Screw The Great Pumpkin, We're Getting Candy!

Yes, it's that time of year again. I let the boys (well, Lochlain was the only one paying attention) stay up last night to watch some of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Loch really seemed to like it - he sat glued to the couch while it was on and was a little distressed to have to miss the rest. The one thing that came out of it was the discovery that Loch really wanted to go Trick-or-Treating, and not sit in a pumpkin patch.

The boys first exposure to "Trick-or-Treat" was earlier this afternoon, when their daycare sponsored "Trunk-or-Treat" - volunteer parents decorate their trunks and dole out candy to each of the classes as they parade around the parking lot (in New York, the boys' Uncle Joe has followed a similar routine to get cheap deli meats). Bean and I were their handing out cookie products:

Lochlain was Diego, and Seanie was a lion. Seanie refused to wear his "mane" and practiced his "No pictures!" pose while Lochlain pretty much saw this as an opportunity to practice saying "Trick or treat!" and "Thank you!":





We got home early, had a quick dinner and then met our next door neighbors Angie & Dave with their kids Ava and Jackson to go ToT (the now-official abbreviation for Trick-or-Treat). It was a real nice experience, as we ran into a lot of neighborhood people out there. While we were out, we left a HUUUGE tub of candy with the sign pictured at the beginning of the post on our front stoop (which was just about emptied by the time we returned less than 90 minutes later). We get more kids here in one night than in all our previous years as husband and wife on LI....

So there were the boys in their costumes - they got the ToT routine down rather well, though we had to keep Loch from a) going INSIDE people's houses, and b) going to knock on the door if the homeowner(s) were already waiting for us. In my last post, I gave a quick update about Seanie's lates checkup. Well, we have been slightly concerned because Seanie doesn't appear to talk too much - whereas Loch was chatting up a storm at this age. Well, we can now add "ToT" and a very clear "Thank You" to his vocab. People kept asking me how old he was and were amazed that a 15 month old said those two phrases so well. Here is something else he did well:



All in all, it went really well - I can tell because I am exhausted and achy.