Two Days of Halloween

Rather than just have one Halloween this year, we decided to have two. Well, sort of. We actually aren't doing anything today but have paraded Jonah around in his costume for the last two days instead.


On Thursday night we dressed Jonah up in his snuggly costume and headed to the North Liberty Rec Center for a Halloween carnival. Being such a small town the festivities were modest but there was a flow of people the whole time. There were the usual carnival games to be played: fishing for candy with a string and a clothespin, ring toss on old pop bottles and musical chairs. One of the attractions that Andrew and I had never seen before was the train "rides." Reminiscent of the Flinstones, the train cars were cardboard boxes that the kids put around their waist and walked with, all tied together, and went through a refrigerator box cave covered in black trash bags. The whole loop was maybe 30 feet. There was also an area where about 20 pool fun-noodles were hung from the ceiling for kids to run through. No point to it, just a way for kids to run around and get hit in the face with foam noodles. It was a big hit! There was also a maze and a photo opportunity when you came in (on hay bales of course!). Jonah was too small to do anything but we had fun going out as a family. He even had trouble leaning against the hay for a commemorative photo. He was so focused on the hay in his hand that he kept leaning over. Daddy was right there to keep him from really falling though.


Yesterday we dressed Jonah up again and showed him off to Andrew's co-workers. He had a lab meeting scheduled and thought that Jonah would be a fun little way to kick it off. Other than his adviser, we are the only people who have a kid so the younger people in the group loved oohing and aahing over him. We kept having people guess "Is he a dragon?" to which we said...yes. Of course the next person would ask "Is he a dinosaur?" and we would say...yes! With no tail and no wings, it is hard to say definitively what he is. Let's just say we are leaving that artistic liberty to the eye of the beholder. At the meeting we let Jonah do "reverse trick-or-treating" and hand out candy to the people there. He was really sweet and tried to stick each piece of candy in his mouth before he handed it out. Safety first!!


I left him in his costume and we continued the reverse trick-or-treating when we went to the mall. Everyone who passed us would comment and smile and the store workers really appreciated getting candy from our little man. It was a very early lesson in sharing and felt really good just making people smile all day. Jonah was a good sport both days and because his costume felt so much like his sleepers he never complained about having it on. All that is left to do today, on ACTUAL Halloween is to stay in and watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown as a family. Perfect!