I Survived Downtown Trick-or-Treating

As we walked from our car to downtown this past Sunday, my heart settled into my stomach.  Not again... please tell me I didn't do this again, I thought to myself, not letting on to my kids in full costume (Cal a ninja, Ella a princess) that anything might be wrong.

While Cal laughed at a costumed kid sitting on his dad's shoulders as they approached us, I wondered, why are they walking away from downtown?  And then, it just doesn't seem as crowded as it should be for the start of Trick-or-Treating.  It was just after 1pm, and I thought Trick-or-Treating from one business to the next in the downtown area was to have started at 1pm.

A couple of weeks earlier, Cal missed his friend's birthday party because I had remembered the time for it wrong.  It was just before 3pm and we were on our way to the party site when I looked at the time listed on the invitation.  1pm.  We missed it.  I, virtually in tears, broke the news to party-ready Cal, apologized profusely and repeatedly put all of the blame on myself.  I felt horrible.  I had reached an all-time low as a mother.  Cal took the news better than I expected, and this made me proud.  "It's okay, Mommy," he said a number of times.  At any rate, it's still fresh in my mind and not something I want to repeat.

On Sunday, I thought I actually had repeated it, this time with two kids in full costume ready to get some candy.

I kept my cool as we entered the downtown area.  I could have counted on two hands the number of kids I saw.  Clearly, something wasn't right.  My heart was still in my stomach; the kids had no clue something was amiss.  I love that about kids -- so absent worry and suspicion that something could possibly disrupt their fun.  It's the same trait that makes it so hard for me to actually be the fun disrupter.

Anyway, I decided it was time to ask.  We were close to the running store, a place that makes me happy and comfortable, so I decided we'd go in there and get the scoop.  The employees were in full costume; and on the counter at check-out, I saw a clear container half filled with Sweet Tarts, what I figured to be the leftovers from Trick-or-Treating.

"Did we miss Trick-or-Treating?" I got right to the point.

"It doesn't start until 3 o'clock," the costumed worker replied.  "They changed it because..." and I don't remember what he said the reason for changing it was because I was so stinkin' excited that we hadn't missed it.  Of course, now I had another problem -- I had two napless, fully costumed, Trick-or-Treat-ready kids to entertain for an hour an a half before Trick-or-Treating was to start.

I informed the kids we needed to wait a bit before Trick-or-Treating would actually start.  Ella declared she had to go potty, a good 15-minute time killer; so we used the bathroom in the back of the running store.  Finished, we made our way to the front of the store and across the street I saw an ice cream store.  Before I was able to apply any motherly judgment, the words, "Let's go get some ice cream!" were jumping out of my mouth.  Ice cream before candy -- I was any kid's dream mother at that point.

Knowing we still had a lot of time to kill, I was especially patient with the ice cream selection process.  This was no small feat and one that I surely wouldn't have managed to pull off had I not needed to entertain the kids for an hour and a half before the real fun was to begin.  Cal's vacillation was tolerable -- he pretty quickly went from brown ice cream to pink sherbet to blue ice cream, settling for the latter with white chocolate chips.  Ella didn't know what she wanted.  I thought pink ice cream would be a slam dunk, but she didn't want that, nor did she want the pink sherbet.  Every option I threw at her was met with an "umm... no."  Finally, she settled for the same blue ice cream Cal had picked.  And then I picked sprinkles for her topping as no one needed to suffer through that selection process, time to kill or not.

It was nice enough outside that we were able to eat our blue ice cream on a bench outside the store without being cold.  Ordinarily, this raises my stress to a moderate level.  My kids aren't the neatest eaters -- Cal just eats too fast to be neat about it, and Ella is still just unskilled with utensils.  I'd prefer they not drip and drool and spill all over themselves; but if it happens, I tell myself not to sweat it -- let them be kids, clothes can be cleaned.  But they were in costume, and I needed their costumes to stay clean not only for the Trick-or-Treating we had ahead of ourselves that day but also for their Halloween parade/party at school and "real" Trick-or-Treating we had planned later in the week.  I had a mound of napkins in my hand and used them liberally, immediately wiping every drop of ice cream that didn't make it into their mouths.  I used all of the napkins I had grabbed.

At this point, a half hour had been killed; and we had another hour to go.  There was no park nearby, but there was a Riverwalk, which my kids actually enjoy.  I didn't know if it would be an hour of enjoyment and was certain I'd experience high stress levels for whatever duration it ended up being, but I threw it out there anyway, "do you want to go to the Riverwalk?" I asked?  They did, so Cal climbed onto the tandem stroller and Ella declared she'd just walk; and we started to make our way to the Riverwalk.

As we reached the edge of the downtown business area, an alternative to the Riverwalk emerged -- the library.  My kids love books, read to them or paged through themselves.  There would be no river to fall into.  We could sit on chairs.  It was perfect.  I didn't present this as an alternative to the Riverwalk and declared we'd go to the library instead.  The kids were receptive to our new plans.

In the library, I read a couple of Halloween books to the kids.  They found some books and paged through them on their own.  And then they both found the computers with an interactive Dora game to play, Cal independently, Ella with a little help and both still in full costume.

After about an hour, I had to peel them away from their library fun.  This involved multiple notifications of the number of minutes left before we'd leave (as in "five more minutes," "three more minutes," etc) and a single effective threat that Ella and I would leave without Cal as he pranced from one book aisle to the next, ignoring my repeated "put your listening ears, it's time to leave, come with me" pleas.

