Happy Halloween

Mikaela was so excited about this confluence of two of her all-time favorite things (dressing up and candy) that she was almost vibrating this morning. Last year, she was just a generic “princess”. This year, she was specific. She decided that she was going trick-or-treating as Cinderella.

As I walked with her through the neighborhood, if I referred to her as “Mikaela”, she would gently remind me that she was Cinderella, not Mikaela. She wouldn’t be Mikaela again until after she took off her costume. She also wouldn’t hear about covering any part of her costume with a coat. I carried her coat with me, but she wouldn’t even consider putting it on.

We trick-or-treated our way all the way down 129th Street, around the cul-de-sac and the bottom of 129th, and back around our own cul-de-sac. Mikaela didn’t even really complain when we elected not to trick-or-treat down the one side street we passed on the way back to our street. Her candy bag was already so heavy that she was dragging it on the ground between houses. When she asked why we didn’t go down that street, I reminded her that her candy bag was already dragging the ground and that if she kept dragging it it might break. She was following my logic completely - she said, “If my bag breaks, my candy will fall out onto the street and then my candy will be dirty and then I won’t have any.”

Her candy did make it the rest of the way back home intact. And at the one piece/night limit that we’re planning on enforcing, she probably has enough to last her until close to next Halloween.