Halloween 2009

I've always found Halloween to be stressful, which I attribute to my Des Moines roots. Des Moines has always been a town that believes in quid quo pro and so while most municipalities feel that donning a costume and the implicit threat of tire slashing is sufficient to warrant candy on Trick-or-Treat night, Des Moines insists that in addition, young children tell a joke at each home. From an economics standpoint, this makes no sense as the jokes tend to be bad, the telling painful and the process time-consuming which means ending the practice would be a Pareto improvement. However, the custom persists which meant I spent the weeks prior to Halloween studying my brothers' Boys' Life magazine to cull some suitable joke which was invariably appropriated by my best friend by the third house of the night, forcing me to resort to, "What's big, red, and eats rocks?" (A big, red, rock eater).

This year was going to be easy, however. Owen had informed us in September that he wanted to be a lion and I ordered a costume right away, we inherited a pumpkin costume for Nora from a neighbor and Allen and I decided to recycle our costumes from last year (as he'd spent hours on his which wasn't properly appreciated at the time, and with a new baby and the Cap-and-Trade bills, didn't have time to create a new one). The plan was to attend the Brown's annual Halloween blowout, do a little trick-or-treating there, and then swing by Grandpa Fawcett and Claudine's for Owen to help hand out candy.

Only Owen's costume was too small and the day was too warm for Nora to wear hers. Owen didn't nap and interrupted Nora's while practicing his roaring. It started raining. And after three hours of playing at the Browns, Owen announced he didn't want to go trick or treating, he wanted to go home.

While perfectly understandable given the inclimate weather and the absence of a nap, we'd made promises and we were going to keep them, by damn. So we drove back to Capitol Hill with both kids asleep in the car, looked for a parking place near Grandpa Fawcett's and when one did not become available, drove home, parked illegally, made a very grumpy Owen don his costume again, and had Allen push him in the stroller (with its rain cover) while I carried Nora (with an umbrella) to East Capitol street.

There Owen sulked for a while but ultimately rallied and Nora mostly slept. Allen and I had a much needed drink. We never did any actual trick or treating (though strangers did hand us candy as we walked the mile in the rain), and we didn't get a picture of the kids with their jack-o-lanterns until the day after, but all in all they had a pretty good time.

And no one asked us why the chocolate chip cookie went to the doctor's office. (Because it felt crumby).

(click here to see all the Halloween pictures)