This is My Brain, This is My Child
Dusty went Trick-or-Treating for the first time this year. Yes, I HAVE been keeping her locked up in the basement. She was, of course, a Princess. My husband tried to convince her to be a pirate princess and even equipped her with an eye patch, his old tri-corner hat from his childhood, and a hook that was a gift from her grandfather�s trip to Disney World (see how it creeps in? I need to do a better job of sealing the cracks around our doors). But, no, she wanted to be a straight forward princess in her pink Barbie princess dress and sparkly headdress (sigh), red tights and red shoes (her special touch).
Since it is challenging to trick-or-treat along our non-sidewalked rural paradise road filled with semis going 60 mph, we drove into town and went house to house in the neighborhood of my childhood. Cool. I can�t tell you how many millions of years it�s been since I�ve walked down my old block in the dark. Lots of kids live there now. Back in the day (see Amiable Jim entry) I was one of maybe 5 kids in a 3-block radius. There were a few houses packed to the gills with Catholics but most of them were much, much older and went to Catholic schools so we didn�t even know the other existed until I was old enough to walk five blocks to the 7-11 and blow my allowance on Charleston Chews and B-B-Bats. By then, it was kind of too late.
Two other kids in the neighborhood (pardon this sudden digression) rear their sad heads in my memory: Bonnie, the raw potato eater who lived with her grandparents (no matter what she said to us, the standard retort was, �Well, at least I don�t eat raw potatoes!�; and Kelly, the youngest of a Catholic brood who got birthday cake smashed in her face by my best friend. I don�t know why, exactly, this happened or whose birthday cake it was. Whether this act was merited or not, I cannot say, but the best part of the incident was when her mother came out on the porch and yelled to us, �Don�t you EVER push cake in my daughter�s face again!� Comedy gold, folks. Right or wrong, it�s still the funniest line ever. See, you�re laughing anyway, aren�t you?
And, to fill and expand the narrow gap that Parents Magazine once occupied, I�ve found this magazine: Brain, Child: The Magazine For Thinking Mothers as well as Literary Mama . Whew! There is intelligence out there. I was worried for a minute.
Happy November! Be sure and vote (for the Johns) tomorrow!
