#sans steve

last night, sam went upstate and took his little nieces and nephews out trick-or-treating. naturally, steve and nat and  i went with him, to help establish him as “The Coolest Uncle Ever: Even Better Than Uncle Terry, Who Is A Cool Cop And Always Smells Like Vanilla.” or at least, that’s why nat and steve went. i just went to heckle sam. 

(as an aside: the dawning realization that i experienced when sam’s sister’s kids came running at him, yelling “Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!” was incredible. Uncle Sam hangs out with Captain America. perfect. )

anyway, sam has–i think–six nieces and nephews. i think. they kept running around and it was hard to count. also, there may have been twins. i’m not sure about that–it may have been one child who kept changing costumes. it made me very grateful that i only ever had to look after steve and becca. 

the youngest of the little monsters was named seth. seth was three and a half, which he would proudly indicate with his pudgy little fingers whenever prompted. and sometimes without prompting. this was seth’s first halloween. as per sam’s family tradition, seth was decked out in a worn green dinosaur onesie, which came included with dino-face hood and very plush tail. every one of the kids wore it at some point, and after tessa’s (age 7) discovery that dinosaurs had feathers, it now includes a few dozen white feathers sewn onto the ends of the sleeves and tail. 

seth was delighted with this. he spent most of the pre-trick-or-treating time running around growling at people. 

when all the kids were ready to go, sam’s sister lined them up next to the door and dished out the rules: stay in a group, don’t leave anyone behind, don’t go into anyone’s house, etc. we adults were told that the kids were allowed to run along the sidewalks, but had to wait with an adult at the end of each block. when she’d gotten confirmations from the whole group, she opened the door and they went roaring out like a stampede of very tiny bison. we followed after. 

the group veered left right out the door. the house is in a suburb, nice and well lit and very safe, so we let them get a little distance on us. seth was at the back of the pack: his little dino-head tipped down for the charge, pudgy arms and legs pumping like a locomotive, tail like a rudder behind him. 

the rest of the kids charged up the next door neighbor’s driveway. head down, seth kept going.

the rest of the group got their candy and bolted towards the next house, easily overtaking the little dino that could. 

unsure what was happening, steve and sam and nat and I waited at the end of the block. the oldest kids got to us first and compared their loot while we waited. seth pulled up soon after, having eliminated the going-up-to-houses stage and gained ground on the middle children. when he caught sight of the other kid’s candy, he was visibly confused. 

sam got down on his level and asked what was up. 

apparently, a misunderstanding had occurred. seth believed that halloween was a race, and the winners got bags full of candy. no one had actually explained the whole getting-candy-from-strangers part to him. 

seth was devastated that he’d missed a whole block’s worth of loot, so steve scooped him up piggyback and took off at a dead run, which is pretty impressive. i once saw steve outrun a horse. he and seth went full-out. by the time the rest of the kids had gathered with the rest of us, steve had re-done the whole block. and he only jumped three cars to do it in time. 

seth’s candy bag was rapidly filled by the neighbors, who managed to stop gaping long enough to extend their candy bowls. seth himself barely noticed, as he was too busy clinging to steve’s hair and shrieking. 

tessa was very jealous, and commandeered me as a steed for the next block. the rest of the kids quickly demanded the same from nat and sam. (sam’s “i do what he does, only slower” was not a great selling point for the kids, who wanted to go faster, sam.) 

so we spend the rest of the evening doing piggy-back halloween speedruns.

seth got a lot of candy.