Puss in (Green) Boots

I like to leave a little trail that leads my girls to deciding I should have the best possible nursing home when I'm old and feeble, so ALEXIS! YOU! HEY! I MADE YOU THAT HALLOWEEN COSTUME! WITH FABRIC AND THREAD AND STUFF!

I don't mean to brag or anything, but it was pretty much exactly what the Big Kid asked to have. (OK, fine, I'm bragging. But only because I am the most surprised person there is that it all worked out.)

Alexis was over the moon with the whole thing. She had brief moments of doubting that I could pull it off, but mostly she trusted that she would have a perfect "girly" Puss in Boots costume in time for her Halloween party at school. And she did.

Then it came time to trick-or-treat.

Here's the thing that sets up the evening -- when Alexis decided she should be Puss in Boots and Mila should be Humpty Dumpty, she thought she was pulling the longest straw. She was absolutely positive she was getting the better of the two costumes and she was ready to rock that awesomeness. She did indeed rock it, too.

But Humpty Dumpty.

Man, oh man. There is something about a happy little toddler wobbling around dressed as Humpty Dumpty. Mila got compliment after compliment and people just plain gushed about how adorable she was. Strangers took photos of her. People declared hers the best costume of the night. One after another, people declared her "so cute!" as they gave her handfuls of candy.

And then they gave the big kids a single piece.

I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say Mila cleaned up on the candy and the compliments.

And HOOBOY did it make Alexis jealous. She really hasn't ever had a serious moment of being jealous of her little sister until then, so it was painfully obvious. And hilarious. For me. Alexis didn't think it was as funny, but she did manage to have a solid sense of humor about the whole thing when I started poking fun at her.

I mean, COME ON. It's hilarious that Alexis decided she would get the "cute" costume and then everybody thought Mila had the "cute" costume. Alexis was positively seething.

Which, I think that just means that Alexis will try harder to have the "cute" costume next year. This could turn interesting.

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Day

I'm calling it - Halloween is absolutely, positively Mila's favorite day of the year. Forget Christmas and all of the presents and stuff, she is fully devoted to wearing a dumb outfit and letting strangers give her candy. There are no presents that could ever be better than a bucket filled with candy.

That's the reason behind this miserable face, by the way.

"I go get candy now," was all Mila could say. There was no way to get her to look at me, nor a way to get a smile because girlfriend was all business.

And for little girls dressed as Humpty Dumpty while riding around in a wall/wagon, business was BOOMING.

Mila spent the first hour of trick-or-treating happily tagging along with the big girls, toddling her way to doors and declaring the magic words. "Twick tweat!" she would squeak out in her tiny high voice. When candy would land in her bag, she's say, "Danks!" before toddling to the next house. Which, that "thank you" made her the exception. I don't know what it was about this year, but it was very obvious that many of the kids in our neighborhood have forgotten how to say "thank you."

It's weird. Strangers give you candy. You say "thank you." I thought that was the Halloween formula?

I also thought stashing your candy in the wall/wagon so you didn't have to carry it was part of the Halloween formula, but I was wrong about that, too. I tried a bazillion times to lighten Mila's load and she was having none of it. It's a good thing she wasn't armed with a knife because she would have cut me the time I stuck my hand in her bag to grab some of the weight.

I was just trying to move the juice boxes. I swear.

I mean, I saved the stealing of the candy until after she was asleep. (Shhh! Don't tell her!)

ANYWAY, I am now revisitng the fact that we basically missed Halloween with Alexis when she was Mila's age. We lived in a neighborhood that had very few kids, so there wasn't much action to be found. Miss Alexis was also ridiculously shy at that age, so she wouldn't have gone up to a house without much fighting and convincing and arguing and all of that. It would have been more obviously me begging for candy because talking to strangers wouldn't have been worth it for Alexis. Which, now that I think about it, all of that was fine. Alexis was a fantastic toddler and there's nothing wrong with wanting to spend Halloween in the house.

But this thing where a little person soaks up every second of the awesome? That's pretty fine, too.

They Probably Won't Always Do A "Couples" Costume, But It's Fun For Now