What I did on Halloween

While drafting a piece on the economy and the holidays for DC Metro Moms Blog, I realized I never wrote about our Halloween. It was a great day with crisp air and squeaky clean blue skies. I'm happy to say that, at two and a half years old, my son had a blast without having any clue that candy has anything to do with Halloween.

Here's what we did:
9:00
Parade at school near my house. Meet a friend and her two kids. Boy wears leopard hat from the costume my mom made for me in 1975 and clutches in handkitty ears from IKEA that I actually got for me before I realized I did, in fact, still have the black ones I got from Hallmark at some point in the 1990s (I sure hope it was the 90s. Could that have been 1989? Does Hallmark still exist or has it been bought up by Gatorade or something?)

Leave early and miss part of marching band concert on the basketball court. Still small, they've gotten better since we started watching them practice two months ago! I'll be hearing the tuba from "My Girl" all day long.

10:00
Regularly scheduled Spanish class. Out of the chill that made the hat make sense, boy now wants to wear IKEA kitty ears.

11:30
Meet friends at playground. Play. Eat. Wear kitty ears and eyes. Take them off. Scream that no one else should wear them. From top of play structure, watch 1:00 parade and subsequent concert of West Side Story tunes at different elementary school with different high school band (bigger and better but they didn't have the decency to wear full marching band regalia. Only the warm-up tops with jeans!)

2:00
Pathetic attempt to have some quiet rest time at home.

3:45
Carve pumpkin. Boy wants it to have a mustache and beard.

5:00
Parade in our neighborhood. Two blocks of strolling and pulling wagon ending at playground. Hungry (mostly adult-)types snack in nearby gazebo safely away from frolicking children. Boy wears leopard costume my mom made for me in 1975.

6:00
Eat leftovers at home. Boy sits in booster seat out of view of the front door and just thinks it's funny that he hears kids' voices. Kids get Organic Naturepops- chocolate or citrus. No choice, no doubles, no apologies. No guilt.

6:45
Boy asleep.

Next year I will probably put in more time thinking through my options and get thoroughly acquainted with projects like Green Halloween. But this year Halloween was a hit all around, for my son and for his parents.