Tricker Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeat!

So, where were we?

Oh yes. We had settled on a greaser costume for Emrick. It was easy, comfortable, cheap (only the price of the Hanes shirts was spent!), and as it turned out, totally adorable.

Emrick makes his first trick-or-treat stop… cautiously.

And here is where I should explain Marcus’ costume, which is partly visible in this photo. He is dressed as his boss, Matt. The costume combined some of Matt’s signature characteristics, like his affinity for ping pong (I have mentioned here before that Matt is so into it that their office even has a ping pong room), his habit of wearing sunglasses indoors, and one of Matt’s favorite jokes to make (which is printed on Marcus’ shirt). I mean, I don’t know. I’d never met Matt before Halloween, so I just had to take Marcus at his word on this stuff. 😉 Unsurprisingly, though, Matt recognized Marcus’ costume immediately.

Matt and Emrick are introduced. As you can see, Emrick is almost as excited about it as that guy in the background, who, by the way, is a systems engineer in COSTUME as a security guard, NOT an actual security guard. I wish I’d known that before I shooed him down to the lobby, yelling “Break time’s over, pal!”

When Emrick made his second trick-or-treat stop, we were greeted with a person-less office, but a bowl of goodies had been left on a chair by the door.

It is just as well that there was nobody in that office. Emrick wasn’t exactly screaming “Trick-or-treat, y’all!” to anybody. In the days leading up to Halloween, I’d told him what was going to happen. I told him how he would wear a fun outfit and I told him about the phrase “trick-or-treat”, and how when you say it to somebody on Halloween, they put candy in your pale. And then you say, “Thank you.” I told Emrick this “story”  several times, and whenever I got to the “Trick-or-treat!” part, he grinned with delight. But he had only tried the phrase out himself a couple of times, faintly, and we didn’t really expect him to say it to any of those scary strangers at Marcus’ office. And he didn’t.

Of course, it didn’t help that some of Marcus’ coworkers were dressed like this:

And this:

This guy even bent down to give Emrick a lecture on good dental hygiene, telling him that he would have to eat lots and lots of sugary sweets if he wanted to accomplish the same impressive smile. This got a laugh out of me and Marcus, but nothing more than a sober stare of distrust from the Pooks!

Shortly after trick-or-treating, Emrick rediscovered the office ping pong room, which he had not seen since we were here in July.

Besides trick-or-treating and ping ping, there was mingling.

Emrick doesn’t know what to make of this green fairy princess.

When strangers come near, Emrick holds tight to whichever parental fingers are closest. In this case, mine.

And there were decorations.

And there was a wiener dog. A dachshund.

A dachshund dressed as a caterpillar.

There aren’t a lot of things that can get Emrick to bust a grin in front of total strangers, but as it turns out, a wiener dog dressed as a caterpillar is one of them.

This little girl in the foreground was dressed as a cupcake. Adorable.

This is Emrick STILL smiling about the dachshund.

You know, I am not a dog person. I’ve met dogs that I have despised, but I have also met dogs that I really liked. Still, I’ve just never had much interest in owning one. They seem high-maintenance, and since I don’t have much interest in taking care of a non-human high-maintenance creature, I’ve just never seriously entertained the idea. It seems unfair to the dog. And as much as I am not a “dog person”, I certainly would wish for any dog to have a happy, healthy home with attentive and dedicated owners. I am just not the person to provide that home.

But then there’s that darn dachshund. At one point, I bent down to interact with Emrick while he watched the dog. I wanted to get a close look at that darling grin of his. And wouldn’t you know, almost as soon as I squatted, that little dog came up and put her front paws on my knee and said, “Pet me, woman!” So I petted her and talked to her, and Emrick reached out and petted her, too, and the next thing you know, I’m thinking, “We should get a dachshund! This thing is smaller than a cat! I could sooooo do a dachshund. Or another small dog like a chihuahua! Yeah, a chihuahua! And look how happy it makes Emrick!” These thoughts were contained entirely in my head, of course.

Then the dachshund took off a few yards and when I caught up with her, I saw her and Emrick apparently having a “moment.”

I was taking in this scene of what I initially took to be mutual admiration between Emrick and “Girl” (the dog’s simple name), when I noticed something bizarre. The dog was sprouting two extra hind legs, and she was doing it right before my very eyes! Or so I fancied. For about 1.5 seconds. Then the odorous reality of what was happening hit me, and with that, my enchantment with the idea of inviting a little dog to join the Sorensen family ended as abruptly as it began, having lasted about six minutes from start to finish. It’s just a good thing those six minutes didn’t happen in a pet store…

Anyway, soon after, things were wrapping up. So we headed to the car, and got Emrick buckled into his car seat.

Here is Emrick, looking pleased with his day so far.

Then, because it is close to Marcus’ work, and because we hadn’t been there in over a month, and because it is awesome, we had an early dinner at Carrabba’s.

Chicken fingers and broccoli served with a dipping bowl of ketchup… I don’t remember what Emrick and Marcus got. Haha.

Our waiter, visible in the background, was dressed as Bane from Batman, complete with a mask. When he first came to our table, he explained to us who he was and assured us that he was smiling inside of his mask. I hadn’t been worried about that, but his assurance was amusing to us.

Back at home, the first of the trick-or-treaters were exiting their houses as we drove into the neighborhood. We were ready!

Emrick keeps watch over the candy bowl.

