Or eye. Lost one in the bottom of the box a few years ago.
You can never plan right–but you can never plan on being stingy, sometimes it’s lots and lots of kids. I decided one 150-piece Costco bag was probably enough, though.
Tonight it was just two nice dads saying thank you, looking me in the eye and wishing me a Happy Halloween and meaning it, with their three tiny princesses, one of whom needed me to turn off the loud scary green “Happy Halloweeeeeeeen” rubber hand before she dared reach into the candy bowl. One little boy. Don’t remember his costume, all I noticed was that sweet little face that had clearly been coached to take one just one. I thwarted all their training.
And with them was a sullen young teen who had either gotten dragged along to keep an eye on him, or maybe was determined to still get his share of the loot in defiance of how much he’d grown in the past year, a combination of the above–whatever. I’ve had four teens, I recognized his look that didn’t quite dare to dare me to challenge his right to be there.
Instead I laughed, “Sure, go ahead,” when he looked at me, and held the bowl of candy out to him too and held it and held it to make clear that he, like the little kids, was just plain welcome to all he wanted–it’s all about having a good time, and I was glad they were making memories together. (With a strong bit of Take it Take it Please Take it!) I was grateful to them for reminding me just how magical all this is for little kids: it’s more real for me when I actually get to see them getting to pretend and wave their wands and stay up late and be all dressed up and be so excited about it all. And candy too! Grownups are so nice!
Had I known they were going to be the only ones who were going to come, they wouldn’t have needed to knock on another door all night. On the other hand, I stayed on the dads’ good side. Pretty much.