This was our first year trick or treating in Manhattan where children knock on store fronts instead of houses. It’s great, your local dry-cleaning ladies, Dunkin’ Donuts workers, and hardware store owners dole out sweets and you don’t have to go into apartment buildings to get candy. It’s definitely not a suburban Halloween outing with haunted porches and amateur vandalism, but you can still share a raucous, gluten and corn-syrup filled All Hallow’s Eve with your little monsters.
A couple tips for Halloween 2012 if you plan on taking your toddler out for the fun:
- Try not to wear a mask that obstructs your view with fur – even if it was 50% off at Ricky’s.
- Don’t hold your toddler while they slobber all over a lollipop; it will only stick to the fur of your last-minute attempt at a sexy-costume. (Like you really think your going get any tonight anyway? Muuuwha ha ha ha!)
- Larger and tougher New Yorker children WILL steamroll over your toddler to grab stale Now-n-Laters from the nasty Chinese restaurant on the corner. Resist the urge to push them into traffic for smashing your baby against the homeless guy in the doorway.
- A plastic Jack-o-lantern doubles nicely as a purse/diaper bag.
- Don’t feed your child dinner.
- Do let them eat only Skittles, lollipops, Milky Ways, Snickers, and M&Ms for three hours while other parents look at your wild-eyed chocolate covered offspring in disgust. Take lots of pictures during their sugar high. It’s worth it in the morning.
- Scowl at the neighbor who’s giving out organic apples and make sure your toddler sees you flicking them off behind their back. You don’t want them to get the idea that Halloween is supposed to be retarded in any way.
- Order pizza from the Dominos you just trick or treated at and give a piece to your son/daughter. This will insure a large overnight poop which no toddler Halloween is ever complete without.
- Put child to bed at first signs of sugar crash: screaming, whining, eye-twitching and stumbling into walls. They’ll enjoy the best sleep of their life and and then it’s Miller time for you and the hubby! Nice.
