Sophie had a very lucky Halloween. She was a mermaid at school the other day and today she was Belle.

Sophie loves mermaids and she loves Belle.  A great Halloween for her.  Chloe would have preferred to dress up as Captain Hook, but rocked Alice in Wonderland anyway.

They came home with a huge haul, as evidenced by the photo.  The candy will last us until Halloween 2011.  We might even be able to distribute some of it next year.  Does candy ever go bad?

Amazingly enough, Chloe is still happy to go trick or treating with us.  She asked about going with a friend, but when we resisted, she didn’t even put up a fight.  Which means that she really didn’t mind.  This willingness to continue to associate with us is is somewhat astonishing to me.  She’s not quite 10, but I expected this year to be the point of no return into the black hole of tweendom.   She still thinks that we’re ok.  Yes, she uses the term “annoying” to describe me much more often than she used to, but she’s still willing to give me hugs and even kiss me on the cheek in public.  An increasingly rare occurrence, but an occurrence nonetheless.    I don’t suspect that these displays of affection will last much longer, which makes me a little sad.  I seem to recall that my parents had already started to embarrass me when I was 10, so I’ll take whatever extra time I can possibly get.

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An Andy Rooney-like final thought, do kids today know the meaning of the phrase “you may take a couple?”  Couple being the operative word.  It means “two.”  Not 5, 10, not two handfuls.  I’ve been burned at least three times this evening handing out the candy.  Call me a fool.  But not anymore.  I’ve since dumbed down my vocabulary to explicitly tell the children (some of whom don’t even bother getting into costume) to take “two.”  Jeez.