Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Trying to maintain some control over the treat bag

A couple months before Halloween - you know, probably back in July, when the stores first started stocking this kind of stuff - I picked up two super cute Halloween treat bags for the kids. Liam's is a jack-o-lantern, and Mallory's (which was not used this year but no doubt will make its debut next) is a ghost. They both have a button on the handle that, when pressed, make noises; Liam's laughs, and Mallory's makes an eerie ghost-appropriate noise.

Liam's treat bag, now about 2/3 empty (thanks to some help from Chad and I), is currently sitting on the dining room table, and believe you me when I say that I lurk around the corner and watch when I see him heading into the dining room. I have to give him credit; he has a lot of restraint. Often I will find him looking through his treats, but he really doesn't ever take anything without asking. However... when it comes to this candy necklace, which came from Cindy... it's got some sort of hold over him. One day after he'd first received it, we let him hang it on the armoire doorknob in his room. You can guess what happened - ten minutes after I put him down for a nap, I heard footsteps, and went upstairs to find him wearing the necklace and chewing happily.

The funny thing is that Mallory's treat bag tends to sound off almost indiscriminantly - the slightest brush will send it ooo-ooo-oooing. Liam's bag used to require a good hard button-pressing to get it to work, but I think the wires in his are headed for the same fate as Mallory's; because several times over the past couple of days I've heard the bag laughing and gone into the dining room to find him looking sheepish with candy in hand. Unopened and uneaten, but I get the sense that he knows he's been busted. While some may see this as evidence of poor workmanship on the treat bags, I kind of like it. It's a built-in candy alarm. No harm there.

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