Trick or Treating, Toddler Style

Toddlers really know how to do Halloween right.

"Backward, turn backward,

O Time, in your flight

make me a child again

just for to-night!"

~Elizabeth Akers Allen

They save their first ever trick or treating for their much beloved cousins' house. When they first see each other in costume, they squeal with delight and pound on the glass that stands between them!

If you are the littlest of the bunch you stay a bit more calm, collected and very cool in your bunny costume. You are not exactly sure what is going on.
You all pile on the couch for the annual Halloween photo shoot.

After hanging with the cousins, you head over to party with your pals the chicken,
the bumble bee
the pumpkin and their sister, the ladybug (who flew around too fast to be photographed).

As cute as your costumes are, it is important to keep things real by having a bit of drama over bucket ownership and antennae bending.

Before you head out, you peak out the window to watch the big kids. You can see that this night might involve lots of sugary goodness. After you get that first treat tossed into your bucket, the magic of it all really hits you. When people leave bowls of candy outside their doors, you only get the suggested number of treats. Ahem.

Even if it is rainy, chilly and dark, you keep your game face on and try to hit as many houses as possible. You can't let umbrellas slow you down.

After you ring that last doorbell, it is most exciting to show off the contents of your pumpkin bucket to anyone who will stop to see.

When you finally make it home, it is time to do the costume switcheroo, and tell stories about neighbors with giant bowls of wrapped candy.

Many hours after you first pull on your pumpkin costume, your parents realize that you are up way past your bedtime, so they start to pack up. Before your tired, sugared up body is swept out into the car seat to go home, you run to the nearest mirror and survey the damage. There is no point getting covered in sticky candy, cupcake icing, and buffalo chicken dip, unless you and your polka dot buddy can giggle in the mirror at the end of the night!

" Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold." ~Judith Olney