Pardon my non-matching verbs.
So, it's Halloween, one of my least favorite holidays. I do enjoy taking the kids out trick-or-treating when they're little, but that is the extent of my fondness for Halloween. I do not like dressing up. I loathe it, in fact. When the kids were little and it was ok for them to be cutesy, I didn't mind picking out costumes for them. But when boys get the age the even the baby (who's 8) is now they do not want to be cute. In fact pretty much all costumes are either Star Wars related, some type of super-hero or bloody/gory/death related. I dragged my feet a long time on that because something about my itty bitty 6 year old looking like the grim reaper or a murder victim was not so appealing to me. This year, I gave up the fight. As we're walking through the costume aisles in Target I could be heard saying, "Fine, get the knife to complete your freaking bloody costume!" I figure this is not a battle worth raising my blood pressure over.
It has always been my dream, if you will, not that I really dreamt of it, but it sounds good, so... I've always wanted a kid to wear a sparkly, glittery costume with wings. You may have noticed that I don't have any little girls though. Never did. So, I'm not above paying off a boy or two to dress up as Tinkerbell. Tonight I struck a deal with Jack that if he can convince Rhett, next year for the two of them to dress up as something sparkly and glittery with wings they will get $50! Now, I can hardly wait for that costume shopping trip to Target! Ha! ;)
So, this Halloween, we have one boy (Brent) headed out to the gym to train to fight. Seth standing guard over the candy and presumably allowing the kids who approach him in costume to have some and Wayne and I took a ninja and a bloody skeleton out to get candy. Rhett was very into it. He had zoomed up to most houses and back before Jack even reached the driveway. Jack is...well, partly Jack is Jack. But he's also kind of in the stage where he really wants to go, but it's not too cool to seem too eager about it. Oh wait, that's just Jack any day! ;)
I've been noticing this for a several weeks lately, but tonight while they were trick or treating it became so obvious to me that Jack and Rhett are the boy versions of me and my sister Jennifer. Jack is just a mini-me anyway, this is not a revelation. But put the two of them together and I guess if you knew me and Jennifer and children you could see what I'm saying. It's not so pronounced now, but for a long time it was. Jennifer is about 2 1/2 years younger than me. However, I have never really had that typical oldest child thing. It's very much a role reversal with us and heck, I'm fine with her being older now! ;) Rhett is very much the independent, let's-do-this kind of kid. Jack is the much more cautious, think it through kind of kid. It's just funny to watch in Jack and Rhett because it's so obvious!
Whether I like Halloween or not, it's all good though, because the kids told me I could have all their Reese's. Those apparently aren't their favorites. Jack doesn't even like chocolate, which is just plain weird! So, after a couple houses I'd ask, "did you get me anything?" They'd report back if they'd just gotten a Reese's or not. After a while, Rhett said, "This night is like Halloween for Mom or something!" holding up all his Reese's. Jack, being the sweetheart that he is (I DID say he's my mini-me, right?), at the houses where people just left bowls on the porch, would search through to get a Reese's if they had them. Awwwww!
Time to go feed them now. It's in the contract that they have to have real food before good food...or something like that!
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