Happy Halloween!

Don't worry, we'll get to Darby's birthday. But first, I  haven't gotten the trick-or-treat photos up yet. This was basically Darby's first time trick-or-treating. He rode along in the stroller last year, but he didn't actually get to go up to any doors and get candy. (He didn't even know how to walk yet! Now, that just blows my mind.) And he's lucky he got to go this year--when Casey was two, I was nine months pregnant on Halloween, and we just stayed in that night, waiting for Darby to jump out and say, "Boo!"

Two years may still be a little young, but Darby wants to do everything Casey does, so of course he got to go. At first, I wasn't sure if we could get him to wear the pumpkin costume, though. If I asked him, "Darby, what do you want to be for Halloween?" he would reliably answer "pumpkin." When Casey was that age, he was so excited about that pumpkin costume, and I thought Darby would be similarly thrilled. He gets to look like a pumpkin! What could be better than that? But whenever I tried to put the thing on him (say, for the library's Halloween dance party), he refused to wear it. When it came time to trick-or-treat, Chris was the hero. He forced it on him, distracted him with a few candy corn, and got him out the door. Once Darby was outside, he was just happy to be outside and forgot about it.

Then he caught on really fast to what we were doing. He didn't usually say "trick or treat," but he always said "thank you," and sometimes he totally brought down the house with a random "Happy Halloween!" He seriously impressed everyone. I even heard some random little girl tell her mom the story of the tiny little pumpkin who said thank you. Darby's small for his age, so I think that made it look all the more impressive.

Casey also did a great job saying "trick or treat" and then "thank you," but he's four, so that's just business as usual. He was actually supposed to be a pirate this year. He has been in a huge pirates phase for ages now. Back on his birthday, Susan gave him the costume, and Darby gave him the hat, and he wears them to play pirates on a regular basis. It was pretty set in stone that was what he was going to be for Halloween. He was super excited after I took him to the dollar store to get a pirate sword to finish off the look. But ... I don't know what changed. Maybe the pirate outfit feels too much like everyday wear at this point that it didn't seem special enough for Halloween anymore. Maybe he thinks he really is a pirate, so he had to dress up as something else. Whatever the case, he suddenly on the the day before Halloween decided he wanted to wear his monkey costume from last year. I didn't argue with him--it was going to be chilly, and the monkey costume is way warmer.