Marcus and I had come home in separate cars, and since Emrick and I got home first, I fielded the first onslaught of trick-or-treaters, which came in a one brief rush. When Marcus got home, I decided to take Emrick to a few houses. I planned to stay on our street and only hit three or four houses. I knew Emrick wouldn’t care, since he doesn’t yet understand that more houses=more candy. The fact that he never gets any candy might have something to do with that, though. But I wanted him to at least get his feet wet, so to speak, with the whole trick-or-treating thing. So I walked him across the street and to the front door. There were lots of people out and so everyone’s sidewalks and front steps were crowded. Still, we made our way up the first house’s steps, slowed down only by Emrick’s fascination with every pumpkin he saw. I finally got him to the front door and rang the bell. Within a second, there was a throng of kids behind us. A man opened the door, and I bent down near Emrick and said, “Say ‘trick-or-treat!'” But Emrick just eyed the candy until it was tossed in his bucket. I said “Thank you” on his behalf and then we headed down the front steps. On the way down, Emrick possessively fondled their many pumpkins, some of which had obviously been hand-painted by children. He was especially enamored of one tiny one, painted black with little accents of pink and yellow. Before I could stop him, he picked it up and pulled his arm back like he was getting ready to throw it. I quickly grabbed it, put it back, and scooped him up so I could carry him the rest of the way back to the sidewalk. Disaster averted.

With the next couple of houses, I again tried to get Emrick to say “trick-or-treat” and he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t say a word, in fact, while standing at anyone’s door. He chatted with me on the sidewalk between houses, of course, but on the doorsteps he was silent as stone… That is, until we got to our fourth and last house, though even then, the words he said were not “trick-or-treat.” The house was that of our next door neighbor, who has a couple of teenage children. As we made our way up the driveway, a giggling group of twelve-year-old-ish girls were skipping away from the house. Other than that, the way was clear, and we would be alone at the door. This house is built on a bit of a rise, so there are more than just a couple of steps to be climbed to get to the front door. Emrick and I got to the bottom step, and we looked up to see a teenage boy standing in the open front door, wearing one of those hideous, scary, bloody, murderous-looking clown masks. You know, that whole “deranged, serial-killing clown” look. He was waiting for us. “Come on, Emrick. Let’s get some candy,” I said. I tugged gently at his fingers, but that kid was a ROCK. He would not budge. He just stared, a little concerned, at this Satanic clown wearing cargo shorts and a hoodie. So I picked Emrick up and said, “Come on. I’ll bet he’s not as scary as he looks,” and I carried him up the stairs. When we got to the door, the psychotic clown extended a bowl of Starburst in our direction, and in a friendly voice, invited us to take what we pleased. And what did Emrick do? He said, “No!” and looked away.

And that, my friends, was the only thing Emrick said to anyone but me during our short excursion.

When we returned to the house, I had a small but fun chore to do. Earlier in the day I had baked cupcakes, inspired by some cute Halloween cake cups I had seen at the store. So a little vanilla cake mix plus some food coloring, and we had a festive treat waiting when we got home. Believe it or not, none of us had even eaten any candy at this point.

While I frosted the cupcakes, Emrick helped Marcus with the trick-or-treaters. He must have become somewhat accustomed to seeing strangers all day, because he had no problem running to the door and standing there close to all of these random people and loud noise on our front porch. At one point, a mother escorted her little girls to our front door, and Marcus put candy into their bags. As he did so, the mother complimented Marcus’ Jack-o-lantern. “Nice pumpkin,” she said, “I like the eyes.” No sooner had Marcus said “Thank you,” than Emrick, who had been standing there, grabbed the door and swung it shut with a loud slam! While they were still on our porch! Immediately after, Marcus could hear the mother through the door, saying to her girls, “That little boy is such a good helper!”

Haha!

I had planned for Emrick and I to forgo candy that night and have a cupcake instead, but then Marcus alerted me that Emrick had just gotten hold of a Butterfinger, and before you could say, “Nobody better lay a finger,” the candy bar was open and half-eaten.

But the best part of Halloween was yet to come. While frosting the cupcakes, I had commented to Marcus that it would be nice if has some vanilla ice cream to go with them. Since I had used the last of Marcus’ hair gel on Emrick anyway, Marcus decided to make a quick trip to Smith’s to pick up hair gel and ice cream. He planned to leave when I was finished frosting the cupcakes, so that I would be available to pass out candy. When I was finished, I headed out to the foyer to tell Marcus I was ready to take over candy duty. The doorbell had just rung, and I heard the door open and heard a group of kids say “Trick or Treat!” Just as I turned the corner and into the foyer, Emrick ran up to the open front door and shouted “Tricker Heat!” at the group of kids standing there.

We could not believe it. All night, he had been too shy to say this to anyone, and suddenly he was shouting it gleefully to a group of strangers. We thought it was so cute, Marcus grabbed the video camera. He would put off his trip to the store for a few minutes just in case Emrick repeated this behavior when the next group arrived. But after a lull in trick-or-treaters that lasted several minutes, and it getting sort of late, we gave up and Marcus left for the store. A couple of minutes after his departure, our doorbell — along with the sound of a very large group of children on the front porch — echoed through the donwstairs. Emrick and I were in the family room, but as soon as that doorbell rang, Emrick sprinted to the foyer on his little legs, squealing, “TRICKER HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT!”  all the way to the front door! My Halloween was made.

He repeated this a second time, and then a third time after Marcus was home (but we still didn’t get it on video).

After 20 minutes with no doorbell activity, we turned off the lights, took Emrick upstairs. We opted to give him a bath instead of a cupcake. Then we jammied him up ad brought him downstairs to say “Night, Night” to every inanimate object in the house.

And with that, he was off to bed, dreaming of candy and pumpkins and uneaten cupcakes, and dachshunds and tricker heat. Or so I hope.

Night, night, little punkiss.

~muah!~