Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

We had such a fun first Halloween with Paxton!

Having him around makes everything more fun. I was never a fan of Halloween before, but now I wish they made it a three-day event. We couldn't fit in everything I wanted to do with him in one day. And then there's the fact that I had three costumes for him and they all deserved equal time. It's just a wonder that I didn't pull a virtual Weekend at Bernie's, dragging around a sleeping baby to the festivities I desperately wanted him to experience, even if he won't remember it in two days' time.

This morning, I took him to the San Marcos library for story time. He donned his spider costume for that, only because it was freaking hot outside and I thought that might be the least likely to cause him to pass out from heatstroke. The woman who does the Friday stories in San Marcos is adorable. She should have her own children's show. She did a great story about a woman who fears nothing being greeted on her path by a series of scary items. The good part about the story was that she acted it out with said items--a pair of shoes "clomp-clomping", a pair of pants "wiggle-wiggling", a hat "nod-nodding", etc. Paxton loved that! Now that he's able to crawl, it takes a pretty entertaining story to keep him glued to his seat. Granted, he only made it about halfway through before he was trying to hit the road, but that's still pretty impressive. His little friends at storytime, Austin and Hank, were dressed as a basketball player (who HATED his sweatbands) and an astronaut (who HATED his g-suit) respectively. I, of course, left my camera in the car, so you'll just have to take my word on how adorable they all were.

I thought we could come home and get a nap in before the night's festivities. I wanted to believe that yesterday's adamant opposition to napping was a fluke. Nope. He's 100% anti-napping. Unless, that is, the lull of the car becomes too much to resist. While driving home, he fell asleep with string cheese in his mouth. It looked like a little cigar. He was O.U.T.! Even cheese couldn't keep him awake. However, before we got home, he was up. It was after 1 already, so I decided to keep him up to eat lunch. That might have been a mistake. He ate, crawled, played and then screamed bloody murder when I put him to bed for a nap. As far as I know, he didn't nap at all. He's sometimes happy just sitting in his crib, talking to himself for a while. I don't go get him until the screaming ensues.

I think we were both exhausted when the evening's festivities rolled around. I got him all dolled up in his dragon costume, and off we went. We met up with my friend, Andrea, and her hubby Alberto, and son Henry just as we arrived on the square and they were leaving. They were so adorable--Andrea dressed as a jailbird, Alberto as a sheriff and Henry as a bag of money! That is some planning! I don't think I've ever been so coordinated in my life. I love it! At the same time, we ran into another mommy friend of mine, Carmen, with her hubby Phil and their son, Harper, who they dressed as Charlie Brown. It was so fun to see everyone!

We walked through the downtown area, where the shops all stayed open late to give candy to trick-or-treating children. When we arrived, we immediately saw The Great Pumpkin, complete with horsedrawn carriage. We missed the opportunity for a photo op, mainly because I was a little shell-shocked at what I was seeing and simply pressed forward. I ran into some friends I've not seen in a while, and relished the chance to show off my little dragon. He was in a zombie state, though. His cheeks were red (probably from the discomfort of being shoved into a giant polyester stuffed animal on an uncommonly hot October evening--damn global warming) and his eyes were glazed from the naps he thought he could skip earlier in the day. Smiling was not high on his list of priorities. He preferred to just stare benignly at the bizarre sights parading before him. A grown man in a diaper and bonnet. A devil who was admiring him in a way that made me uncomfortable. A zillion girls dressed as High School Musical characters. You know, standard Halloween fodder that surely blows a baby's mind.

Rather than taking candy, we gave it out. Chris had a vat of it left over from a work event and neither of us could fit another ounce into our already tight jeans, so we tried to give it away. People are strangely suspicious of a roaming candy dispenser. The only time I had any real luck is when I was talking to my friend Ulee in front of her store, and the kids mistakenly thought I was the shop owner. They weren't shy to help themselves then, thank goodness.

We were going to go to the fire station for another community event after that, but Paxton was exhausted, as were we, so we just made a brief stop at my mom's house to show off her grandson all decked out for the holiday. She swooned, of course. He fell asleep while I nursed him, but when my mom wanted to rock him and sing to him, he was too entertained to go back to sleep. Since he was suddenly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (well, scaly-tailed, since he was in the dragon costume), we got out his favorite "toy" at my mom's house, her bongo drum. He loves drums. And he's a natural. Last week, he would pound on the drum and intermittently make percussion noises with his mouth and hand. It was what we used to refer to as an "Indian" sound, but that is surely a politically incorrect faux pas nowadays. Anyway, he's a musical genius. Of course.

We drove home with him dozing in the carseat. We wanted to drive down the street that we discovered last year is the hub of Halloween in our town. This year did not disappoint. There were hundreds and hundreds of people. The homeowners go all out and it just makes me love my community more and more. I can't wait until Paxton is old enough to enjoy all of these fun experiences!

One last thing--when we were turning onto our street, I saw a sign by the road. I thought, "oooh, garage sale in our neighborhood!", but no, the sign said "Candy" with an arrow pointing ahead. I told Chris that we had to see which house had the sign posted, since our neighborhood is a vertiable ghost town on Halloween, and not in a good way. We found one more sign, urging us on toward candy, and arrived at a house that was all decked out for the day, complete with skeletons crawling out of a graveyard under a strobe light. It was so fun! If Paxton was even remotely alert, I would have forced him to go inside to thank the neighbors for going all out, but he was out like a light, so we went home.

Chris has a gig tonight and they don't even play until something like 3 a.m. It's an afterhours party and I hate it. He hates it, too. It's 11:35 and this is late for me. Paxton wakes up at 7, and I like to get 8 hours of sleep if it's at all possible. Clearly that won't be the case for either Chris or I tonight. I just pray that Chris makes it home safely. I told him to get a hotel if he's too tired. Poor thing. He worked all day today. I know that he'd rather get a root canal than do this gig, but I guess that's part of being in a band. Boo.

Happy Halloween, witches and warlocks.