LOOK AT THE PUNKIN LOOK AT THE PUNKIN

Ah, October. The weather is cooling down, the trees are changing colors, the leaves are covering up the horse manure in my pasture, which for the record makes it a royal pain in the rear end to clean up. Moving on... Halloween is in the air!

Now, last year was the very first that Jaymes really got into. Up until then, Halloween had been one of those "aww man, mommy is cramming me into a pink bunny suit and I'm a boy, please save me" holidays. But last year, Jaymes finally made a connection. He figured out that those big orange pumpkin buckets are there for more than just cramming his blanket into. He discovered (with much excitement) that when he rang a doorbell, while dressed as a dragon, the nice old ladies in the houses would give him handfuls of CANDY. His hoarding instinct quickly took control, and he gleefully filled his bucket with candy until it was too heavy for him to hold. And then do you think he gave it to mommy to hold? Not exactly. He let me hold it, but he kept one hand on the side of it at all times.

For days afterward, he attempted to get people to give him candy. He would approach, his pumpkin held out, a hopeful expression on his little face. He would squeak out "trickortreat" and wait. Nothing. He'd say it a little louder. Still no luck. Finally, he would bellow at the unfortunate sucker "TRICKORTREAT" and stalk away. Eventually he figured out that he would just have to give up.

Jaymes has started to realize that Halloween is back in town. On Friday night, I was driving home after dark, and we passed a house with one of those huge light up Jack-o-Lanterns stuck to the front of their house. I don't know if it was the size, or just the effect of a huge pumpkin blazing out of pitch darkness, but when we drove by, Jaymes went crazy.

"LOOK AT THE PUNKIN LOOK AT THE PUNKIN LOOK AT THE PUNKIN! PUNKIN PUNKIN PUNKIN! LOOK!"

Fifteen minutes of Jaymes babble (not a lot of real words, it's a jibberish he does when he's excited) later, he was still overjoyed at it. It cracked me up, because at the time I thought something was wrong. You would have had to hear the sheer urgency in his voice, then the excitement, to fully appreciate it. Jaymes does not show that kind of enthusiasm often, it was really neat.

So the plans for this year are about the same as last year. Carve some pumpkins at the last minute, feed the scraps to the horse, who will be very pleased. Take photos of horse eating pumpkin. Take photos of Sierra and Jaymes feeding pumpkin to horse. Sierra will be a St. Bernard dog this year. Jaymes will be a dragon yet again. It still fits him, and he likes it, and it's warm. I also could not find a costume in his size that was not paper thin and tacky. He's an odd size- too big for the toddler costumes but too small for the boys costumes. So the dragon it is. It really is a cool costume though. I will be a hassled mommy. My husband will be a grump with some OCD issues. I thought about getting doggie costumes and bringing Echo and Midnight with us, but then I figured they wouldn't appreciate being a shark and a hotdog, and abandoned the idea.

Trick or Treating is obviously on the agenda, in my mom's ritzy neighborhood. Last year I got freaked out by a teenager dressed as Sarah Palin, he scared the bejeezus out of me. Hopefully we won't have a re-run of that one. Jaymes will have a blast, he understands how to trick or treat. My only concern is the one we always have- keeping him calm, and slowing him down enough to not bolt or take from the other kids, or scream. Hopefully he will be able to handle things, he really does love to collect candy door to door.

Wish us luck!