Halloween Brought Adorable Tots to Our Door

On Halloween I didn't take photos or videos of the adorable tots who came to our door. It wouldn't have been appropriate, but part of me wishes I had. Due to the cold, they were few and far between, but the tots were so cute! A pretty little girl from next door visited us with her parents and her newborn brother and was too little and too shy to know what to say. Her dad, Sean, prompted her to say, "Trick or treat!" Nothing.

"Twick or tweat!" I prompted. I don't know why I thought speaking in toddler talk would help.

"Treat!" I tried again, and she said, "Tweat!"

She pulled out some candy from our big bowl of candy but she couldn't make up her mind, so she put it back and pulled out a different one. The parents laughed sheepishly.

I offered the parents some candy, but they declined.

"We haven't had many visitors," I commented.

"We're just going to one or two houses," they explained. Katie, the mom, cuddled their newborn close to her chest. The baby was almost completely covered in a warm blanket, but she showed me part of his head.

Our next tot was a little blond boy who had practiced his lines.

"Trick or treat!" he said after a little encouragement.

After selecting his candy, he burst out with an enthusiastic "Fanks!!

Darling!

Jim gave out candy to a group of kids who were all dressed up and had dressed up their dog, too. I wish I'd seen them.

I remember another cold night, years ago, when the wind was blowing and it was all I could do to get my little three- or four-year-old daughter to go around the block. Just one block, and our own block at that!

Getting candy didn't influence her in the least. The cold and the wind scared her, and the crowning blow was a tall, big man dressed as a pirate and carrying a large, fake sword loomed out of his darkened garage and scared her even more.

It was a long way from little Sarah shivering and scared on Halloween to out-going Sarah dressed as a Teletubby for the Second Act, where she worked as a teenager, in the City of Iowa City's Halloween Parade.