111) Hallow-e’en

We continued a 5-year tradition & brought the boys to my in-laws’ house for a night of trick-or-treating with their cousins. One family couldn’t make it last night, so there was just J, E, and their older cousin, C.

Even though he’s 3.5, this was pretty much E’s first Halloween. On his first Halloween at 6 months, we dressed him up, but we didn’t take him out. At 1.5 years, he’d only been diagnosed with leukemia 3 months prior, so we dressed him up, but did not take him out. Last year, at 2.5, we dressed him up, and decided to take him out, but he only made it to 1 house. He didn’t understand what was going on, he didn’t want to go up to the door, he didn’t want to hold my hand, and he didn’t want to stay with the group. When we stopped him from running away, he threw a tantrum, lay down on the wet ground, and proceeded to roll around. That was a wrap on his trick-or-treating in 2018.

This year though was different. We hyped it up to him, we told him he’d get chocolate, and candy, and he was excited about dressing up as Cookie Monster. He went up to the first house, followed his older brother & cousin, and we helped him learn his “trick-or-treat”, “thank you”, and “Happy Halloween” phrases & when to use them. He was grinning ear-to-ear walking up the street with the two older boys. They eventually got ahead of us, but that was okay because they were with my sister-in-law & her husband.

E as Cookie Monster

After having been out for about 10 minutes, we were walking down the sidewalk between houses, and out of nowhere, E exclaimed “Wow! Halloween fun!” He was really good about staying with us, holding our hands, walking up and down the walkways, and minding his manners. About halfway through our route, he started to want to grab his own candy from the bowls, and he also started to insist on closing people’s doors for them. That was it from a behaviour point of view, and most people just chucked, or smiled while I was apologising.

J as Spider-Man

The whole day had been a complete washout with heavy doupours, but for about an hour, starting at about 6:45, the rain stopped. He did really well, did a fairly big route, and he wanted to keep going, but at that time, it started to spit with rain again. We got him back to nanny & papa’s house, and I went out to catch up with J. Not long after, the rain picked up to a heavy drizzle, and we decided to call it a night with the older boys. With everyone now back at nanny & papa’s house we had a quick sort through the candy, followed by a mini-gorge of sugar. After that, we packed up, and drove home. Both boys were exhausted, fell asleep in the car on the drive, and stayed asleep while I transferred them up to their beds.

Happy Hallow-e’en, everyone!