I am proud of my daughter. I had turned her loose last night to trick or treat unassisted. She followed her cousins door to door with no problems, as if she knew what she was doing all along. With her first house, she simply ran up to the door, saw a piece of candy she liked, calmly took it, put it in her pumpkin, and ran back towards us. She got too excited though as she kept running and tripped in the street. She cried for about the time it took her uncle to give her back her pumpkin and she was fine after that, which was about ten seconds. Later that night I looked and she had a small scratch on her nose. But for the rest of the night she continued to run up to each house, hold out her pumpkin and wait for it to be filled, then run back to us.

My youngest sister and I had our girls ride in the wagon, while the four boys ran around to each house. I think they wouldn’t care about riding in anything, they were enjoying themselves running around the neighborhood. Besides I think the parents wanted them to run off all that extra sugar.

There was one house that was decorated in Haunted Halloween decor. Spooky blinking lights, Halloween music, spiderwebs. Mostly just overdone with the spiderwebs. Our brave boys slowly approached only to have a couple of guys in scary costumes jump out and spook them. The youngest of the boys just stands there and says with his plastic sword dramatically, “I can kill you.” Then he holds out his pail and says, “Trick or treat.”

The girls walk up to the house next, as they are walking slowly behind the boys, and the oldest girl gets spooked and backs away. My daughter just looks at the guy strangely and then laughs. The guy hands her candy and says, “I love her, it’s always the youngest ones that are the bravest.” I then say proudly with a smile, “That’s my girl!” My little girl turns to wave and says, “Bye!” I couldn’t help but laugh.

As soon as we got home I tried putting my daughter to bed. She was crying non-stop and kept getting up. She saw me pull my shoes off and the crying got worse. She grabbed her pumpkin, now emptied of its contents, and brought me my jacket. I think what she was trying to tell me was that she wasn’t done trick or treating. I tried to tell her that Halloween was over with and that it will be back next year. “Candy,” was all she could say through her sobs. She still hasn’t gotten the trick or treat words down just yet, but I’m sure she will next year.

I rocked her to where she finally calmed down enough to finally put her to bed. I was wanting to get there myself. Maybe I should’ve ate some candy along the walk like the boys were doing. I know I wish I had at least an ounce of their energy. I laid her down in her bed without any trouble and crawled into my bed without interruptions. It was a good night and I was excited to see that my little girl enjoyed herself. I’m already looking forward to next year!