Halloween traditions

Lyla is currently upstairs in her crib, happily kicking the bars. Earlier she sprint-clomped from the living room couch to the bed in the guestroom and back, no exaggeration, eleven times. Then she roared like a lion around the entire first floor, a psycho toddler-dervish who at times literally whirled.

And to think that three lollipops ago, she was a just a bumblebee who didn't feel much like trick-or-treating.


But we pushed her along the corridor of the Eden Prairie mall, through the throngs of other kids who all seemed to know exactly what to do, and up to the first candy-giver we could find. Into the empty pail plunked a box of Dots, at which point Lyla mistakenly thought it was time to eat them.

"Peez."


"Lyla, Halloween isn't about consumption. It's about accumulation."

"PEEZ!"

"Plus, Dots are squishy little throat plugs."

At this point, Julie swooped in and carried Lyla to the next candy distributor. Thankfully, it was something Lyla could eat.


That yellow lollipop lasted almost half an hour. She met the fire department's mascot.


She rode in the yellow bus.


And she held out her bucket for more candy.

I don't remember having this much fun as a young trick-or-treater. But then, Halloween was never about fun; it was about urgency. We didn't use plastic pumpkins, but pillowcases. Around the neighborhood we'd run, intolerant of anyone with side cramps or curfew, gasping "Trick or treat!" greedily. We'd leap off the porch the instant a transaction ended and then cut through the yard to the next one.

I suppose it was fun, in the same way the Army is fun.

Nothing topped the Halloween blizzard of 1991. House after house, amazed citizens dumped handfuls of candy into our bags, saying things like, "Oh my, you boys are so brave" and "Here, just take the entire bowl."

Halloween didn't typically end with eating candy. It ended with counting, sorting, and swapping. It ended with complex data analysis. Eating came later.

But today, eating came first. When Lyla sucked her lollipop down to a nub, we switched her to a root-beer-flavored Dum Dum. At first she heartily objected, but we watched as her Halloween paradigm slowly expanded to allow root beer onto its list of acceptable tastes, right next to yellow. Later she had a blue one, and it blew her mind.

As I mentioned, we came home and Lyla was totally wired. But she hasn't kicked her crib in several minutes, so it appears she has finally crashed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to try out a new Halloween tradition: stealing candy from a baby.