Hanging up Halloween

Halloween is over, and what do we have to show for it? Two fast-rotting Jack-o'-lanterns, a bucket full of pregnant-lady's kryptonite, and a child who I swear against all scientific probability is still on last night's sugar rush. There was more buildup this year, which may be a sign of the times, in a world where Christmas decorations start sneaking into the periphery before the heat of summer has fully faded, and because of the buildup, the overness of Halloween has that weird hollow feel. It's like the day after your birthday when you're little. So now I guess we focus on Thanksgiving? Not me. I'm going day by day. Tomorrow Baby Bosche will be 7 weeks solid, working each day toward looking less like a tiny reptile (Why does he have a TAIL??? Alex demanded, wide-eyed, when I showed him a picture of what BB looks like right now). Day by day.

So Halloween started with visits to every single proprietor of costumes in the metro area in search of a Batman costume in Small. It would seem that only Small-size people are interested in Batman costumes, which is why every size but was available everywhere we went. (I ended up ordering his online.) Then we did Boo at the Zoo, where thousands of pint-size creatures packed in for games with penny prizes, trick-or-treating, a standard carousel ride (they used to run it backward for Boo, but we overheard the operator guy telling someone that it was malfunctioning that way), and a "haunted" train ride. Alex reassured himself by repeating "It's not real, Mommy," every time we saw a creepy thing in the woods, until a little girl behind us, improbably named Betsy, informed him haughtily that "Even if it's not real, it's still cool!"


Then, my mother decided to spend her birthday night in Hell, so we took Alex and his cousin Jack to the carnival at my old elementary school.


OK, so it used to be a Halloween carnival, now it's just a carnival. I don't know what that was about. The school (smaller than I remember, of course, but it smelled the same!) was packed out. I'm not prone to claustrophobia, but after a fifteen-minute wait in line for the haunted house, I was gearing up to fight my way through a group of giggly braces-clad Pizitz dance teamers and claw through solid cinderblock in a desperate search for fresh air and open space.

Then there was Alex's school parade and party. The parade was cute as always (and a little bittersweet, as it was our last, at least with this kid), and a little cruel. It's impossible not to laugh at the sight of a chubby little cowboy who dissolves into heartbroken wails when he glimpses his mommy on the bleachers, and that sounds horrible but it's CUTE. Don't judge me.

And finally, FINALLY, Halloween night. After an exceptionally rough day, Alex and I both sick to varying degrees and tired in equal measure, I wasn't at all sure it was going to be a successful trick-or-treat outing. But we packed him into layers under his Batman duds and set off into the streets, where we quickly discovered an interesting fact about our new neighborhood. Evidently Halloween night here is a sort of block party with no open-container restrictions. Parents and grandparents holding glasses of wine and cups of spirited homemade concoctions and beers in coozies tailed hyper costumed kids from door to door in a scene that was oddly all-American, fantastically fall, and straight-up fun. Alex made friends with a tiny decked-out Bama player, whose helmet came in handy when he took a header off someone's brick porch steps. Alex wound down about the same time my new lack of stamina began demanding a break, so we packed it in until next year.

Oh yeah, Steven did a great job on our Batman Jack-o'-lantern this year, and valiantly tried to salvage Scooby Doo. In the end the mangled Scooby face was covered by a place mat and a standard-issue Jack-o'-lantern face carved on the opposite side of the pumpkin. They're awesome, and they're making me sick. (BB doesn't seem to appreciate the scent of slightly charred pumpkin.)