Halloween Through the Eyes of a Child

If you think about it, Halloween is a truly bizarre holiday. We take our children to strange homes, ring the bell, and take candy from strangers. No wonder Ronan had such a hard time with this yesterday. It might also have something to do with his lack of a sense of time. What's the point in saving candy for later when you can eat it right now?

Here's how Ronan does trick or treating: Take candy, try to tear open candy with teeth until grown-up takes pity and intervenes, eat candy, at next house, throw candy on the ground to begin ritual anew. If I actually got the candy out of Ronan's hand before he ate it and put it into his candy sack (which was mostly empty), he would wail and run back to grab some more candy from the unsuspecting homeowner. It was pretty cute, and it was a special occasion, so we caved and mostly let him eat candy all night.

I was actually quite impressed with Declan's approach to trick or treating. After each house he would ask, "Are we going to see more people now?" Not, "Are we going to get more candy now?" He seemed to really enjoy the social aspect of the holiday. That's not to say that he didn't eat more than his fair share of candy, and of course there were tears shed later at home when we shut him off.

In fact, all the kids were happiest when we ran into other groups of trick or treaters on the street. Unfortunately, that rarely happened, as we seem to live near a decidedly quiet neighborhood. The other kids we did run into, mostly all preteen girls, were quite sweet with our little ones, exclaiming over their costumes and constantly crying and pointing, "You're so cute!"

And they were so cute. Hilary made an adorable Minnie Mouse, Erika a cuddly white bunny, and Ronan a solo little pig. But not Declan.

"I'm not a baby!" he whined when I told him how cute he looked. I conceded that he was, indeed, a very scary pirate. Satisfied, he cried to be carried and stuck his thumb in his mouth.