the Halloween brew within minutes of being home from school like raccoons in a bag of garbage. The living room floor was a mosaic of salty and savory goodness, but the little Hoovers eventually got it all sucked up as the day wore on. I made a Halloween themed lunch featuring a Jack-o-lantern quesadilla, cottage cheese brains and ants on a log. And milk decorated with a pumpkin straw. Thankfully, the straws can be retired for the next 358 days. The week they were out was quite the test of my patience and the splattering power of milk.

 

As the big candy hour neared, excitement was flowing. Grandma and Grandpa came over for pizza and trick or treating. We quickly found out that trick or treaters are sparse on this end of the neighborhood. Since we moved just after Halloween, this was our first Halloween here. Despite only moving six blocks, we went from having over a hundred trick or treaters to two. TWO. Guess what number I’d prepared for? A HUNDRED. Four bags of candy and 20 mini Play-Dohs were ready to go. Our TWO trick or treaters got six Play-Dohs. However, this lack of competition meant that of the eight houses we went to, the girls came home with roughly three pounds of candy.

 

Ella was pretty apprehensive of going to houses in the night to knock on the door to beg for good. Lily had zero qualms over this crazy tradition. She was first up the stairs, knocking on the door and standing with her bucket ready. When the doors opened, Lily was overly eager to get her candy and tried to weasel her way into each house. We started with familiar neighbors and Great Aunt Kathy and Uncle Rob’s house so there was less pressure to perform. But of course, we were spending too much time talking and they were jumping at the bit to gather more metallically wrapped sugar. Each house we went to, fully aware that Ella and Lillian’s arrival to the neighborhood doubled the number of trick or treaters they had to cover, was still more than generous with their candy. Everyone held out the baskets and told them to “take as much as you want” – and while Ella meekly took a couple of pieces Lillian would hold their eye contact while she scooped piece by piece into her bucket as fast as possible.

 

 

Once home, Loran and I were eagerly awaiting the ring of our doorbell and the girls were playing. Within minutes, Ella was passed out on the floor and Lily was not close to crashing. That is when our trick or treaters came, which woke Ella so they were able to both experience passing out candy to two children their age, thus completing the Halloween experience. Ella was more than happy to go to bed. Lillian needed some extra rocking and cuddling. It was bringing back flashbacks of last Halloween when I watched the sunrise of November 1st after being up with Lillian all night when she got an ear infection. Luckily, it wasn’t a repeat and she eventually settled in. The great part of this age, they’re getting big enough to understand the fun of going house to house and getting candy while dressed up – BUT – they quickly forget about that candy once it is out of site. I sent a gallon sized bag of candy to work with Loran and yet, I have been consuming fun sized candy bars on my own at an alarming rate.

One of these girls in asleep, the other is quite the comic.