My Halloweenies...

By now everyone has survived, and recovered from, Halloween, or as I like to call it:  Sugar Overload Day.  Whose brilliant idea was it to have kids dress up and beg for candy anyway?  I imagine someone sitting around their house, bored and hungry..."hey, Myrtle, there's nothing in the pantry...let's throw on some old clothes so the neighbors won't recognize us, and go ask for some Hershey bars!"

In my house, we had Costume Angst this year. Actually, Derek was completely easy. He knew he wanted to be a Ninja, so we went to the Ginormous Party Superstore (or something like that) and wandered back past the spooky talking skulls and creepy glowing spiders to the costume aisle, where there were approximately a million pictures to choose from.  In less than a minute, I spotted a Red Ninja, asked the ever-so-helpful teenager to get Derek's size from the stockroom, and he was done.

Then, there was Riley.  He couldn't decide, despite many suggestions and all of the photos, what he wanted to be.  We shuffled up and down the rows, pointing out options (Look, a police officer!  You'd make a cute Jedi Knight!  Wouldn't you love to be a Ninja like Derek?) and becoming increasingly frustrated.  Riley's head hung lower and lower, and his lip pouted out further and further as this tedious process wore on.  We even went to another store across the parking lot for inspiration...and it must have worked, since he FINALLY decided that dressing up as a vampire would be acceptable.  I pointed out that we have a black cape at home from several years ago, when Derek was a King.  Riley already owns black pants and a dark shirt.  So we had to go back to the Party Emporium for: one pair of vampire teeth (99 cents...finishing Halloween shopping after an hour and a half:  priceless). 

After that traumatic experience, I had to hit the "secret stash" of mini Heath bars that I'd been saving for trick-or-treaters.  Now that's what Halloween is all about!