Halloween Magic

Last night was the greatest night of Cora's life.

I love Halloween- shiny polyester store-bought costumes, earnest little kids on the hunt for delicious candies, the promise of staying up past your bedtime. It's so fun.

Landon loves Halloween. He has always loved to dress up and remains my only child who routinely wears his costume throughout the rest of the year when playing games and going on adventures around the house.

Claire loves Halloween. She counts down the days to dress-up, and then, even though the costumes stay in the dress-up bin that only Landon uses, she retires the whole idea only to have it reawaken on Oct. 31 the next year.

This year Claire decided to be Anna only to deem the outfit "too scratchy" after I got a few Sisters Forever poses with her and Queen Elsa. She ran inside to switch to the old dance recital costume I bought off our neighborhood buy/sell page 2 years ago, back when I still thought she might ever want to play dress-up. The magical night was upon us, and dress-up is precisely what she wanted to do.

But Cora. In 2016, the year of cake and embracing pumpkin decor, Cora realized she LOVES Halloween. When I went in her room yesterday morning to wake the girls up for school, Cora went from full horizontal to full vertical and yelled in a loud strong voice "IWEARMYELSACOSTUMETODAAAAAAAY."

(I wear my Elsa costume today(yyyyyyyy) for those who can't read run-on-all-caps.)

She was SO excited.

We got to our friend's party down the street and she politely ate her dinner of corn muffins and tortilla chips. I realized we've reached the point where I can be in a different part of the yard chatting and Cora can just handle her shit. She ate, drank, threw away her plate, demanded that Landon push her on the swing until his arms got tired, and came to tell me when she had to go to the bathroom. It's a new phase of parenting.

But it was the Trick-or-Treating that really brought out the joy. She doesn't even like most candy (m&m's being the exception), but she ran up to each house as fast as her little legs could move in her white satin heels (I had suggested we also bring her school shoes and she was appalled; those are "not princes mommy"). She held her little pumpkin up at the door, squealing intermittently while she waited, and then she let out a surprised burst of laughter every. single. time. she got candy at a new house, and turned to race back to us in the street, cackling with glee the whole way. It was the BEST.

And she did it for all 20 or so houses.

One time I walked up with her to the door to say hi to a neighbor and when it came time to walk back to the street, she said "No, Mama, I run by m'SELF" and so she did.

Christmas this year is going to be incredible.

The big kids also had an amazing time, but they were with their posse of school friends and we only occasionally saw the flash of Landon's swords or Claire's sparkle. Cora though, she's still all ours.

We got back to our friend's house and Cora dug through her treasures. She tried Swedish Fish but rejected them immediately because no one is perfect.

We went home around 8, since that's normally when the kids are in bed and we're off duty, and as she lay snuggled up in her purple blanket and horsey sheets, she yelled "Mama I do that AGAIN tomorrow!".

I really wish we could!