During the morning, i explained to her the basic protocol: "After dinner you will put on your costume and we'll go outside. We'll walk around to all the houses and ring the doorbell. Then people will open the door and you'll say, 'Trick or treat!' and . . ."
As i was speaking, she looked at me with an expression of extreme skepticism. Her face said, "What kind of crazy ideas has this woman come up with this time?"
I continued: ". . . they'll give you candy!"
Whoa, wait a minute. "CANDY?!?!?" That sure wiped the skepticism off her face.
"Oh yes, my friend. Candy."
She ran to her room and got her shoes. "Let's go now!"
Since she hadn't been paying attention for all the words that preceeded "candy," she hadn't heard that these events were to take place after dinner. This was a big hardship; she wanted to get the candy right now.
We did, however, go ahead and put on her daytime costume. She was a beautiful fairy princess. Mimi got her the pinkest, ruffliest, shimmeriest dress you could imagine and a pair of pink wings to go with it. She twirled and sashayed and pranced around the house displaying her elegance. She absolutely loved that dress! Unfortunately, she refused to allow me to take her picture, so you are going to have to take my word for it that she was very pretty.
Finally Daddy came home from work and we ate dinner and the long-awaited moment had come. She put on her nighttime costume of a tiger. It was cold out, and the princess dress was not warm enough. She would have had to wear her coat over the dress, in which case no one would see it. So she was a big fluffy tiger:
Bright Eyes got schlepped along for the ride. The only reason she is even halfway giving a smile is because at this point she had no idea what was going on:
We stepped outside right as a big clump of kids walked by. The BabyGirl was really excited now. "Girls!!!"
The trick-or-treating on our street is very profitable. Everyone else besides us is retired seniors who love having cute little kids come to their doors. The BabyGirl was a big hit! For the first few houses she was unsure of what was happening, but then she got the hang of it.
There was a boy with his dad who happened to be going at the same pace as us. We were about 30 seconds ahead of them, such that as we turned around to leave a house, they were walking up. This happened for many consecutive houses. The trouble, though, was that the boy's costume made the BabyGirl VERY nervous. I don't know if i can describe it very well. He was wearing all black, and his shirt had a green LED light-up outline of a body. His face was covered also and had the outline of big creepy eyes. Kind of like the standard alien face but not exactly.
The 4 of us were walking on the sidewalk when the boy and his dad passed us. They were understandably walking faster than us. I was in front with The Professor behind holding the BabyGirl's hand. She said, "Get here by me, Mama." She wanted Daddy on one side and Mama on the other to protect her from the alien boy. She kept a very close eye on the boy so she could monitor his movements. He was already at the door of the next house when we walked up. She made it very clear that we would wait for him to move along before we got any closer.
While we were standing a safe distance waiting for him to leave, she began to (very loudly) narrate what he was doing. "That guy is at the door."
"That guy is pressing the button."
"That guy is standing."
"That guy is getting candy."
The boy's dad was standing right next to us and had a good laugh over the BabyGirl's play-by-play. Eventually she said, "What's that guy called?"
Honestly i didn't know what to call his costume. I didn't know if it was a bona-fide character that i wasn't familiar with, or if it was just something he had made up. The boy's dad said, "Glow man." (Note: it was not the same as this. The concept was similar, but the shape was different.)
She resumed her narration. "Glow man is [with concern] walking THIS WAY!" Eek!
We asked her if she wanted to wait a minute to let Glow man get farther ahead. She wholeheartedly said yes. Later we were in proximity again and she said, "I will turn my head. I will not look at him." We affirmed her in her wise choice.
She got very excited when she saw costumes that she recognized. Cat in the hat! Coke can! We had gotten a late start, so we were out after the other small children had gone home and it was mostly older kids.
Then tragically, after we hit the last house and turned to go home, the BabyGirl tripped and fell. She dropped her bucket and candy scattered everywhere. It was so sad! She scraped her hands pretty good. Fortunately we successfully gathered up all the bounty. The Professor carried her home and we all celebrated the fun time we had together.
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