Good Sports

Ellie, impatient with my tardiness (see tiny tip of Giant Twin Baby Stoller in bottom frame of photo that gets blame for said tardiness) on the way to Leo's school Halloween Parade (there were no photos of Trick or Treating this year).

As I reported, due to last week's hugely inconvenient and destructive storm, Trick-or-Treating was moved to last night. A week late. Can you imagine, as a kid, the enormity of this?

Thankfully, Leo and Ellie are still a little too young to get too up in arms about this. Leo's never really been a candy guy (though he did discover candy corn this year and asked for seconds which for him and candy is huge). Ellie on the other hand though, is a Candy Fiend.

Can I just pause to say that I wish, for the sake of all working parents (especially those that commute to and from ridiculously large cities to the suburbs--not naming names here--) that we could all just collective agree to make Halloween, say, the last Saturday in October? It would just make life so much easier. This year Erin had to work late and there was just no way I could take all four Trick or Treating by myself.

Which brings me to last night. There we were, with me upstairs, trying to get the babies to sleep (since daylight savings time they now want to go down at 5:30 instead of 6:30), Leo and Ellie are in the mudroom shrieking because "Someone's at the door! Someone's trying to get in!" (Um, yikes?) "They want to give us candy!" (Ellie is giving the play-by-play here, clearly because she's not quite down with the concept of Trick or Treating is when We give Them candy). Of course I responsibly turned the porch light off before I went upstairs (the universal sign for We Are Not Participating in the Trick or Treating.) And...of course people still knocked.

The hours between 5:30 and 7:30 are a circus at our house on a good night with the whole benign neglect (I hope) of the kids big eating dinner downstairs while I try furiously to get the babies down so I can catch the tail end of dinner and do baths and books with the older ones with my whole heart.

I finally got the babies to sleep and came downstairs to see what the racket was about in the mud room. Ellie kept asking if we could go trick or treating. I reminded her that the babies were asleep and she suggested we put them in the stroller. Not going to happen. Feeling terribly guilty about the fact that not only was our Halloween party an absolute and complete bust but the kids also missed out on trick or treating, I decided that it would be just fine for us to at least hand out candy.

Well. Bless their little hearts, you would have thought it was Christmas, Hanukkah and Halloween. Such. Excitement. The front door burst open and Leo and Ellie took their positions on the front porch, giant bowl of M&M's and Skittles in hand.

"I think I see someone! They have a flashlight!" Ellie exclaimed, jumping up and down. Nope. Car headlights.

"Trick or Treaters!" said Leo. Again, no. Just a middle aged couple taking an evening stroll.

And then. We had maybe six "customers."

I'm not sure if it was the fact that it was a little on the late side (but not really) of 7:30 or that it was, oh I don't know, a week After Halloween. But it was a slow, slow night. We did get a sweet dad dressed as a self-proclaimed "crazy dentist" (wearing the white pants, coat and rainbow afro and yes, I asked, and he really is a dentist). There was also, I kid you not, a 50-something (at least) woman trick or treating with her teenage son. Odd.

But still. Leo and Ellie could not contain their glee. And the lucky six that did grace our porch? They cleaned up, with handfuls of those Skittles and M&Ms.

And I hereby proclaim, officially, Halloween is finally over.