Trick-Or-Treat 2011

Another successful year of trick-or-treating is behind us and we should have collected enough candy to get us through until next October. This year we had two mobile children running down the sidewalks, one of them being an overly-excitable 3 year-old who definitely had the hang of this whole- getting candy from strangers holiday- down pat. And I'm pretty sure our son could have a bright future in sales should he decide to go that route. He was persistent, banging on doors while repeatedly ringing the doorbell, bringing even those folks trying to hide in their dark houses sheepishly to the door to offer him some morsel of goodwill. He scored an unopened roll of Ritz crackers from an Indian woman who offered them to him as "cookies" because she felt bad that he had caught her empty-handed. He fearlessly negotiated, boldly asking for 2 pieces of candy when 1 was offered and 3 when 2 were offered.  He asked to trade candy he didn't care for and requested detailed descriptions from strangers of candy he had never seen before. He let himself in to someones house to pet a dog and then charmed the owner into a bonus pack of bubbles in addition to his candy. He made it his mission to "care" for his sister by always stating that he needed some extra candy for "Norah over there" and people chuckled as they threw a few extra pieces in. He pointed out a fake spider stuck to our neighbor's front door, asked if he could have it, and then shrieked with delight when she told him to go ahead and take it. Yes, he will do well in sales someday, I have no doubt about it. John and I were just laughing watching him race from house to house like his pants were on fire. It was just too much. And yes, we did have many little chats with him along the way about being polite and grateful and not asking for more candy or to trade candy, but his head was spinning way too fast to hear any of that boring parental advice. And he did bring home quite a loot for us to pilfer through tonight while he's sleeping so I guess we'll work on those little behavior glitches tomorrow...