Chocolate for Breakfast

My kids are getting both older and wiser. It used to be that I could count on a healthy share of the Halloween candy flowing into the house on October 31st. The older kids would happily offer me my favorites, and the young one had no idea what happened to his candy bucket while he was asleep.

This year it's more like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, as trades fly back and forth across the kitchen, and make or break deals for Crunch bars happen hourly. Even the little guy has realized he can get something for an offer of a chokey candy he knows he won't be allowed to eat, and made some sweet deals with his sister.

I even had to trade a chocolate Hershey bar for the one full sized Almond Joy in the house. Though I'm the only one who likes them. Apparently sewing Halloween costumes, allowing sleepovers, renting videos and making chili and cornbread for dinner doesn't equal free candy from the offspring.

Oh sure, I can buy my own candy, but it's funner to get it from the kids, willingly.

This year we had a seal, a dark wood elf (complete with the crown I made in jewelry class my freshman year at Lewis & Clark College) and a Roman general dressed in armor reproduced in duct tape. They were accompanied by a Mirkwood Elf, a Cirque du Soleil performer and a pirate. We went to houses in the neighborhood, and the people were wonderful, friendly and generous, even though they'd already had three hundred children ring their doorbells that evening. It was forty-two degrees and a clear night, the wind rustling the yellow leaves on the trees and blowing loose leaves over the darkened streets. It was magical, in a modern way, to see kids young and old wandering, filled with wonder and candy, acting out a goodwill exchange of candy for costuming.

Dishes call.

Don't forget to vote.