Halloween 2011

This was the first year that Justin actually understood what Trick or Treating was all about. It was a bit of a process though. I bought his dinosaur costume at the beginning of October and would ask him every so often if he wanted to try it on. "NO" was always the answer. I was beginning to get nervous for Halloween. Eventually I wore him down and could get him to at least try it on for 30 seconds. It finally took several Halloween outings for him to get comfortable with it.

I took him to my company's Halloween party first where I got him to wear the costume for about 20 minutes. Of course, everyone at work was dressed up and was trying to say hi to him, which totally freaked him out. But after he discovered they were serving ice cream, all was okay in the world. Plus he got a caramel apple which I had to pry out of his hands and convince him we had to share it with Daddy later.

After the party, we went to downtown San Carlos where the stores were doing Trick or Treating. It was a complete madhouse! It's amazing what free candy will do to not only kids, but their parents! So many parents had no regard for anything but pushing their own child to the front of the line! Sheesh. I was just glad that Justin is a mellow kind of kid and hasn't quite figured out what "unfair" means. But Justin had fun regardless, especially since he got some lollipops - his new favorite sweet. He let me hold his trick or treat bucket while he held on tight to his lollipops.

On Halloween Day, Justin had his first Halloween parade at school. Most of the preschoolers, including Justin, had a dazed, "What the heck is going on?" look on their faces while parents shouted their names and took pictures. After the parade, most of the parents left, which threw many of their kids into a tizzy. Four little girls in Justin's class had meltdowns. Big props to his teachers who were trying to maintain order in this chaos.

Which finally leads us to Halloween night. Our friends Sean and Esther came over with baby Paxton (who, according to his mom was dressed up as "Some kind of bear" and then indignantly corrected by his dad). Justin was eager to get into his costume by now and had a great time walking up to each house and ringing the doorbell and saying Trick or Treat. We met many of our new neighbors so it was quite a nice evening all around. So far we've been able to distract Justin from actually eating any of the candy he got. He still doesn't know what chocolate candy is and we're working hard to keep it that way as long as possible. A parent can dream, right? We'll see what Halloween 2012 has in store for us...!