Given that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, I was super excited in the weeks leading up to it. It's been a long time since I haven't had to work right through all the festivities, so I wanted to go full-out this year.
Then we all got sick, and all bets were off. I just knew that if I even tried to explain trick-or-treating to Brady and got him excited, he would absolutely get sick just in time to not be able to go. So we never even mentioned it, and on Halloween morning we had no candy, no decorations, and a kid who had never even heard of the holiday. By 5:30pm, there were pumpkins (albeit, fake) in the yard, decorations in the windows, a bucket of candy by the door, and a very excited toddler-sized tiger ready to hit the street. So off we went.
I think the whole concept just confused Brady for the first few houses, but he caught on quickly. By about the 5th house he started saying "Trick or treat!". A few houses later he would reach out, pick a candy out of the bowl, and put it in his bucket. Shortly after he even started saying, "thank you".
The truth is, we really didn't know if Brady would even get trick-or-treating at all. Paul and I had wondered if we were really doing it more for ourselves and the photo op, and I was fully prepared to go home after a few houses. But oh boy did Brady ever get it. He loved it.
I can't believe how far he walked. I thought we'd hit 5 or 6 houses, but we went to easily 20. I asked Brady several times if he wanted to go home or keep going and knock on more doors. He was very definitive in his answer: "More doors". So on we went.
I really don't think Brady had any idea that what people were giving him was anything he'd want to eat-- they were just fun, brightly colored little presents. He was even brave enough to go ask the witch down the street.
When it started to get really dark and Brady almost got run over a few times by charging groups of 7 and 8 year old boys, I figured it was time to go home and help hand out the candy.
As soon as we got in the house, Brady sat down in the middle of the living room, dumped out his bucket, and spread out all his loot. He sat there playing with his candy for easily 45 minutes, with breaks to get up and run to the door each time he heard more kids.
I can't tell you how happy I am that we decided to "do" Halloween with Brady this year. It was probably one of the best nights of his little life, and one of those "we'll remember it forever" moments for ol' Mama and Dada.
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