Frances Friday: Boo!

We had been talking about Hallowe'en for a few weeks. Frances knew what she was dressing up as--a lion--and she knew what lions say, and what to say at the door, and that people would then give her candy. She was excited ("I'm going to be a LION! rroar!") but it was impossible to know what she made of it.

Until the first house.

We rang the bell. "Trick or treat!" said Frances, clear as day. "Aren't you cute!" said they, dumping a fistful of candy into the bag Laura made her. Frances stared speechlessly at the miracle of free candy in her blue bag, until I reminded her: "Thank you!" said Frances. We climbed down the steps, and Frances bounced up and down on the driveway. "I want to go to another house!"

Rinse, repeat; for an hour.

Yes. An hour.

And at the end of that hour, having gone up one side of the street, down and around an adjoining crescent, and then back down the other side of our street, all of it on her own two little feet, collecting a huge amount of candy, roaring on request, and saying "Trick or treat" and "thank you" at every house, what did she say?

"I want to go to another house!" Bounce bounce bounce.

"There are no more houses, sweetpea. Let's go home."

"No! I want to go to another house!" Bounce bounce bounce.

I swear, she would have gone to midnight if I'd let her, and if all of the houses wouldn't have been bolted by then, the doorbells answered by bleary-eyed parents who have to work the next day and what on earth am I letting my baby trick-or-treat for at midnight, what kind of mother am I? Frances, if she'd been capable of answering the question, would have said, "the best mother in the world, she let me trick-or-treat until midnight!" As it is, I am merely a mediocre sort of mother, who only let her trick-or-treat for an hour.

I tell you, it was exhausting. There are a lot of steep stairs in our neighbourhood that my wee girl would have to scale like the Himalayas on a regular evening. Padded out as the world's roundest lion, they were impossible, so I did a lot of bending and lifting. Yes, I know the ergonomists say to bend at the knees. I didn't. I am paying the price, so you don't have to say anything, ok?

My thirty-inch lion was as brave as any Serengeti feline. When faced with a haunted garage draped with fake blood, skeletons, ghosts, eerie music and other appropriate decor, she marched in, found an adult, held out her bag and said, "Trick or treat!" She collected her candy, said thank you and left. It was as if bodiless heads floating in barrels were a regular part of her day. When, on climbing the steps to another house, the jack-o-lantern lights began to flash and blink and cackle, she stopped and stared at them, and turned to me, and said, "The pumpkins are laughing, Mummy!" Then she went to the door, knocked, said "Trick or treat!," then "thank you," then left, still fixated on those laughing pumpkin lights. "The pumpkins are laughing!" she marveled again, staring at them over her shoulder while marching to the next door.

When pre-teens dressed as skeletons or murdered prostitutes or serial killers ran by in packs, screaming in a sugar-induced frenzy, and her trick-or-treat partner NB wailed and begged his Daddy for a hug, Frances would stand stock still and comment on their costumes. "I'm a lion," she'd say, and roar. "I'm scary!"

Laughing pumpkin lights, costumes and free candy. Truly, Hallowe'en is a day of miracles.

There is so much more I could say--about her pumpkin commentary, for instance; which pumpkins were happy, which pumpkins were sad, which pumpkins were crying, and which pumpkins were fancy. About how if a pet came to the door, she'd be so excited she'd have to croak out her "trick or treat" between many repetitions of "look! A doggie! Doggies say woof!" About how careful I was to acknowledge the many many many many many many many "oh my god she's so cute!"s while also encouraging Frances to roar and then tell her how scary she was, because she wanted to be scary and believed she was scary. Only scary is a tough look to pull off when you're thirty inches high with fluffy blond hair and humongous blue eyes, even when you're not dressed as a chubby lion. And adults and older kids don't necessarily know that you want to be scary when you look like you're just over one year old.

At least, when people asked how old she was and I said "almost three," I didn't get any "she's so tiny!"s. Score one for Hallowe'en sensitivity to the dignity of tiny lions.

When we got home and took off the costume, she pronounced herself "Frances again," and pored over her bag of loot. She had two and a half candies (couldn't finish her lollipop) then was off to bed, where she slept like the dead.

Mummy didn't. She was too excited. Plus, she'd only eaten candy for supper.

Posted by Andrea at November 3, 2006 6:33 AM under Frances Friday

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