Fall Festival and Halloween

We began our Halloween celebration the night before at Zoe's preschool. Fall Festival is what they call it. Zoe donned her mermaid costume and off we went. As usual, it took Zoe a while to warm up and when the whole party is only an hour long, that can be an issue. At first, she was timid, at best, as she sat down to play with glitter playdough.

Seeing her teacher, Miss Patty, at the clothes pin drop, helped warm her up a bit.

Goldfish crackers and Halloween books. Alyse was sleeping in the stroller by this time since the party was during the kids usual bedtime. Mitchell didn't seem to mind!

Waiting in line for the basketball toss.

By the end, they were practically packing up around us because Zoe didn't want to leave. We need to find a way to expedite her 'getting comfortable' phase.

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We had a similar issue occur for Halloween. Chelsea's set time for trick-or-treating is 4-6 p.m. While I understand the reasoning behind such a timeframe, it's not all that practical for working parents. I raced home to find Daddy, Mitchell, Alyse and Zoe sitting on the front porch, candy readied for the masses and Zoe looking a bit unsure of the whole thing.

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I had talked to Zoe on the phone earlier in the day and when I asked her if she was excited about trick-or-treating, her reply was, "Yes, but I don't want to say trick-or-treat. You say it for me, Mama!" When the time came to actually head out, she said she'd rather stay with Daddy and Mitchell on the porch and hand out candy. We finally coaxed her into believing that Halloween was going to be fun and not scary at all.

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Just as we were about to start walking, a Headless Horseman walked by with his two sons, also dressed in scary make-up. This REALLY didn't help our case. After another 15 minutes of explaining that it was just a daddy dressed in a costume and Rich showing Zoe how the costume worked by pulling his own shirt up over his head several times, we again convinced her to leave the safety of our porch and visit a couple houses. In the meantime, Alyse and Mitchell were having a ball watching kids come up to the porch to ask for candy. Alyse and I went out with Zoe while the boys held down the fort.

Zoe devised her own plan to make herself comfortable with the whole trick-or-treating thing. She would only go to the houses that had people sitting on the porch. She told me, "I don't want to go up to anyone's door!" If she didn't have to knock on a door and yell trick-or-treat but could, instead, size up folks from the sidewalk and watch a couple other kids go before her ... then she would she walk up (holding my hand) and whisper, 'twick-or-tweat.' After three or four houses, she was starting to like the process. She was especially happy to find out that several houses were passing out suckers, Skittles and Starburst (the only types of candy she kind-of-likes). But she was especially thrilled when one woman handed her a box of raisins. This would have spread a big frown across my face as a child, but Zoe actually did a little skip and said, "Look Mom, little boxes of raisins!"

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She was finally enjoying herself ... until that damn headless guy ruined things by walking on the same sidewalk as us. I had to carry her the last quarter-block while she buried her head in my shoulder screaming, "Is he following us?" Rich managed to get her to take one more sweep of the neighborhood with him. I believe his coaxing included a promise to "tackle the guy" if he came too close. In the end, she was satisfied with her haul, though meager by most standards.

Once we were back in the house, Zoe ate her two favorites: That box of raisins and a bag of bat-shaped pretzels. Then she spent the rest of the night eagerly opening candy, taking one bite or lick and saying, "I don't weally like that" and tossing it aside. After the third sucker was stuck to my carpet, I said that was enough candy for the night. She hasn't asked me for any since. The few candy bars she had are long gone, eaten by Rich and me. I think there will be plenty of Skittles left for Busia!

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Take care,

ZMA's mama

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Daddy's political aside: It's true, the Headless Horseman was pretty freaky. But, by far, the scariest costume of the night was the 50-something woman wearing two McCain-Palin signs as a sandwich board. I should have asked Zoe to tackle her for me.