Batman makes a pretty good tiger, don't ya think?

We had a great time last night, and thank goodness for the extra hour’s sleep! (Not that I got to bed at a decent hour, mind you, Calli was too wound up for that…)

Before I regale you with our tales of Ghoulish adventure, however, I need to give you a little background…

For a few weeks now, the Justice League have been living in our house. Calli has decided that she is the Flash, Mommy is Hawkgirl, Kat is Wonder Woman, Tristin is Batman, and I am Superman. She addresses us accordingly, making for some great lines when taken out of context:

‘Whatcha cookin, Superman?’

‘Why ya cryin, Batman?’

‘Aw, Batman, you’re sooooo cute!’

‘Batman can’t talk. He’s a baby!’

More recently, she switched herself out and became Strawberry Shortcake. The logic of a three year old…

This is a tender caress, and not a slap... Honest!

...See? They love each other!

As I was preparing for the first Halloween party of the day, I asked Calli what I should wear. I didn’t put together a costume, so I was just thinking of throwing on the Beetlejuice or Jack Skellington T-Shirt and calling it good.

But when I asked Calli for her opinion, she screwed up her face in that ‘Are you crazy?’ way and said, ‘You’re Superman.’

So Superman T-Shirt donned, we went out to the car. She kind of wandered around in her Wonder Woman costume, and I said ‘Calli, come on, climb up in to your car seat!’

‘I’m Strawberry Shortcake!’ came the reply, since I had not addressed her correctly.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘I thought you were Wonder Woman?’

The crazy look again. ‘I’m Strawberry Shortcake DRESSED like Wonder Woman!’

‘Well, OK, Strawberry Shortcake-Wonder Woman-Diana, get in the car!’

This seemed to appease her…

Some Halloween highlights:

Wonder Woman takes a respite in a spooky graveyard...

The first party was at the rec center near our house. Calli nailed the bean bag toss, but didn’t want to put her hand in the dark boxes with gooey stuff inside. Also, she wouldn’t eat anything. The hot dogs they were grilling smelled really good to me. I kept dropping hints, but Daddy wound up going hungry…

We went back home to pick up Mommy and Tristin and drove a half hour to the second party… which had been canceled. That was a repeating theme this year: all the events that we’d gotten used to going to were scaled back or canceled altogether. Maybe that’s a topic for another post on the economy…

The kids had fallen asleep, so Mommy and I stopped for a Larkburger. (Which makes up for the lost hot dogs, because these things are crazy delicious.) We were also in the mood for Frosties, so we swung through Wendy’s. Calli woke up by this time, and wanted a ‘toy and burger’. Wendy’s has this nasty habit of putting CDs of children’s audiobooks in their kid’s meals. What’s a three year old do with that? I asked for a toddler toy, and they didn’t have any. Cripes! What a Halloween this was turning out to be!

So we booked it back home, listening to a God-awful story about a kid afraid of Halloween costumes. (Doubly irritating because it booted my Halloween Mix out of the player, but nevermind…)

We got home as Batman started getting fussy. So Mommy decided she’d stay in with the little one, and Calli and I would Chick or Cheek.

The Adventures of a cold Super Hero!

By this time, it had gotten dark and COLD! I put on my Spider-Man coat, and Calli put on her coat over her costume, leaving only the tiara and a bit of starred blue skirt to identify her. She then decided the tiara was better served as a necklace.

The first house we went to, the man that came to the door said, ‘Oh, my! You’re cute just as you are!’

‘She has a costume!’ I blurted, ‘It’s just all covered up because it’s cold!’

‘Well, you’re supposed to put the costume over that stuff!’

‘Yeah, I guess!’ I said, irritated at him for critiquing our Halloween habits, and irritated at myself for sounding like a petulant child.

I told Calli that no one was going to know she was Wonder Woman unless she wore her ‘crown’ on her head, and she let me adjust it. Everyone else knew she was Wonder Woman, except the guy dressed like Wayne from Wayne’s World that kept calling her Supergirl. ‘No! I not Supergirl! I Wonner Woman!’ I don’t think he heard her…

One house was really scary! It was all dark and had spooky sounds and screams coming from it. There was some kind of black curtain hung around the porch that blew in the wind.

‘Wanna go in the scary house?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s tooo scary!’ Calli said, clutching my hand.

‘Then let’s run past the scary house! Ready! Say, You’re too scary, scary house!’

And we did…

We lasted about a half hour. It was just too darn cold. But Calli had a great time.

Wonder Woman ... and Friends!

For all the screw ups of the day, the big payoff was when, after showing off the loot to Mommy, I was downstairs making hot chocolate and hot apple cider, when Calli came down and said, ‘You were awesome, Superman!’

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘You took me to Halloween.’ *Big hug*

1. ‘This Is Halloween’ from Nightmare Before Christmas

2. Overture from Phantom of the Opera

3. “Tubular Bells’ by Mike Oldfield

4. ‘Ghostbusters’ by Ray Parker Jr.

