Being in preschool this year helped him get a better feel for the occasion, and he was getting excited about it. He created his own costume (for weeks he said "soccer player" but the day before changed to baseball), and had a tiny moment before we went out where he thought maybe he should be scared. But then decided he wasn't scared...and he wasn't! He was so brave! The 2nd house we went to had a really creepy character sitting on the front porch that we didn't see til we had already approached the door. (We like to shelter him as much as we can from the terrible things in the world. At least at this age!) After we were exchanging the rituals with our friendly neighbor I watched Arthur look over and notice the scary decoration and I wondered if he was going to freak out. He looked back at our neighbor and calmly told him, "I'm not scared of that guy over there because he's not real. He's just pretend." And proceeded with his candy transaction.
Shortly thereafter, we somehow lined up our door-to-door pattern with a not very friendly 10 yr old wearing that danged Scream mask. I really, really hate that mask. I still shudder when I think about that movie. It scarred me in high school, seriously. Ugh! From the back, he looked like a normal kid and when Arthur saw the mask as they approached a door together, I saw him quickly step back, but not for long. A few seconds later he asked the older kid how old he was! Arthur wasn't scared AT ALL. I, on the other hand, wanted to get my family the freak away.
Here is the most precious part to me. He was excited because somehow he thought trick or treating meant going door to door, handing out candy to the people in those houses, and that's what he wanted to do! It took him several houses before he stopped trying to give his candy to the residents as they were giving him candy. Passing other kids on the street, he'd say "Hey, do you guys want some candy?" and he would try to give them candy from his bag, which of course, no one could accept because you just don't take special things away from a small child, even if they are offering it to you. He sincerely loves sharing and making people happy. After we finished and went home, he ended up giving back some of his candy to kids that came to our door. I didn't stop him.
I wondered if those creepy images from our outing would haunt him in bed later that night. At bedtime lately, he's been asking our friend, the Holy Spirit, to take him on adventures in the night, and they've been some cool places together, like a roller coaster, a fire station, a rocket ship... he always tells us about it in the morning. Watching the Holy Spirit love on my son has made me love the HS more. As we put him to bed that night we said, as usual, "Arthur do you want to ask the Holy Spirit to take you anywhere cool tonight?" and after some thought he answered, "trick or treating again!" So the next day we asked him about it, and what costumes they both wore. Arthur reported that he was a baseball player and the HS was a football player. (Of course.) And they had a good old time. Now that I think about it, I want to try doing that for myself too!
Meanwhile, Henry was the cutest, most hilarious chubby cowboy cow I could've ever imagined. His costume had built in padding around the belly, as if he needed that. And a tail. And I put him in Arthur's old cowboy boots. It was too much, and just right.
This is still the dumbest holiday, but there were some nice moments and memories made this year. And now we can move on to the good ones in November and December!
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| Henry wanted to check out that helmet |
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| Arthur was ready to go! |
