Halloween morning, the kids popped out of bed early, ready for their breakfast candy. "Stop stealing from the trick or treat bowl. That’s for later," my husband bellowed. Even my son who is historically difficult to rouse in the morning, was up and ready for high school in record time, his pockets stuffed with Hershey’s kisses.

My daughter packed her cowgirl chaps in her pink backpack. "Just in case my teacher lets us put on our costumes." This was unlikely because her school prohibits any recognition of Halloween in sensitivity to the children whose religious beliefs prevent them from participating.

I tried to get some real work done on Monday but by 2 p.m, I surrendered to the reality that Monday afternoon and evening were for one thing and one thing only: Halloween.

First crisis of the day was the case of the missing cowboy hat: my daughter searched the apartment high and low. She finally unearthed it underneath my son’s bed.

Second Crisis: my son needed a shirt for his impromptu pirate costume. "You can wear this black shirt of Dad’s." I told him. "No he can’t," my husband screamed from the living room. "That’s my special shirt."

"it’s alright, mom," my son said, ever-attentive to my husband’s moods.

I did manage to find a billowy white shirt in the closet. Teen Spirit strapped on his belt, plastic sword, and the pirate hat he’d purchased at Rite Aid, ready to join a band of roving teenage pirates who were waiting downstairs.

Aargh.

Trick or Treating on Seventh Avenue, my daughter was, characteristically, driven to procure as much candy as she could possibly fit into her shopping bag. We were joined by Sonya my sister’s newly adopted one-year-old daughter from Russia, who was dressed in a zip-up bunny costume with little paw gloves and a cloth carrot.

Her first Halloween ever – god knows what she was thinking. Big brown eyes open wide, she inhaled the crazy costumed scene from her stoller.

The group went back to my sister’s for some apartment-building style trick or treating. Volume is what that’s all about. "Let’s see," my daughter calculated. "They’ve got six floors and eight apartments on each floor