Last Friday was Lauren's Halloween Costume Parade at her daycare and pre-school. I dutifully showed up around 3:10 PM to help Lauren get ready for the parade which was scheduled to start at 3:30 PM. But by the time I arrived at the school, Lauren had already changed into her costume, her Snow White outfit (you can see left for the costume as she wore it a week earlier at "Trunk or Treat"), complete with her earrings, necklace, and handbag. I was carrying her tiara, so that ended up being the only part I could help her put on when I got there. The Costume Parade started at 3:30 PM and Lauren followed the teacher around the playground with all the other kids. They did this for about 10 rounds before the kids gave up on it and just did what they wanted. It's typically the way it works each year. After that, we left the daycare and headed home. But not for long. We headed right back out to go to Westgate Mall, the only one in the area that I knew was doing a "mall trick-or-treat". Westgate, an older mall in the area, doesn't typically get much foot traffic, and in general is fairly empty most of the time, so it was surprising to us when we arrived at how crowded the mall was with trick-or-treaters. Standing in the center court, it almost seemed like the mall was wall-to-wall people. The event was supposed last from 5PM to 7PM and kids could walk from store to store, saying trick-or-treat and getting candy. We got there pretty close to 5PM and Lauren got a little bit of candy and nice heart balloon, but by the time we had walked half way around the mall, the stores were already out of candy. It seems everyone else had the same idea we did about going to the mall. The sad thing is, I doubt very many of those people had ever been in that mall prior to the event. Lauren on the other hand goes to that mall all the time, as she loves the coin-operated rides that line the interior walkways. We keep a bag of quarters in the car, so she can take it in with her and pick the rides she wants to go on.
On Saturday (Halloween day), we took Lauren to Kaiser so she could get her H1N1 vaccination. The were out of shots, so she got the FluMist variety, which she was happier about anyway. She already got her seasonal flu shot a month earlier. With the H1N1, she's got to go back in 30 days and get a second one, but because of our trip to Taiwan we've got planned, we'll probably take her exactly 21 days after this vaccination (the minimum time between shots allowed).
Later on Halloween evening, Lauren got to go to a party being held by one of classmates at daycare. She was excited, as she doesn't go to that many parties held by other little kids at her school. But instead of dressing as Snow White again, she wanted to dress as Sleeping Beauty, so we pulled out a princess dress from her closet, and accessorized with a princess crown and wand. At the party she got to play for a while, have pizza, watch a movie, before heading out into the neighborhood for trick-or-treat. She went to many more houses than we've ever let her go to before, and in short order, she filled up her plastic pumpkin full of treats. She had so much fun running from house to house with her friend Caroline from school, the two of them laughing all the way. I think, all in all a very successful Halloween.
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