There Must Have Been An Angel On Her Shoulder

Trick or treat!!


Can I just say I love, love LOVE the fact that Halloween was on a Saturday this year? How nice to have my pop around for the festivities, and to be able to hang out for more than an hour or two after work.

This year we decided to continue the newly-discovered practice of Selective Trick-Or-Treating. Last year we found out whose places are worth it and this year we visited those first. A few more were added, seeing as how The Princess's ability to propel herself from house to house has improved...saving Mommy's achin' back.

Here's the skinny on the treats, and tricks, that went down in my old stompin' grounds this weekend:

Mid-afternoon, we headed from our house in The Tucky to my folks' place in unincorporated McHenry County...between a few smaller municipalities...a place that brings Mayberry to mind. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else, and they've all been there for eons.

After The Princess changed out of her Halloween outfit (cute little "Boo" t-shirt and brown pants from Nana and Grampy), it was time to see what this kid had in her.

First stop: Frank's house next door. Frank is a family friend, and I'm sad to say The Princess doesn't get to see him nearly enough. Somehow we manage to go to Grumma and Grumpa's when he's not around so we keep missing him. The Princess was a good sport, though, and took off at a full run toward Frank as soon as she saw him. He crouched down to receive a full-on kisseroonie smack on the lips from my sweet little girl. The kid does not disappoint.

By now, Grumpa and The Hubbs had caught up with us and we all headed inside. Did I mention the reason we hit Frank's first? He gives out Twinkies. And Hostess Cupcakes. One of each, actually, if you're me or my kiddo. :) We hung out for a while, The Princess playing Ricochet Rabbit in his living room, before heading back outside into the crunchy leaves...which, by the way, are a big hit with my little girl.

Out in Frank's driveway we watched The Princess crunch, crunch, crunch some leaves, and realized the pizza lady was just leaving Grumma and Grumpa's house.

Dinner time!

After we polished off the pizza (poor thing never had a chance!), we helped The Princess back into her costume and started pounding the pavement.

At Barb's, across the street, we walked up and hit the doorbell. The Princess stood there like, "What the heck are we all standin' around for??" And then Barb opened the door with her bowl of candy. She crouched down to get a good look at my little girl, who snatched a Kit Kat and ran for all she was worth. Rock on...my kid has been to exactly two houses, and she's got the hang of it!

The Princess dragged us across the street to G&G's other next-door neighbor, Anita. Anita always has great stuff...she invited us in after chucking a sizeable handful into The Princess's basket, and started passing out drinks: a cosmo each for The Hubbs and me, a beer for Grumpa, and a juice box for kiddo. Gotta love it!

Next stop: Aunt Rose's house. For those of you who don't know, I grew up four doors down from Robert Zemeckis's parents (he was already in Hollywood by the time I came around), affectionately known to all of the neighborhood kids as Aunt Rose and Uncle Al. Aunt Rose "the candy lady" used to pass out candy on Saturdays to any kids who would ring her doorbell. No matter that Halloween only comes once a year...at Aunt Rose's house you could get that same special treatment every week! But only once...believe me, we tried everything we could think of to skip over that rule, but she was a stickler. :)

Aunt Rose is getting on in years, so she's not up to answering the door for all of the trick-or-treaters anymore. Two young women were there to help her, and we were led into the living room. There Aunt Rose sat with her hair done beautifully and topped with a sparkly tiara. In her right hand was a magic wand with a star on top and pretty ribbons cascading down over the handle. A lot of things have changed over the years, but her smile can still light up a room.

The Princess was enamored with the jar of eyeballs that was set up on the piano bench...it lit up green and the eyeballs started moving around at the touch of a button. She must have hit that thing seventy-five times during the ten-minute visit to Aunt Rose. Which earned her a dollar, by the way. Apparently the candy lady has become the money lady.

A couple more houses down the road, and The Hubbs was frozen to the core. Losing all that weight sure changed his insulation system and his threshhold for chilly weather! Pop, The Princess and I dropped him off on our way to the last house.

Stacy and Dave's...another beer for Pop, and a Weimereiner for The Princess to play with. She actually did pet him a little, but lost interest pretty quickly. Stacy pointed out a couple of snowmobiles in the back of their (disgustingly clean) garage, and offered The Princess the chance to sit on one.

So now we have a picture of a piggy on a snowmobile. Priceless!

After Stacy and Dave's, we headed back to get out of the costume and back into the cute little outfit. We played for a little while in G&G's living room before heading back over to Anita's for the post-trick-or-treating party.

It was loud and crowded and lots of fun. The Princess met a bunch of new people and doggies and had a ball. Anita's a grandma with a little grandson about her age, so she has all kinds of great stuff that The Princess could play with.

As the night went on, Kiddo decided that the Sesame Street phone was her favorite. She wandered back and forth staring at it and hitting the buttons, watching the lights and listening to the sound effects. This kid was in a zone.

And then she took one too many steps. The stairs. She had walked up to them not thirty seconds earlier, looked up and carefully maneuvered herself in the other direction.

This time, though, her judgment was off. She planted her foot on thin air and went tumbling all the way down to the basement. I think it was fourteen steps, though I couldn't say for sure.

I've never moved so fast in my life.

I was at the bottom of the stairs scooping her up before she even started to cry. Which she did. With gusto. This kid was terrified.

So was I.

I hugged her and rocked her and gently squeezed her all over to see if anything hurt. After about 20 seconds or so, she was silently pushing away from me so I let her down. She stood fine, and walked briskly over to pick up the Sesame Street phone and start hitting buttons again.

She and I walked back up the stairs together and re-joined the party. Not long after that she began to get sleepy, so we took off for home.

When we got back to The Tucky I put The Princess to bed. Within seconds, she was asleep. I don't think I checked on her that many times during the first night after bringing her home from the hospital. I was so sure that she had been hurt, that something would pop up later, and I didn't want any chance of anything else happening on my watch. Bad enough I had let her fall down the stairs...now I was on high alert.

I don't think I slept a wink on Saturday night.

I checked again yesterday. Not a scrape, not a scratch, not a bruise. No marks at all. Not even so much as a bitten lip or tongue.

She's fine. I can hardly believe it, but she's totally fine. There must have been an angel on her shoulder.