Tricks and Treats (A Belated Halloween Posting)

Some days, our youngest son is full of vim and vinegar.

In this respect, he is like no other kid I've ever babysat or known in my lifetime.

Judah is definitely in a class all his own.

He's a very sweet and loving and even obedient boy as a general rule, but every so often he'll have a couple of days so chock-full of mischief that I can't help but to wonder where it all comes from.

Judah's last bender was, I'm quite sure, due in large part to his veins pulsing with sugar from all the goodies he'd consumed in those couple of days surrounding Halloween.

It seemed to begin the day of our big 'fall festival' event at Awana a couple of nights before Halloween.

Now Judah loves Awana. That in itself would have been enough of a highlight of his week, but when he learned we were all going to be dressing up cowboy style that night, he was positively giddy.

Looking back, I realize my first mistake was that I probably should have been more watchful over the piles of candy I was filling goodie bags with for my Awana class.

Which, incidentally, gave him not only the sugar rush but also plenty of idle time on his hands to devise and carry out his plans.

His first 'Trick' was one that puzzles me immensely.



Because of all the influences in our sons life, KISS is not one of them.

And yet, this is the second time this kid has attempted to emulate Gene Simmons.

Naturally, when a mom sees her very guilty-looking son with her eye-makeup on his eyes, she knows exactly where to go to begin her investigation.



Someone had a heyday with mom's makeup case.

What really struck fear in my heart, however, was what I found while cleaning up that mess.

Matches. Lord have mercy.

At Judah's age (3 years old), my own father was playing with matches and managed to burn his grandparents living room to the ground.

(Note to self: Put all matches and flammables under lock and key.)

Oy.

Later, I set the kids to coloring at the table so I could get some baking done. Brand new jumbo sized crayons.

When I went to put them away, I found the paper peeled off the blue crayon, and a portion of the crayon remaining which suggested that it was not broken, but had, in fact, been bitten off.

Further inspection found the same fate had occurred to the tips of the other crayons in the box, and Judah nowhere to be found.

I did find him in his room. Looking really, really guilty. That blank, "Are you talking about the crayon incident? Because I didn't touch the crayons" kind of look.

"What did you do?"

"Nuffing," he lied.

"Let me see your teeth."



Oh, sure, kid...everyone's teeth have speckles of blue, purple and green wax all over their teeth. Perfectly normal. Nuffing at all out of the ordinary here! (Thank God Crayola had the foresight to make non-toxic crayons.)

And did I mention that all of this came on the heels of another recent 'disaster' involving mom's pedicure creme? He'd even gone to the trouble of wrapping up the towel to hide the cup or so of creme that he'd squeezed from the bottle. Some had also been smeared into the bath mat.



Which begs the question: Why is it always my stuff that he gets into and never his dad's?

Oh, but he wasn't through.

Later, in the short window of time between when the girls I babysit going home and the time we had to leave for Awana, there was the whole 'let's slam the refrigerator door hard while the produce drawer (where we also keep cheese sticks) is still pulled out' trick.

Because moms just love having their brand new refrigerator drawer cracked (even if it still works) only a couple of weeks after the ice dispenser incident, which for unknown reasons has rendered our ice dispenser useless about 66% of the time.

(I worry that he plans to singlehandedly destroy our brand new refrigerator before we've even had it a full month. Where have we gone wrong, I ask you?)

We left for our Awana event in a rush, because what other way is there to leave when you've babysat all day, filled treat bags, made and frosted 2 dozen cupcakes and had to deal with such disasters?

The boys did make cute cowboys, though.



Unbelievably, when I picked Judah up from his class that night, his teachers assured me that he'd been an angel. They'd also given him a carameled apple, which I promptly confiscated, not needing him to have any. more. sugar. in his system.

Somehow, though, Judah found that apple a couple of days later and brought it to daddy with big pleading eyes. Daddy, not knowing I'd kept it up out of his reach for a reason, sliced it and let him have at it.

It shouldn't have surprised me then, when later that night Jeff took Judah on a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up a few things we needed, and while he was looking over the fruit Jeff heard a young couple chatting nearby. The man suddenly stopped to say, "Excuse me, Sir...your son!"

