Halloween

To me Halloween has always been overrated. I don't like to dress up, and although I consider myself a pretty creative person, I have no creativity when it comes to finding a "cool costume." As a kid I don't think I was ever anything except for a pirate or a vampire. Every year it was either pirate or vampire time. So I guess it wasn't surprising to me when we took Maddox shopping for a halloween costume and he was about as excited as I am to do my online billpay session every month. His mother and I were trying to sell it, "Maddie, look at this one, it's BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!!!" He'd respond with, "I want chicken nuggets," or "can you buy me some trucks?" Finally we came upon the Elmo costume, he loves elmo, and agreed that it would probably be the best option for him. The Elmo costume is basically a furry muscle shirt with a hood that looks like Elmo's head. We decided that we needed to get him some red clothes to go under the furry muscle shirt so that he could, you know, look like elmo. As we looked for clothes the only thing that would work were some red stretchy pants and a long sleeve red t-shirt. I have a rule that no child containing my genetic material is allowed to wear red levi's, so we went with red stretchy pants, which look hilarious with his chicken legs and his diaper bulge. This was the costume our labors yielded.

The first opportunity Maddox had to wear his costume with me came at my work. After a parking lot wrestling match he let me know he didn't want to wear his Elmo threads. His exact words were, "Don't take off my Yankees jacket! I don't want to wear the Elmo coat, I'm going to smack you in the face." I took his not so subtle hint and let him wear his stretchy pants with the bulge, his yankees jacket, and the only shoes he'd wear that morning, his church shoes into my work. I decided it was better to look like a retarted guy who can't dress his kid, than to force Maddox to wear a costume when he didn't want to wear. We had a good time, everyone gave him candy, he probably even got more because they felt bad for his daddy dressing him like a gay tap dancing yankees fan. More importantly he got to play with his good buddy Lincoln.

Saturday was his second opportunity to wear the Elmo costume. Maddox and I had my family over to watch football and eat Saturday night. I had kind of warned everyone that he might not be down to wear the costume, and it was raining so we might not do the trick or treating at all. My grandpa came prepared. He brought a handful of candy in his pants pocket so that Maddox could at least say "trick or treat" to him. The best part of this was seeing my grandpa handing Maddox the smashed up melted candy bars that he'd brought. I love that guy. After dinner I asked Maddox if he wanted to go trick or treating with me, to my surprise he responded, "um, yes." I hurried and put on his furry muscle shirt with the elmo head hood. I kept re-assuring him that it was just a coat, and I was just taking him outside to get candy. He happily went along at this point, and took off towards the neighbor's door as soon as we went outside. Each door we went to was a new thrill for him. When he was given something he'd say, "thank you, can I have that red sucker too?" Or something like that. Sometimes he'd just want to get down to business and would go straight to, (pointing at the candy bowl) "Please?!" There weren't many trick or treaters out in our little community so Maddie got loaded up with candy.

As he held my hand walking to each door I couldn't help but think about how fast time is flying by. I watched my little boy knocking on doors, telling people "thank you." And smiling so big each time they would give him candy. I just kept wondering how this got here so fast. It was just a little while ago his mom and I brought him home. It was just a little while ago he started sitting up, rolling over, crawling, walking, etc. I want this to slow down a bit. Sadly I don't think it will. He is my whole world, and I'm so grateful for the little things he does everyday that make me laugh, the progress he makes that amazes me, and the special moments we share that remind me how much it is possible to love someone. I know this much, for the first time in my life Halloween wasn't overrated this year.