Ben the Policeman

The day finally came. Halloween. I don't think I've ever seen Ben look forward more to day before, unless you count visits from Grampa. And we don't usually tell him about those ahead of time for obvious reasons. Halloween is impossible to keep a secret though, so the anticipation was pretty intense this year.

It all started with his preschool party the day before, but I'll post about that another day. On the actual day it all started with carving his pumpkin. Ben picked out a spider pattern, even though I tried to persuade him to go with a cute little cat or something equally pleasing to Mommy, but his mind was made up.
In the end, pumpkin carving was a little grosser than he was expecting, poor guy. I made him think I was going to force him to help scoop out the insides, only because I thought the pictures were funny.
In the end we went with something a little less messy, and for him a lot more fun. After I had each section cut out I let him "poink" out the pieces.
This was quite thrilling for him, and if you saw my blog, you saw how pleased he was with the results of all our (my) hard work. I'm hoping next year he'll be more into the whole process, but if not, there's always poinking to be done.
After pumpkin carving it was time for the big event. Trick or treating. Ben really enjoyed that part last year, he has collecting tendencies that I think make it hard for him to stop, so I was expecting pretty much what we got. Lots of trick-or-treating.

Aunty came along this year which added to the fun, and left Mommy free to take as many pictures as she wanted. This made me happy on many levels.
Ben is almost always polite and sweet natured, and we always make sure he practices his manners at each house we visit, but his four-year-old nature put a strain even on his generally well-mannered self. Actually, it was his four-year-old nature and Kit Kat bars that did it. Let me explain.

Ben loves Kit Kat bars. They're his very favorite. He calls them Kit bars. At the very first house we went to Sammy got two Kit bars:
And Ben got none. LOL.
Poor Ben. Sammy kept getting them too. This was, of course, hysterically funny for Ang and I. (I think his daddy felt sorry for him.)

FINALLY after two or three more Kit-less houses for Ben, this were looking grim let me tell you, a very nice man showed up at his door with a bowl of chocolate bars and let Ben pick his own. He was thrilled.
So thrilled, that he managed to convince the man to let him have three of them. I think he was worried this was his one and only chance. He had many more Kit bars in his future though, and after those first few moments of tension relaxed and had a lovely time walking our neighborhood chatting about his costume with the people that answered their doors.

After a few blocks, about twenty houses, he was all tuckered out, and since the wagon was full of his brother the firetruck, he was quite happy to hop on board another form of transportation for his last few houses and then the walk to the van.
I think it's fair to say all of us had a blast making all of Ben's little Halloween dreams come true this year. It's fun to take out the little ones in their costumes just because they are so stinkin' cute, but I think it's even funner to take out my little boy now that he actually understands what's going on. The funniest part was that all week he was looking forward to eating all that candy, and I actually told him he could eat as much as he wanted that day and I wouldn't say no, and in the end I think he probably ate about five things. That won't last though will it? Not if he takes after his mother, that's for sure.