It took a fair bit of coaxing to get Toddler interested in Halloween this year. Last fall, while in Florida, I found her a Buddy the Dinosaur costume to go along with her fascination for PBS's Dinosaur Train show. She liked the idea of the costume but she sure didn't like wearing it and she sure didn't seem to want to go out in it.
A year older and a year hipper, Toddler still wasn't that into Halloween. I explained a few times the bare-bones basics of the day: you put on some funny clothes, say a few words and people give you candy. I then explained that she'd have to pick a costume to wear. She said she wanted to wear her Buddy costume again. That was fine by me. However, it was not so fine by Hunter who felt that she should have the chance to pick a new costume.
This was a teaching moment for me. What I SHOULD have done was tell Hunter that if he felt so strongly that Toddler should have a different costume, that he should take her shopping for said costume. Instead, I took her shopping, with Little Hunter in tow, and ever so wisely after taking her to Kenai's indoor bouncy castle place. Oh, my wisdom knows no bounds. She was a crying, fit pitching mess and it was entirely of my doing.
It was so late in the season that by the time we got there, there was only one costume in her size. Mercifully, it was a princess dress like Cinderella's, and Toddler was thrilled. Nuclear meltdown avoided, precious food shopping minutes scored.
We left the store pretty quickly after Toddler spotted her new dress and the whole way home, I fielded questions about when she could wear the dress, why she couldn't sleep in the dress, when she could wear the dress and when she could wear the dress.
Halloween parties came and went and Toddler wore her dress happlily. She found an old necklace of mine and asked to wear it and dug out the sparkly shoes she insisted her grandmother buy for her back in the summer. Kudos to her, she can actually put an outfit together. Probably better than I can.
Halloween night found us at her pre-school's party and later up at the Long Term Care wing of the hospital (note to Homerites, Long Term Care gives great candy). With her purple pumpkin bucket half full of great candy, we finally took her home.
I remember as a kid feeling pretty protective of my Halloween candy. I worked for it, I earned it and I was going to eat it! It's funny watching that from a parent's eyes. Toddler quickly set up a no-fly zone for the dog around her stash. Milton's absconded with one too many Toddler treats to be trusted it seems. For days everything revolved around the candy. She made sure she knew where it was when she left the house and she checked in on it the second she came back.
She actually asked us if she could eat her candy so we did have a bit of a say in her diet over the few days the followed Halloween. I enjoyed that while it lasted.
Yesterday, she got to the bottom of her pumpkin. After lunch, she asked if she could have candy, I said yes and stupidly asked if I could have chocolate, too. She said yes. I was touched. She was willing to share her treasure? "What a sweet girl," I thought.
She handed me a Twix bar and my stomach dropped.
Years ago, my brother and I were competitive swimmers. We used to get up early on Saturdays, do a two or three hour practice, come home, eat the contents of the fridge and then get on with our weekend. One Saturday after practice, my brother and I walked into town for some reason and found ourselves at a store that had a sale on extra large size Twix bars. Excitedly, we bought a bunch of them then promptly took them home and ate them. We ate them all. In one sitting. There were a lot of them. At 15, eating that many Twix bars seemed like an okay thing to do.
My goodness were we ill. To this day, I cannot stomach a Twix bar. Even the sight of one turns me off.
Now, my Toddler is sweetly handing me a Twix bar to share with her. What's a mom to do? I tried telling her how sweet she was and giving the Twix bar back, but she was having nothing to do with it. Like it or not, we were sharing it. I choked back my half with a smile on my face and thanked her profusely for sharing.
She has no way of knowing how well played a move that was. A Twix bar? Never again will I ask to share her Halloween candy. It's all hers. If I want chocolate, I'm going to go buy it myself.