And the elephant went "Pfffft"

Teeny was an elephant for Halloween this year, which is his very favorite animal. He got a lot of use out of his costume, too. We had trick or treat in our neighborhood the week before Halloween (a weird practice in our city is to not have trick or treat on Halloween, but on the weekend before, instead). Then he went with a group of his daycare buddies the following day (a Sunday). On the actual day of Halloween, he got to dress up again and trick or treated both at school and at S's and my place of work. The kid collected enough sugar to feed a small country.

It was a lot of fun taking him trick or treating for the first time. His first Halloween, he was only three months old, so I just put him in his leopard costume, strapped him into a front carrier and had him help me hand out candy. He pretty quickly slumped forward and fell asleep that year, but he was quite a hit with the hundreds of trick or treaters that came by (yes, I said hundreds. Our neighborhood is crazy on Halloween!) Last year, when he was just over one, I dressed him in his costume and brought him outside with me while I handed out candy (yet another oddity of my neighborhood. Everyone who hands out candy sits outside in front of their houses to dispense it). He got to run around in his fun dinosaur costume, but didn't yet get the full trick or treat experience. One of the funniest things about Halloween last year was his trick or treating technique at S's and my office. He'd go to people's desks, get a piece of candy to put in his pumpkin, and then put a piece of candy back into the person's candy bowl. It was very cute.

This year was different. At two, Teeny was ready for the full blown Halloween experience. And he really got into it - he loved saying "trick or treat," getting a pumpkin full of candy and most of all, he loved being an elephant! He kept pulling on his trunk and trying to make an elephant sound, but what came out was "Pffffft" and a lot of spit. It was pretty funny. And messy. He lasted about an hour before he wanted to go back home, at which point he helped hand out candy. Some of the kids were hesitant to let a two-year old stick his hand in their candy bags, but he really loved passing out treats. I think he liked it as much as he enjoyed getting them! Don't tell him this, but we actually recycled his pumpkin - we dumped all its contents into our treat bown and redistributed it to the neighborhood kids. When you get over 300 trick or treaters, you run out of candy fast and must be inventive.

Halloween was a week long marathon here, between the weekend of trick or treating before Halloween and actual day itself. I was pretty burned out with Halloween during that week, but now I'm a little sad to be putting the elephant costume away. It was a lot of fun seeing my little guy thoroughly enjoy a part of childhood I had loved so much, too. And I guess that's part of what makes parenting such a cool adventure, isn't it?