Hide the candy
Yesterday was the Munchkin’s first “real” experience with the concept of trick-or-treating. Her costume (Little Red Riding Hood) wasn’t cumbersome – in fact, it was just the cape and hood over an old dress of mine that she has worn before – so she didn’t feel any more “dressed up” than she usually does on a Sunday for church.
We started at the Webmaster’s work and went from cubicle to cubicle, but the crowds of older kids and the attention actually briefly overwhelmed the Munchkin, who pulled – for the first time in her life – a shy act, hiding behind me. We coaxed her out of it and began to point to the people holding candy and saying, “Look, ga-ca! Go get some!” Ga-ca is her catch-all word for cookies, candy, crackers, and treats, although she can say “cookie” now, and her aunt tried to teach her “candy” yesterday.
Let’s just say that the Munchkin needs no prompting when free ga-ca is offered to her. She would take a piece. And a second, if she could. What was really funny was when she would go to the next cubicle and try to give back candy, because she thought they were asking for it. But she got the idea, and we were trying to work on saying “trick-or-treat”, which eventually came out as “treet-treet.” Baby Boy, our little pumpkin, slept through the trick-or-treating at Daddy’s work. The Webmaster carried him around and showed him off, while I guided the Munchkin to the hard stuff (“Ooh, dark chocolate! Mommy likes that! I’ll “borrow” it from you later”).
On our way home from the Webmaster’s work, the Munchkin insisted on holding the Longaberger basket (Red Riding Hood has good taste) that she had carried her candy in while she was in her car seat. I had emptied all the other candy into another container, and left her with a mini Twix and a Reese’s Stick. I told her not to open them, but figured she really couldn’t anyway. She was biting at the wrapper, breaking and twisting the candy inside, but couldn’t get at them.
When we got home, and after I fed Baby Boy, I found her walking around the house with the Reese’s Stick in her mouth. She had sucked and chewed the wrapper open and was gnawing on the candy through the wrapper. “Mmm,” she told me. I told her it was time for a real dinner and I took it away. The inevitable occured, with the statement (yelled in many decibles of fury) “NO, MINE!” coming out of her mouth.
Oh, how quickly they learn.
The rest of the evening was spent trying to make her sit still for pictures (we got some), adoring Baby Boy in his pumpkin costume (his aunt and I agreed that he was the cutest thing we’d seen that Halloween, and the Munchkin learned to say “pun-tin” for pumpkin), and visiting family. The Munchkin was wiped out by the end of the evening – we got her and the baby into pajamas at my parents’ house and brushed her teeth there. She didn’t want to leave, but it was late and she needed to go to bed. She refused to go to sleep on the way home, but crashed when she got her bedtime ritual of reading Goodnight, Moon and listening to music.
I then hid all of her candy in the pantry, never to be seen by her again. There are a couple things that she can have – her great-grandmother gave her a box of animal crackers, her grandma gave her mini s’mores cookies, and someone at the Webmaster’s work offered Nutri-grain cereal bars along with their candy, so I had the Munchkin take one. But the rest will disappear into oblivion for her.
For me, it will be delicious. 🙂
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