Happy Halloween

There should be a rule that Halloween should not ever be on a Monday. It just doesn't seem... right. I have come up with a few tips for parents to have a successful evening with toddler trick-or-treaters on Halloween, especially on a Monday!

Me with my cutie toddlers on Halloween!

Tip #1: Get ready early and then wait outside until you see {hearing suffices} even just one other child out and about. Do not hesitate to begin trick-or-treating!

What is the "appropriate" time to begin trick-or-treating? When it doesn't get dark until after six o'clock and your children have to get ready for bed at seven, you don't necessarily want to wait for Halloween. So take my advice, get started early. I think we started around 5:30pm this year.

Tip #2: Lower your expectations. Like waaaaayyy down.

There's regular trick-or-treating and there's toddler trick-or-treating. If you have never been trick-or-treating with a toddler, you have to lower your expectations about what you will accomplish. First of all, they walk as slow as they have ever walked before. I'm not sure if this is because they are distracted by the lights and noises and other people out and about or if it just feels like they are walking slower than usual, but... oh man. And then you get to a house. You answer roughly 17 questions about who lives there and what decorations they have and are they real and what candy will they have and if they will have a dog and will it bark before they go up to the doorbell. You repeatedly tell them to say "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" at each stop. The sweet people on the other side of the door love to let your indecisive toddler choose out whichever candies they desire. So you wait while they pick out three candies, one at a time. So finally after an hour, you've made it down the street. You decide to push bed time a bit because, well, it is Halloween and all. Plus, they are getting the hang of it all and it is going a little faster. But then, you realize that you have to walk back to your house. And they are getting tired and walking slower and to top it all off, now they do not wish to carry their candy because it is too heavy. Heavy in toddler is equal to about 30 pieces of candy. Your saving grace is that they realize that they need to go potty which forces you to run home, officially putting an end to the Halloween evening. Except when they cry because they realize they cannot go back out to ask for more candy. Which leads me to my next tip...

Checking out the decorations.

Tip #3: Use the restroom before leaving the house. Like immediately before.

Tip #4: Take pictures before you go trick-or-treating.

I know they are excited and hard to contain but trust me it will not happen if you do not do it before hand. You will be ready for them to go to bed more than they are ready for bed and that is saying a lot. 

Here we are! My little ballerinas.

Tip #5: Bring something to take video.

You are sure to find one house in your neighborhood that scares the daylights out of your child. You honestly won't know whether to be upset because c'mon they should know better or to laugh because it is a hilarious reaction to witness first hand, but either way you will laugh about it later. For us, it was a house with a pre-teen boy in costume who was sitting on a bench by the door. His dad was encouraging the girls to get closer and when they did, he jumped and yelled BOO! The girls screamed and were absolutely terrified. They talked about it for days afterwards. The boy came to our house to trick-or-treat later and apologized for scaring them. I don't think he anticipated quite the reaction that he got! I learned this the hard way and do not have a video to share...

Tip #6: Encourage your neighborhood to have adult trick-or-treating.

One house in our neighborhood had a margarita machine for the adults. How genius is that?? If we could all get on the same page and have a house on every street offering a beverage or a snack for adults, this whole Halloween thing could start at 4 and go until 8, in my opinion. But hey, if anything is going to make trick-or-treating with toddlers on a Monday better, it's a margarita!

I'm not even going to touch on how difficult it is to teach kindergarten the day after Halloween. I'll just let you imagine it. But, like I said... Halloween on a Monday is just icky.

To wrap it up, here are some pictures from their school's sweet Halloween parade of costumes:

Wondering where Pops is...