Home Invasion: Trick or Treating With My Two-Year-Old

Edward was very excited to Trick-or-Treat this year.  It was all that he talked about for the entire day yesterday, and, being two, it was probably the first year that he actually slightly understood was it was all about.  And I do mean slightly.  It was very clear that what he understood about the tradition was that you get into people’s houses by any means necessary and take as much of their candy as you can carry while still able to quickly escape and move on to the next victim house.

We went out around six with some neighbors and their friends, and each of the three families had an older and a younger kid, and each family had their own theme.  Our friends were dressed as dragons, and their friends were knights.  Our family, as if you didn’t already know, was superhero themed, and Edward was Iron Man, although he kept telling people he was Spider-Man.  Eh, close enough.

Edward may not have known the name of his character, but he knew enough to know that he could blast people with the repulsor rays from his hands.  This was accompanied by a loud blasting sound effect that I cannot approximate in print, and he decided to try it out on one of the first people that we met.  Walking up to the house, he hadn’t gotten the whole “you have to actually say trick-or-treat” thing down yet, but he was very happy to say “Look-a-meeeeeeee!” and point to himself, which was cute, so nobody minded.  What they may have minded was him walking up to the nice lady bending over with the bowl of candy, putting his hand up into her face, and repeatedly making his loud blasting noise.

“Oh my,” said the nice old lady, and gave Edward some candy.  This made him happy, but as he walked down the steps of the house, he turned around and gave her a few more blasts for good measure.  She was the first person he tried to vaporize last night, but she certainly wasn’t the last.

The next house had a light on, but nobody came to the door when the kids knocked.  I guess that was why Edward just opened the door and walked in.  I tried to stop him of course, but it was not easy trying to reach your naughty toddler through a crowd of six children and their tails, shields, and helmets.  I managed to get him out of the house, but not before he had let the people’s dog out, so now I was trying to catch the dog of a stranger while simultaneously attempting to keep my child from breaking and entering in search of more candy.

Technically, since the door was unlocked, the charge would have only been trespassing (I think), but luckily they came downstairs and did not press charges.  Instead, they gave everyone treats and apologized for being upstairs and not hearing the door.  They caught their dog (I was unsuccessful), and, to his credit, Edward did not even try to blast them, even though they gave out pretzels instead of candy.

As the night continued, a pattern emerged.  Edward would run up to the door, ring the doorbell 4,000 times, and then just open the door and walk in to the house.  This meant that I had to be close at hand to stop him.  Most people didn’t seem to mind, although they were all a little surprised.  Also, Edward started to pick up on the fact that everyone else was saying “trick-or-treat,” so he decided to participate as well.  Unfortunately, the only lesson he had ever been given in that department was from his beloved Nini, who had recently come over and taught his older sister the “Trick-or-treat, smell my feet” rhyme. 

“Trick treat!  Smell feet!” Edward proudly announced at one of the houses, totally out of the blue.  Previously he had only said “Look-a-me,” “Thank you,” and “Bye bye!”  But now he was very excited to tell every house after that to smell his feet, and so he did.  “Trick-a-treat!  Smell-a-feet!” he said, over and over again.  Nini is in big trouble, even though she is probably laughing hysterically right now.

As the night wound on, the bigger kids got ahead of us by a few houses, which was okay because it meant less of a crowd on the steps, which made it easier for me to wrangle the boy.  I tried to be right up with him, helping him navigate this crazy tradition, so when someone with a big bowl of candy told him he could take two, I had to explain that he could, in fact, have another one.  Oh man, he loved that idea.  From that house on, every time someone lowered a bowl of candy in front of him, he said loudly “I…take…TWO!” and then took two pieces of candy.  And at the last few houses, that somehow turned into two handfuls.

Needless to say, when we all got back home, Edward had, by far, the largest haul of candy.  This is good news, because he clearly needs more sugar.  So I guess we still have a few things to teach him about Trick-or-Treating for next year, but at least he said thank you to every person that gave him a treat, he said goodbye to everyone, and he never got farther than anyone’s living room before he was caught.  I think we can call the night a success.