Trick or Treat!

The Mom of a former classmate of T's founded a chapter of the MOMS Club here. I joined immediately. I also volunteered to be a playgroup leader, and luckily the playgroup I was assigned was T's. Since he can be a bit difficult (ahem), I think the playgroups will go a bit more smoothly since I can spot the signs that he's going to freak out and try to circumvent them.



On Thursday, there was a Trunk or Treat gathering for the entire membership. Since T was in school, it was just me and S. This was fine with me because it's generally easier to manage one child instead of two, especially when there's candy involved.


Thursday morning, I get up and get ready then wake the kids up. I've allowed an hour to get them up, dressed, fed and out the door which is normally plenty of time. In case we run short I grab breakfast to go, which is why granola bars were invented, right? I've got to get S in a costume before we leave because I'll go straight to the Trunk or Treat after I drop T off. Since we live off base, we didn't buy any Halloween candy this year since Germans don't do the whole Trick or Treat thing. Therefore, I needed to run by the Shopette or the Commissary to grab a bag or two of candy before we went Trunk or Treat-ing.


For whatever reason, S had a violent, opposing interest in being costumed, even though she had plenty of costumes to choose from. She could be a ballerina, princess, Tinkerbell, or a Wake Forest cheerleader. Thanks to Grammy for the costumes. I managed to get the Wake Forest costume on first, but the bottoms were a little big and I couldn't decide which way they should go, since they had the Demon Deacon (their mascot) on them. If you put the Deacon in the front, it looked like she was wearing a freaky, exotic pair of men's banana hammocks (you know, the kind where there's an elephant trunk where their um..well, you know should go). If you put the Deacon in the back, it made her look like we needed to change her pants and frankly it looked uncomfortable to sit on. I know my words don't do it justice, but it was quite funny if you plugged your ears to drown out her shrieking protesting.

I finally got her into the Tinkerbell costume, partly because T liked that one the best and partly because it was the only one that snapped in the crotch which made it easier to get over the tights and onsie. And poor T, during all of this drama, he managed to go potty (WOOHOOO!) and get dressed by himself, all while trying to help me calm down S. It ended up taking me over 30 minutes to get her dressed and at least another 10 to get her to the door so I could put on her shoes and coat, which set off a fresh round of shrieking. While hauling her out to the car, T looks at me and says, "Mom, she doesn't like this" which okay, true, but also - too bad. We said we were Trunk or Treating and Trunk or Treating we were going.

I was late getting T to school so that just set a negative tone for my day anyway. After dropping him off, I dashed to the main base and literally ran through the Commissary to grab some candy. I was only five minutes late to Truck or Treat, which was pretty good since we left the house 20 minutes later than usual. I threw open my trunk, tossed the candy in a bag, and proceeded to try and get S ready to Trunk or Treat (which involved unsuccessfully trying to get her to hold her wand and put on her hat since it was cold and rainy). We were the next to last folks to arrive and the last to join the group of moms and kids milling about.

As I'm coaxing S towards the group of folks, a lady approaches me, looks in my trunk and says flatly, 'OH. You didn't decorate.'

I'm willing to admit the possibility that due to the rough morning I had, I was just the slightest bit testy, but the tone in which she said that, coupled with the fact that it was not mentioned in the email that decorating your trunk was a requirement just raised my hackles. I am 70% sure I replied pleasantly but firmly that I didn't realize you were supposed to decorate your trunk, but sometimes my pleasantly but firmly can be perceived as hostile, so the jury is still out on how Suzy Homemaker took that statement. She asked me to sign in on a piece of paper with nothing backing it in the rain, so that was a bit of a challenge. When she saw my name, her attitude changed. "Oh!" She exclaimed, "You're B. Dahl. You're the playgroup coordinator!" and then she started babbling about...nothing....the way people do when they realize they've been obnoxious or stuck their clog covered foot into their big ol' verbal diarrhea prone mouth. I cocked an eyebrow and said nothing until she went away other than to confirm that I was, indeed, B Dahl.

So, we did the whole Trunk or Treat thing, which was fine. And I wasn't the only one (thank goodness) who didn't decorate their truck. After making the rounds of all eight vehicles, we all just kind of stood around shivering until the first Mom ran for the comfort and cover of her vehicle and left. Then we pretty much all scattered. Come to find out, this woman is in my Friday playgroup. Great. One of the other moms already warned me that she was going to be difficult to deal with, which I can totally see coming. But there's always one in every group and she can't be any worse than S.A., who is a fellow CS spouse. Still, it did occur to me more than once to lock her in one of the decorated trunks and hide the key. Luckily I showed more restraint than the laundry room incident, but then again, she didn't mess with my stuff. Stay tuned, I'm sure hilarity will ensue shortly.