Jeff turned around and had to look up to find Judah.

Yes, up.

Judah had, in that split second while Jeff was bagging up the grapes, managed to scale a nearby tiered produce display of exotic fruits.

There was our smiling son, standing atop the display bouncing slightly, his hands held aloft in victory stance...so very proud of himself for having accomplished such a feat.

Yes, our little darling is one of those boys that does what every other kid thinks of doing but knows better than to actually do.

When Judah sees something that looks fun to climb, he climbs it, heedless of any consequences or possible dangers, completely neglecting the good behavior we've tried so hard to instill in him.

His chagrined father reached up and removed him from his perch, to the laughter of the young couple. "Boy, you can't turn your back on that kid for a second, can you?!"

And they were exactly right. This feat would be repeated not one week later on the shelves in the history section in Barnes & Noble.

Perhaps we should get this boy a swing set with some monkey bars a rock climbing wall to expend some of his energy and prowess on, because riding tricycles, throwing rocks on the lawn, destroying rose bushes and climbing fences around our property apparently aren't enough of a challenge for him.

(Note to self: Teach him to never climb the fences Erect a high cinderblock wall around the perimeter of the property.)

I just don't want to look out the kitchen window one day and find him parachuting off the roof with an umbrella like my mom did as a child.

(Note to self: make sure ladders are safely tucked away behind boxes and stuff in the garage.)

Or worse yet, along with his brother "flying" a soapbox derby style aeroplane out the attic window and down the sharply peaked roof of their home in Germany (like my grandma's sons-my uncles-did during their years overseas in Germany shortly after WWII). She looked up just in time to see them 'fly', no doubt muttering one of her, "God help us" emergency prayers as she ran towards them with leaden feet...and watched as they landed miraculously on the clotheslines which bowed to the ground, depositing them safely to terra firma without a scratch to be found, though I'm sure a few years were scared off my grandma's life. I never did ask, but I'm thinking after checking them over thoroughly, she probably marched all the way up the stairs to the attic and nailed that particular window shut.

(Note to self: Hide all hammers, wood and power tools, and dissuade every attempt at making 'cars' or anything else out of furniture dollies).

Oh, but Judah sure was a cute little guy in his "Twick-oh-Tweet" costume, again as a cowboy.



Big Brother didn't do a half-bad job of coming up with an original costume of his own with most of our stuff still packed up.

A quick raid of the coat closet, and he went as a sniper.



Judah had been trick-or-treating with in years past, but was never really old enough to 'get' the whole tradition.

This time, however, taking his cues from big brother, his excitement was palpable. He couldn't talk enough about "canny", and just like big brother, loves to dress up in costumes.

We were fortunate, as we had only two snafus while out trick-or-treating.

The first was his ill-mannered "Gimme some canny" comment to the first home we visited.

Uh, yeah. Apparently we'd neglected to instruct him on the proper Trick-or-Treat ettiquite before reaching for her doorbell. (I console myself with the thought that at least he had the decency to say "thank you" for the candy, and that the lady was one of those that can't resist the charm of a cowboy.)

Then there was the poor unsuspecting man who had just barely opened his door, when Judah yelled "Twick-oh-Tweet" with unbridled enthusiasm, causing the man's big old tom cat to jump up in fright and run as far into the depths of the house that he could go to get away from such intrusion.

And Judah decided to give chase (because that's what you're supposed to do with big Tom cats that look just like your Grandma's cat).

Much to the man's stupeification and mom and dad's chagrin.

So. very. awkward. Do you run in after him? Allow the man to pick him up and set him outside? Or just wait and hope he reappears in a reasonable amount of time?

We did the latter, and nabbed him when the cat galloped past the door with Judah in hot pursuit.
I know the kids enjoyed their trick-or-treating, but I must admit I wasn't at all disappointed when it began to rain, giving us a good reason to take the boys home.

Besides, inspecting the kids candy bags for our favorite candy bars razor blades, LSD tatoos, tainted gold coin choclates and other possible dangers is something the Frump household takes very seriously, and we felt the need to take care of that as soon as possible.