...or so says Griffin, who was so psyched by 8 am that he was already ready to declare the day a complete success.
At bedtime on Thursday night, Griff remembered the decorations from last year and wanted to get them out and decorate right that minute. We had not put them out earlier this month due to the house being on the market, and I had remembered them about half an hour earlier when I was in the attic looking for a costume for myself. I assured Griff that there would be decorations, sent him off to bed, and then Dan and I sneaked the decor out of my closet and spent a half-hour spinning faux cobwebs around our entryway. I set the table with Halloween placemats Dan's mom sent a couple of years ago and planned a spooky breakfast. Griff and I carved pumpkins on Wednesday night - he designed them, I executed the pumpkins design.
So, in the morning, Griff was greeted with ghostly pancakes. (Somebody ate all the chocolate chips so I just dripped batter for the eyes/mouth.) As I made his lunch I narrated what he would find inside, which included not only the requested sample of our Halloween candy, but also a bloody beverage (Friday juice box - grape), mysterious goo (vanilla yogurt), frightened fish for him to gnash with his teeth (Goldfish crackers), and a mixture of ghoul guts (kiwi) and monster eyeballs (blueberries). It was at that point that he made his "best Halloween EVER" proclamation, and then announced that he was going trick-or-treating immediately after breakfast. Um, no. School! He got himself ready in record time and went out to the car of his own accord, discovering the doorstep decorations on the way.
Reese, Xander, and I had a walkthrough of the new house in the morning and later got together with Daddy, then met Grammy and Grandfather for lunch, after which Reese went with Grammy and Grandfather while Dan and Xander and I went and bought ourselves a house. w00t! More on that in another post. We picked up Griff and met R/G/G at the new house, where the boys all changed into costumes. Wackiness ensued.
We finally managed to corral the herd and move ourselves to the block party at Corrinna's house, where we hung for a bit before heading home for some KFC and trick-or-treating. Griff is now a trick-or-treating pro. He carefully created a "pattern" of candies on the entry table so that he would have selections ready to go for each visitor to our door, then insisted on being the person to handle the whole process. I didn't open the door to a single trick-or-treater this year, it was all handled by Griff, who received high-fives from some of our older visitors and basked in their praise.
Reese was initially cautious about knocking on doors but soon got into it. He slept through the whole thing last year and was a baby before that, so this was his first *real* TOTing adventure. Soon he was announcing "Surprise! Trick or treat!!" at every door and acting delighted over every new gift in this really naive, three-year-old, pre-candy-greed kind of way. "Oooohhhh, licorice!" and even more impressed, "OHHHHH, M&Ms!" It's cute when they're young enough to enjoy the candy without any sense of obsession or entitlement. He followed Griff's lead in dumping out his bag at home to inspect the contents, but then was quite content to pick one piece and abandon the rest, rather than sorting it by type like his older brother.
Griff, in the meantime, was determined to hit every. single. house. in the neighborhood in the quest for more candy. He was quite concerned that he didn't have enough. Enough for what, to stock a candy store? I'm not sure. Once we were home he seemed happy with his haul, though. On the up side, he conquered his fear of Tricia and Bob's elaborate and quite spooky doorstep display. At first he didn't want to approach their door (remembering previous traumatic visits involving motion-detecting animatronic and noisy items), so Reese and I rang the bell - and triggered a host of truly frightening screams from some device. Reese covered his ears and cried. As the door opened, Griff's desire for candy overpowered his fear and he appeared at my side to claim the prize for his bravery, even as I tried to calm his quivering little brother.
I'm wondering which house in our new neighborhood will be the most fearful? When I was a child, there was one house that simultaneously freaked us out and fascinated us. The owner answered the door in a gorilla suit and would not speak. His wife doled out the candy while he doled out the psychological trauma. And yet, we had to go there for our annual dose of terror. Fear is an interesting thing!
Two last Halloween things:
1) pumpkin carving simulator that somebody sent to Dan. Enjoy!
2) Griff's school had some sort of hallway TOTing thing. He brought home a bag of goodies that included, puzzlingly, a cup from Richmond Healthy Start that bears the slogan "A Healthy You, A Healthy Pregnancy, A Healthy Baby" and a carribiner and pen that bear the web address www.canwait.com. Also on the pen, "Virginia Abstinence Education Initiative." Mmmm, whuh? I'm wondering what train of thought led to these gifts being given to kindergarten-aged trick-or-treaters at a public school. I'm also wondering if this is worth a letter, or at least a pointed inquiry. (For what it's worth, Governor Kaine cut off abstinence-only sex ed funding in November 2007, the CanWait website is now defunct, and the original VAEI page now redirects to a more general adolescent health page of the VA Department of Health website.)
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