Trick or Treating

Halloween was fun. The girls were in their costumes bright and early and waited impatiently all day for time to go trick or treating. It was very hard to wait; we had several hastily-averted meltdowns before dinner, and after dinner it was an ongoing battle to hold them back long enough to get costumes on before they charged out after candy!

The husband stayed home to hand out candy while I took the girls out. Michael went to a movie with his friends, very much not interested in being around sugared-up small people.

Luckily for me, we headed out at the same time as the neighbor boy and his father, so we all went together. And it needed two adults to keep track of those three little ones! Luckily, Arielle and her friend had the kind of shoes that light up as the children walk, because we needed to watch for the shoes at least once (after they decided to race and took off before we could grab them.)

This was Gabrielle's first time trick or treating. She didn't have the same stark moment of realization that Arielle did last year. In fact, when we got to the first house, she kept on walking, right past it and I had to grab her to bring her back to the door. She was ready to just keep going on a late-evening walk! With every person that gave her candy, however, her grasp of what was happening grew, and her steps sped up as she went from door to door and before too long she was charging up to the person handing out candy, snatching it from his or her hand and heading out for the next piece at the next door. She did say, "Trick or Treat!" when I reminded her, and "Thank you!" when I grabbed her and held her back long enough to get it out.

The night almost ended in disaster, though. The neighbor boy finished up, but Arielle was not at all ready to go home. Since I can remember the let down when it was time to go home and finish trick or treating I gave her a sympathetic hearing and promised her a turn around the cul de sac catty corner from our house.

We crossed the street and I immediately had to grab the girls to keep them from going into the neighbor's yard. In all the excitement Arielle in particular had forgotten about the three vicious dogs that lived there, two of whom were out right then. They're restrained by an invisibly fence, but it's definitely a case of intruder beware where they're concerned.

I reminded her not to go in the yard, but I should have been more specific, because as soon as we hit the driveway she started to run down it. The invisible fence, I found out, doesn't border the driveway; it cuts across it.

I hollered for Arielle to come back, the dogs started barking and ran toward her, and Arielle screamed, turned and ran back to me as fast as her little legs could go. She crossed the fenceline just before the dogs, who couldn't stop in time. At least one of them let out a painful yelp.

The neighbors came out, then, and took their dogs inside. It took me quite a while to get the girls calmed down though, not to mention get my heart rate back down. I found out later that the husband had seen the whole thing from our porch, where he was standing with the candy. He told me he about went over the railing when he saw those dogs heading for his daughter.

Arielle has mentioned "those mean doggies" a couple of times a day since then. I don't think she'll forget to stay away from that house in the future.

More on everyone's mind has been the candy, which they manage to find ways to get to no matter how high up I place it. In fact, they were banned from having any candy at all today, because I caught my little munchkins chowing down on contraband sugar no less than three times yesterday. So many words Gabrielle doesn't know yet, but "Candy? Peeeese!!" she has down all too well.