Walter's Halloween

Walter enjoyed Halloween, but really just wants to carry candy around. The more the better. He got annoyed with trick or treating relatively quickly, and appeared on more than one occasion to be heading into random people's homes. He wouldn't put his goods in our bag, so he presented to one house what he just got from the previous house, and then try to stash it somewhere in his little arms so that he could free up some room for the new candy. It was a little challenging, and eventually I pried some packages from his hot little hands to make room for more, but it just seemed wrong as that started a waterworks that made him just sit down in the middle of the sidewalk. Finally, I figured, we don't need anymore, so maybe I'll just let Hen collect and Walt can carry what he has. That seemed to work well.

The worst were the folks that put the overflowing bowl of multiple types of candy down for the children to "pick". Walter sifted, took anything and everything that appealed to him, and appeared to have no intention of leaving any time soon. That too ended with a boneless child who cried in defeat. Parents were saying to me, "Just let him have it!" Oh dear. It was a rough night for Mama.

We made it through though, and I think well. Henry was a total trooper, and Walter's got the right idea, even if he refuses to conform to social norms. He got his first snickers on the way home from our excursion, and it was the quietest ride I've had with both the boys in the car.

Henry's Halloween

This Halloween, I find myself wondering if Batman's mom, or whoever helped him dress as an adult, ever tossed his cape over his head while they buckled his belt from behind as I do...

Henry is Batman. It's really as if he becomes Batman. But only until he's done, or a little embarrassed, at which point he'll take off his mask and say, "I'm just Henry." I remind him that he's never just Henry.

We went to the Carleton Carnival on Sunday - it's a big Halloween carnival that the student athletic teams hold every year for the neighborhood kids. It's a huge, really wonderful event where each team has a booth/game for the kids to partake in, and then they get a piece of candy. So, the volleyball team has kids bowl the ball toward big plastic pins, the track team has a track set up with hurdles, the golf team has holes in a big wooden ghost the kids have to put the balls through, and then there's soccer, football, baseball, tennis - the whole gamut - and each has a game to play. Oh, then there's face painting and an arts and crafts area too. Lots of fun, free, and an enormous hit for the kids. I think parents dig it too. So, we did that, and Henry stunned me - he approached every character he knew - certainly all the superheros, he decided he needed to duel Darth Vader (I don't know anything about that), he approached an astronaut with "Hi Astronaut!", Buzz Lightyear... It was the strangest thing - he is perfectly at ease running up toward these other children and greeting them. Most of them, even the ones he knew, seemed to cower and hang back - - I can't think why.

Then, we went trick or treating with friends on Monday. Same gig there. He nearly attacked and ran over a Buzz Lightyear, and I thought that Buzz's Dad's little dog was going to retaliate on Henry as my son zoomed around Buzz, but he didn't. It's as though he feels this kinship to these characters -or the kids choosing to be these characters Henry knows so well. We met a Spiderman, and Henry said exuberantly, "Hello Spiderman!", and the kid said, "Um, I'm Micah."

I love my big kid.