Halloween

We had a great time on Halloween! First, we had dinner at our friends' house and answered the door for a lot of trick or treaters. Every time the doorbell rang, Ulysses jumped up and ran to the door, saying, "I'll get it, I'll get it!" Then he would carefully lift the big candy bowl and stagger to the doorway that Gloria had opened by that time.

Gloria had bought some kind of motion-sensitive electronic witch that groaned and grimaced when people came to the door. She delighted in flickering the lights -- which also made the witch go off -- and scaring the poor children. It was the scariest house I saw in the whole neighborhood! When we got back from our trick-or-treating, Donald told us that while we were gone, one little girl got so scared that she had to go inside to use their bathroom!

Ah, yes, trick-or-treating. Ulysses was all for trick or treating, except that he didn't want to put on his costume! The farthest he got was the red plaid shirt and blue jeans. He loved the red cowboy hat, but that didn't mean he wanted to wear it. He wanted to wear his favorite hat, which is a denim ball cap. So he did not look very cowboyish. Whenever we tried to get him to put the costume elements on, with whatever coaxing we could think of, he just laughed at us and said, "No...ho-ho-ho!" as if we were all just kooky. I tried to just put the vest on him, and he screamed. So I just started touching him with the vest to make him scream. You know, little touches, little short screams. It sounds pretty mean, but I couldn't help it! It was too funny. Don't worry, I didn't really make him upset.

I carried the vest on my arm and wore the hat, and told everyone that he was a cowboy. Nobody seemed to mind! And to think I was so proud of making that gold star and putting together the whole costume. Oh, well. Next year he'll get the idea. I think he had the idea, anyway. He just didn't want to dress funny! Either way, people marveled over how cute he was and gave him candy!