Halloween in Kansas

First, sorry for the delay. My computer has been under the weather.

Phoenix has been "preparing" for Halloween for weeks. Literally. He practiced trick or treating (and candy eating) at our house daily last month. He would instruct me to be a witch or Mildred (the toothless old lady) and then knock on doors and make noises to give me hints concerning his numerous pretend costumes. Despite his real life choice of a motorcycle, his pretend play typically featured him as a mouse or a dragon. Even during these dry runs he had a hard time asking a stranger for candy. (Its me, sure, but he seems confused on that topic. If I ask him a difficult question while pretending to be someone else he always says "I want mom to come back for a minute." Then I have to tell him that I'm me, and he'll ask me the question. Then he'll request the pretend character again and give "her" the answer.) So usually he would just hang around making squeaking sounds and sniffing towards his candy bowl until I proffered the sweets.

So after so much pre-holiday fanfare, he was pretty psyched on the big day. We went to E's parent's house because their neighborhood is a Never-land for Halloween. The block of Broadview is decked out with flying ghosts, alien spacecraft, ginormous spiders and five thousand children. After trying the madhouse for a while, losing grandma Mimi and E, Phoenix requested we leave the mayhem. On the walk home we tried some quieter streets and he seemed to enjoy it.

He Really enjoyed himself back at Grandpapa's house. Mimi and E had made it home and Uncle Jace and Grandpapa were there. Generally those characters are enough to ensure a memorable evening for P, but that night he also had a bucket of never discovered before Candy. His allergy to food coloring is pretty strong, but we told him it was his choice. He chose to try everything. Fortunately for his skin, try was the operative word. He licked and nibbled from every wrapper, but consumed very little. He wanted names and descriptions and poured over the contents of the bucket for the next three days. Granted, he had to do so sitting on his stuffed hippo, ala a hemorrhoid ring, due to intense discomfort from said food allergy, but the brightly colored parcels thrilled him. His skin is still less than thrilled, but I don't think he regrets it one bit(e) :)