Sophia’s first Halloween she was only one month old. We of course stayed home that year and handed out candy. I’ll never forget the stupid teenage boy that spotted Sophia across the room with her already long brown troll-doll hair and asked, “What is that? Is that a kitten?” Uumm no. “Oh, it’s a baby” he says, and then looks at me, “cute baby.” Uuhh yeah too late asshole.

The second Halloween we went with a group of friends to a neighborhood near them. I can’t remember if I carried Sophia in a front pack or pushed her in a stroller, but either way there was very little participation from her not that we expected much from a one year old. It was obvious from an early age that I would never need to warn Sophia about strangers. She would not even take a piece of candy from a bowl or bucket at age one.

At age two she mostly stayed in the stroller and would occasionally allow us to carry her up to the door. I think a couple of times she may have even picked out a piece of candy from a bowl. We still didn’t expect much from her and just the fact that she didn’t have a meltdown made it a great Halloween. It’s really hard to ruin a Halloween anyway.

Last year there wasn’t any participation from Sophia at all. She sat in the stroller the whole time. The only candy she received was from her friends (other three year olds) putting some in her bucket. We were disappointed that she never warned up to trick-or-treating last year, but Kurt was adopted by our friend’s three year old and he got to take her trick-or-treating. I was too pregnant to keep up. I just stood at the end of driveways or tried to waddle a head start to the next house.

This year was FANTASTIC! I think there was a trial run of trick or treating at preschool. She came home on the 29th, her last day for the week, and kept saying, “trick or treat”. On Halloween we had some friends over and headed out to terrorize our tiny town in sugared up mob style. It took Sophia a couple houses to get the idea of what was going on, but she did it. For some of the houses I held her hand and for others it was Kurt. I had a hard time keeping up with the other kids because I was carrying the Lukas monkey in the front pack.

Because no princess costume is complete without a polar bear wearing a butterfly shirt.

At one house the mob of kids from our group was at a door and had already said their trick or treat line – Sophia pulled at my hand and rather frantically said, “trick or treat” as if she wouldn’t get anything if the magical Halloween phrase wasn’t uttered. That right there is the magical fun of producing spawn with an engineer. The world is such a black and white place with special rules for everything and each must be followed to the letter.

She was thrilled to be getting candy, but then what child wouldn’t. I didn’t hear a lot of giggling or chatter from her as one would expect from a child collecting candy. My child was on a mission, but I know she had fun because when we asked her in the car on the way home she said, “yes” without hesitation. She also asked me in the morning, “Can friends come over today?” As funny as I think it is that she believes the Halloween rules to be set in stone, I think it’s even more awesome that she’s enjoying normal childhood activities.

It's supposed to read, "Little Devil", but the way he's sitting and the angle I took the photo from it looks like, "Lite Evil".

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