5. ‘X-Files Theme’ by Blue Man Group (from X-Files: I Want to Believe, really the only redeeming thing about the film is this track…)

6. ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson (What kind of Halloween playlist would this be without it?)

7. ‘Walking With A Ghost’ by Tegan and Sara

8. ‘Hell’ by Squirrel Nut Zippers

9. ‘Little Ghost’ by The White Stripes

10. ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ by The Charlie Daniels Band

11. ‘The Ghosts That Haunt Me’ by Crash Test Dummies

12. ‘Full Moon’ by The Black Ghosts (song title and band name relate, for an extra SCORE! Plus, it’s from those vampire teen-angst movies the kids like …)

13. ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor’ by Johann Sebastian Bach

14. ‘The Skeleton In The Closet’ by Louis Armstrong

15. ‘Night on Disco Mountain’ from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (Yes, I went there…)

16. ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’ by Johnny Cash

17. ‘Werewolves of London’ by Warren Devon

18. The End Titles of Nightmare Before Christmas (just to cap everything off nicely)

So that’s it. I’ve seen a lot of lists with CCR’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Child’, and I very nearly followed suit, but personally, these songs speak of hot summer nights in a bayou somewhere, which for some fit perfectly with Halloween. For me, these are summer songs. It’s a personal taste thing…

Whaddaya think?

Candy Candy candycandycandy...

Yesterday I blogged about our Halloween preparations. Last night we got to put that to the test. Could Calli walk up to strangers and say ‘Chick or Cheek’? Or would she clam up and clutch her black kitty bucket tightly to her Wonder Woman insignia? We went to Minturn’s Trick or Treat village to find out.

Before I go any further, we failed as proud blogging parents last night and didn’t get pictures. I know, I know. My wife had thrown the camera into some weird setting and the flash wouldn’t go off. I was too busy holding Tristin (who makes a pretty cute tiger if I do say so myself) and keeping him warm to play with the camera. I have since fixed the problem and we will have plenty of pics from today, I promise.

Now that I’ve got that nasty business out of the way…

Minturn was great. A lot of houses and businesses went all out. It’s one of those communities where the businesses and homes are all just kind of jumbled. But it makes for a great trick or treating experience. Hit a few houses, get cold, step in to a business and warm up. (Especially the guys giving away the ‘treats for adults’: peppermint schnapps! Thanks, guys!)

We covered all the basics in this one, albeit short (it was so cold we only lasted half an hour) trick or treat outing:

Calli cried at one kid in some kind of Wolfman costume. We’re talking howling crying here. The skeleton people a few houses down were no problem.

We got enough tootsie rolls to prematurely pull all of her teeth out.

We were followed for a few houses by a drunk guy that told Calli, (best Barney impression from the Simpsons) ‘Heeey, Wonner Woman! Don’t get your lasso out on me! I don’t wanna tella truth!’ *sigh*

Calli did say ‘Chick or Cheek’ at nearly every stop, albeit timidly. But if someone said, ‘Can you say trick or treat?’ … Nothin’.

On the way home, Calli complained that her feet were cold and they hurt because they were so cold.

But at home?

‘Calli, was trick or treating fun?’

‘Yeah, Daddy!’

‘You wanna do it again tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, Daddy! Yeah Daddy! Supergirl! Whoosh!’

‘Ya know, when Mommy and me were kids, we only got one Halloween…’

‘OK, Daddy!’

Right now she’s still asleep and I’m creating a Halloween CD for our trick or treat tour of the valley. We’ll carve a pumpkin and set candy out for any neighborhood trick or treaters, and run around everywhere. I never got a costume. Maybe I can cut some holes in a sheet and carry rocks around in a paper sack…

Or maybe I’ll just laugh with my kids for a while!

Out of the blue, she started running up to us, bag or purse open, saying ‘Chick or Cheek!’ Sometimes we’ll be on the floor playing puzzles or looking at books, and suddenly, she’ll grab one of the purses that she’s amassed into a rather sizable collection and say, ‘I wanna play chick or cheek.’ She’ll then run out of the room and slam the door. Moments later comes a small knock. When I open it,

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there’s a three year old there, all smiles, saying ‘Chick or Cheek!’ At which point I drop whatever small toy was within arm’s reach into the proffered bag/purse. Calli then runs off giggling to show Mommy what she got for chick or cheek.

I’m excited, because we get to start tonight. Every year there’s a lot going on in the valley and we try to hit it all! Tonight we’ll be in Minturn trick or treating, tomorrow we’ll hit towns up and down the valley. I actually get Halloween off work, so we’ll fill the entire day with fun and adventure! If all the candy doesn’t keep her wandering our halls like the undead, I’m betting Calli sleeps well tomorrow night!

So that’s our Halloween, I leave you now with a bit about everyone’s favorite Halloween candy from Lewis Black…