Hyped up on Halloween

Today I finally understood the meaning of the words “sugar high”. I had always been one of those people who scoffed at other mothers’ tales of crazy kids hyped up on sugar, my reasoning was that if your kid couldn’t handle a little sugar without bouncing off the walls then you should probably start testing his blood sugar levels cause we do have a pancreas for a reason and more than likely the hype about sugar was due to the fact that most kids overindulged at parties and what was making them bat-shit crazy was being with twenty other kids, that just hyped each other up by association, not the sugar. Eh. Well, tonight I stand corrected.

I mean I still believe the above, to an extent, but we also don’t have an awful lot of sugar in our house. I’m not a food nazi by any means, I just try not to give them to much junk since they’re little enough that I still have some sort of say in the matter, I just had no idea what happened when they got a little… ahem… extra sugar in them.

Tonight, well tonight, I had three kids bouncing off the walls (my two plus a friend). The girl was mostly whiny and tired, the boy and his friend were like two whirling dervishes - on crack. Even after I finally managed to get him settled down enough to get in bed he still laughed maniacally, and frankly a little eerily, for a good ten minutes.

Anyway... one of the things I had always regretted most about living and raising my children in Italy was that they wouldn’t share the same experiences I had growing up in America. No Saint Paddy’s day, no Fourth of July fireworks, no Cinco de Mayo, no fall activities, no Halloween, no Thanksgiving with family (we do celebrate thanksgiving but just our little family and the occasional friend) and more… so many no’s… let’s not even talk about all the stuff they’ll be missing as they get older (like sports and high school stuff), but one of the no’s I regretted most was Halloween cause I loved it growing up, it’s the biggest kid’s holiday in my book. So to be able to take them trick or treating was so exciting (and a little emotional, but I’m just a total emo lately).

To be honest it was a little depressing too, from my point of view. When we lived in Milan no one trick or treated (save for one lone kid in my building, who I fussed over every year), but since moving to Cuneo a few kids have come every year, actually it seems that every year there are more. So I figured it was “done” here and since this year my kids were old enough, the weather was acceptable (you can read about last year’s Halloween experience here), and we had a couple of friends to join us, off trick or treating we went.

Very few houses opened their doors, those who did basically handed one kid out of the group a small handful of “grown-up candies”, clearly stuff they happened to have lying around their house at that very moment, and grunting went back in. No comments on costumes, no pretense of being frightened, no acknowledgement of the kids (and grown ups) in their get ups, honestly it would almost have been better if they hadn’t opened their doors at all.

Thankfully all the shop owners in our little town square were handing out candy and making a big deal of it so the kids were happy and excited and I managed to swallow some of my anger. But it got me wondering if all the trick or treaters I get (and there are many, considering we’re in Italy) just go to the shops and then my house cause I’ve got it decked out (relatively, just a few cobwebs and spiders and a couple jack’o’lanterns) cause ringing at all the other houses is frankly pretty depressing.

The husband, ever the problem solver, suggested next year we put letters in all our neighbors’ mailboxes explaining what Halloween is about and what they’re supposed to do possibly adding a Halloween themed sticker in the letter that they can put out on their doorbell if they want to participate (and actually hand out candy – not last Easter’s tiny easter eggs) so the kids know where to go. A sort of Halloween handbook if you will.

I’m totally doing it, I’m also pretty sure they’re going to hate us... but what the hell, just look at these faces:

The Boy had his pirate costume from saturday's party on and decided at the last minute he wanted to be Thor.

The Girl is a cat today because saturday's wonder woman costume would've been covered by her coat (there's a tail back there too...)

Our first "Trick or Treat" or as they say in Italian: Dolcetto o Scherzetto.

We'd had no luck so far, you can tell by our dejected pace. Also, that red thing on my butt is my tail...

This is where we got stale easter eggs

no answer

No answer, just some curtain twitching.

So sad... where's my candy... meow...

Life is looking up... got some candy! (also, this picture was taken about 30 seconds before she threw up all over me and herself. Though after a quick wardrobe change - ears and tail still intact - we joined the others again and finished up at the shops.)

We're happy here, we got a decent stash!!

P.S. Tomorrow you’ll find me guest posting at Taming Insanity, check it out!