"Okay, let's go, Ella," I said loud enough for Cal to hear but not sure which aisle he was actually in.  And we started walking away.  This was followed by a scared, "Mommy?!?!!!" and hurried footsteps toward my "I'm here, Cal" voice.  Call me mean, but that approach works like a charm.

After a not-so-quick, high-stress Leatherman visit to the bathroom (things like Ella touching the toilet seat and Cal opening the door as I finished peeing), we were out the door to start Trick-or-Treating about 10 minutes after it had officially started.  It's funny that we were actually late at this point.

There were people EVERYWHERE.  Sidewalks were packed with people and their gear and not easily navigated.  On either side of the street, people were going both directions.  In some cases, businesses had people planted outside their entrances handing out treats; in others, the kids had to go inside to get their treats.  Some businesses weren't participating, and most of these businesses thankfully had posted a sign on their doors (e.g. "sorry, no candy") so we didn't needlessly fight the crowd only to find that out once inside.

It was a parent's nightmare, really.  Battling ridiculous crowds.  Keeping track of little kids moving at different speeds.  Avoiding moving cars.  Repeatedly making sure little kids got that damn piece of candy after battling a crowd to get it outside a storefront.

Cal was a pro, stealthily weaving his way through the crowd to the person holding the candy -- inside or outside the store, Cal quickly found the candy, said his "Trick-or-Treat" and moved on.  He never went too far ahead, usually on his own volition but sometimes with a reminder from me to "wait up, Cal."

You'd never know that Ella had been Trick-or-Treating before.  She was slow, didn't fully understand the goal (get candy) and was incredibly distracted by the crowd.  She really just wanted to watch people and needed constant reminders to "come on, Ellie."

I was solo, and keeping both of them, neither one even 4 feet tall, in my sights amongst the crowd at all times was a stress that no one in his right mind would invite upon himself.  It was awful, just awful.

Looking back, there were some amusing antics amid the awfulness of this ordeal.  A few times, Cal stopped traffic for us to cross the street.  The first time he did this, I had no idea what he was doing.  "I've got it" he announced out of the blue after we started to cross the street (mid-street, low car traffic).  He saw a car coming slowly and quickly got into a ninja-like stance and, facing the car, stretched out his arm with the palm of his hand facing the car, a universal symbol for "stop."  He did this a few more times, which was okay because the few more times we were at least in a crosswalk, crossing the street "legally."

About mid-way through the event, we were leaving a pizza joint after collecting some treats when Cal announced dramatically that his "stomach hurt."  This has become synonymous with "I have to poop,"  which he eventually informed the pizza joint's employees after I re-directed him back inside the store to use their bathroom. "I have to go poop," he told the lady who smiled and directed us to the back of the store.  Lucky for me, there was a urinal inside this bathroom that Ella felt the need to touch despite my repeated requests that she not do it as Cal pooped to his heart's content.

Just before 5pm, I informed the kids that we were finished and needed to start heading back to the car.  To encourage cooperation and full acceptance of this, I threw the reward of choosing one of their well-earned treats once we got out of the crowd and to the fountain at the Riverwalk, which was 3/4 of the way to our car.  It worked.  We got there without incident.  Cal picked the Butterfinger he had asked me when he got it if he could eat it, and Ella picked a pack of rainbow Twizzlers.

With the rainbow Twizzlers half eaten, Ella announced she had to go potty.  We were at the Riverwalk.  Any potty that we could use would require fighting an unusually cooperative Cal and hauling ourselves and our gear back into the insanity.  So I actually ignored it.  She had already gone three times since we left the house -- did she really  have to go?  Plus, she was distracted by the fountain that she had fallen into earlier in the summer and the many ducks swimming on the river anyway.  If she did feel like she'd have to go, maybe she'd forget about it for a bit.

We then started to make our way across the bridge.  The kids enjoy stepping up on the wooden slats of the bridge and yell down to the ducks, and Sunday was no different.  Halfway across the bridge, a photographer took pictures of a newly engaged (I assume) couple.  His picture-taking was disrupted by Cal, who had hopped up next to the kissing couple, disrupting the moment being captured by the photographer.  I don't know if Cal really knew what he was doing, but we all laughed as if he did.

Finally across the bridge, I decided I wanted a picture of the kids at the Riverwalk.  So I once again bribed them with candy to cooperate for a picture by the river.  Cal fully understood the bribe and what I wanted and tried to pull Ella close to him to smile for his candy.  Ella, tired and possibly with a full bladder, resisted.  This isn't unusual -- Ella likes her space and feels perfectly comfortable informing anyone violating her space to leave her alone.  I have mental images of the beautiful, happy pictures I could take of my kids, and rarely are they realized.  Instead, I end up with something like this one, clearly a compromise to at least record the moment:

The kids ate their bribe, and we then made the final walk to our car where I hoisted Ella's princess dress over her head (she had a long-sleeved shirt and leggings on) in case she did finally have the accident that was surely brewing since she had announced she had to go potty back at the Riverwalk many minutes before.  I got the kids situated in the car and then climbed in myself.

To say I enjoyed my Sunday afternoon with the kids may be a lie.  I'm really not sure.  No one in his right mind would call that fun; but I'm not really in my right mind when it comes to my Leatherkids.  If you asked them, I'm not even sure what they'd say.  I think they enjoyed it, but I also think they may have enjoyed a visit -- in costume -- to our neighborhood park just as much.

One thing is for sure: I survived.