How was Halloween?

[mightymaude]

DD has always been afraid of adults in costumes and overwhelmed by the talking required for Halloween. In the past we have done a few houses and then called it quits. She has always enjoyed dressing up and watching people come to trick or treat at our house though. We generally get 250-300 kids, so we sit outside on the porch and hand out, and she'll watch from the window.

Today though, she couldn't handle any of it. She trick or treated at one house and then came home and melted down inside. There were too many people outside and it was too noisy and they were all there to bother her, and DH (who was still outside handing out) needed to come inside immediately and get away from everyone. I had to turn on a bunch of noise machines and cuddle in her bed with her to get her to calm down and stop worrying that the people were going to keep bothering her. It was heartbreaking (and yes, something we will address with our team of people).

DS is almost 11 and acted so typical it was unbelievable. He ran off with a friend and required his tail (MIL) to stay far enough away that he looked like he was alone. He happily handed out candy afterward and commented on little kids' costumes, chatted with middle and high schoolers, and was freaking amazing. Back when he was three he only growled at people and screamed if they spoke to him.

[pipsqueak]

Pip walked with dh for a short trip up/down our street but he didn't want to go far. He was ready to come in when he got home. Just enough candy to be satisfied but not so much that dh and I gain 5+ pounds each.

We handed out pencils and erasers. Kids were excited to get those. Have a handful leftover so I'm thinking about sending them to school so they can be used.

[auntie]

DS stayed home to hand out candy. He really enjoys that role.

It was freakishly quiet here; I live at the back of a 10 house cul de sac and both neighbors houses were dark. Family on the left I get- mom's on a business trip and dad was working late so the young teens closed shop and went out with friends. Shit-pigs to the right both (plus nasty MIL) went out with their "too old to TorT with mom" boys rather than pass out candy. We got maybe 12 sets of kids including the shit pigs who will no doubt strew our lawns with wrappers now.

It's a far cry from when the neighborhood was new and my parents got 130+. Might have helped that dad gave out bags of cookies and Goldfish crackers.

[pipsqueak]

auntie I wonder how much the decrease in ToTers is related to the increase in Trunk or Treats. Why walk a mile for a bucket of treats when you can walk a parking lot for double that?

[auntie]

pipsqueak, not sure. Most of the trunk or treats near me are the weekend prior to Thanksgiving.


I think a piece of it is that my neighborhood is graying. There are only 5 K-12 school aged kids here contrasted with 23 just before I moved in. The older kids who TorT with friends often do so in the townhouse section of the community where the neighborhoods skew younger/more kids. A lot of kids drive into the borough or the next town which both have more of a tradition of cool old houses and people who are really into it. When my nieces lived with my parents, the older one always went into town to TorT.

[miranda]

We had some friend drama, but in a good semi-NT way. DS still isn't good about communicating playdate invites or the like. He's at the age where kids will invite each other to things, and the invites never make it home to me. He mentioned something vague about wanting to ToT with an arms length friend, but I reminded him that he always ToT with his friends who live on the block. But then the day of Halloween he was upset because said friends got invited to ToT with another kid, and they were all going outside the neighborhood. Which left DS alone to ToT with the littles on the block, which bummed him out. I reached out to the other friend DS had mentioned, and apparently that kid was having a full blown Halloween party with group ToTing, and DS was welcome to join (he had in fact been formally invited but DS hadn't processed that.) So DS got to feel very cool and grown up and ToT in a new neighborhood with a big group of kids without adult supervision.  When he got home he took his giant bag of candy and showered it over head.

I love making costumes but I tried to cool it this year. I painted his face like grumpy cat, added ears and a tail to his hoodie, and sewed a meme to the front. 

[pipsqueak]

Nov 1, 2018 10:24:56 GMT -5 auntie said:

pipsqueak, not sure. Most of the trunk or treats near me are the weekend prior to Thanksgiving.

Wow, around here there were a bunch on 10/27-28 (weekend prior to Halloween) and then a bunch of local churches held Trunk or Treats (for the younger kids) and Halloween parties (for the older ones) on Halloween itself.

[auntie]

miranda,


I love that costume idea. DS and I are fans.


Did I ever share the first time DS went ToTing with a friend from school? Now that we're done for the year, it's probably safe to.


In 5th grade, DS was invited to ToT with some kids from his class. I was nervous as hell, but DS's psych assured me this was entirely appropriate so I agreed. The ring leader's mom collected him on her way home from aftercare so they could have pizza together with the other boys before setting out. It was a Wednesday night. I gave DS my new flip phone "just in case" as this is 2003 and tens didn't have phones as a rule.

It got to be 9:30pm and I called DS to arrange to collect him and the phone is ringing and ringing. WTF? I finally decide to drive over and are met by 4 police cars with their lights blazing. I about have a heart attack. I run up to the house where the cops are and DS and his new friend come out to regale me with the story about how his older sister's ex-BF got into the older brother's face and punched him so his mom called the police. Ugh.

Friday morning I get a call from my lost cell phone from a woman who found it walking her dog. I again lend it to DS for a weekend camping with the Webelos and Boy Scouts where he managed to leave it in the pocket of a pair of scout pants headed into the wash.

[akafred]

Uneventful. Picked DD up early and barely got her fed and face painted before she had the neighbor kids coming to take her with them. She was a werewolf and had a mask but I knew it would come off quickly so I painted her face. Badly lol, but it was something.

DH came home for a break from work and we set up the projector and watched “Ghost Busters” projected on the garage. Until it rained. DD was gone 45 minutes with a very heavy candy bucket and we handed out candy to the now sparse population of kids. Ah well. It was still fun. Oh and she decided to paint my face like a devil which she did really well. Better than my wolf!

[funchicken]

We had a good Halloween. The girls loved their costumes, and DD1 ToTed with a friend who just moved to a new neighborhood, so they hit both neighborhoods and ended up with a ton of candy. We always get a lot of ToTers, but this year was even busier than last year.

[miranda]

Nov 1, 2018 15:31:13 GMT -5 auntie said:

miranda ,


I love that costume idea. DS and I are fans.


Did I ever share the first time DS went ToTing with a friend from school? Now that we're done for the year, it's probably safe to.


In 5th grade, DS was invited to ToT with some kids from his class. I was nervous as hell, but DS's psych assured me this was entirely appropriate so I agreed. The ring leader's mom collected him on her way home from aftercare so they could have pizza together with the other boys before setting out. It was a Wednesday night. I gave DS my new flip phone "just in case" as this is 2003 and tens didn't have phones as a rule.

It got to be 9:30pm and I called DS to arrange to collect him and the phone is ringing and ringing. WTF? I finally decide to drive over and are met by 4 police cars with their lights blazing. I about have a heart attack. I run up to the house where the cops are and DS and his new friend come out to regale me with the story about how his older sister's ex-BF got into the older brother's face and punched him so his mom called the police. Ugh.

Friday morning I get a call from my lost cell phone from a woman who found it walking her dog. I again lend it to DS for a weekend camping with the Webelos and Boy Scouts where he managed to leave it in the pocket of a pair of scout pants headed into the wash.

Lawd! I die. DH and I have been collecting our very old Iphones that we can't get much trade-in for. I expect DS to go through a series of them once he has his own. We've been able to hold off so far, but he'll need something next year at middle school when he will eventually have to get out the door and on the bus by himself, gulp. I have heard that kids in the ASD program in middle school do use their phones for planning and executive functioning stuff, and they just keep them in the ASD resource room. We'll see how that works.

[auntie]

miranda,


DS never lost or damaged his own phones, just mine.


We had his smartphone written into his IEP back when teachers would confiscate them.