All Hallows Eve

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a land called Mississippi State University, there was a group of kids who decided to have a haunted house at their dorm. The Beej was part of this group and she thoroughly enjoyed being involved in such an undertaking, and took her part very seriously.

Okay, no more third person stuff. Too hard.

So, I was ready for this haunted house, because I had always been the type of kid who would put on a sheet and make my face look horrible and pale (-er than usual) and scare the kids in the neighborhood who came by to trick-or-treat. When I was in grade school, I had a friend with an older brother who scared the devil out of me EVERY STINKING Halloween, by sitting on the porch, very still, dressed as scarecrow. As soon as I got close to the door, he would jump up and run toward me in an effort to KILL ME DEAD and I would run away screaming and begging for my life. I never forgot that and decided that every kid in my neighborhood should suffer the same fate. I was just passing along the joy, you know?

Anyway, this particular Halloween at MSU was no different than usual, except that I was getting to try to scare people on a larger scale. (This part of the story doesn't have a good ending by the way.) I remember vividly, getting ready for the festivities that night, looking in the mirror and painting my face to look like a skeleton, when the phone rang. It was my Daddy. I was still looking at my ghoulish face in the mirror when he told me that my Grandfather, his Dad, had just died. I will never forget the feeling of looking at myself in that moment, playing around with the idea of death, and suddenly realizing how very NOT FUN it was. I went on with my part in the haunted house, but that was a very hard night for me.

I never wanted to deprive my kids of Halloween, but I would never let them dress as anything scary. Luckily, they never really wanted to. I'm glad I didn't eschew it completely like I thought I would that night, but I can promise you I never looked at it the same way again. This year, Litkia will be some strange version of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland and Pateriko will help his grandmother man a booth at the church's fall festival with the sleeves that make him look like his arm is tattooed. I'm good with that.

As always...click the pics for a bigger version!

Phood Phor thot

Since yesterday was a holiday, my kids didn't have to go to school. That's always a happy time, especially when it's pouring rain outside (not that my children enjoy the great outdoors all that much, but you know...). There is usually quite a lot of whining about being bored and bugging me as I sit at my desk, working away and trying to tune them out. It can be exhausting.

I'm sure it can't be a reflection of me as a mother that I forget to feed them when they're here. I think it's just more of a habit. I'm in the habit of not feeding them lunch during the week because they aren't here. So when they're here, I sort of forget that I should see about getting them some lunch. Pateriko is pretty good about fending for himself. That doesn't help the situation. I just assume somewhere internally that all is well. However, yesterday, around 1:00 PM, a paper airplane landed on my desk. I turned around, but nobody was there. Upon further inspection, I found that the plane carried a message written in Litkia's handwriting and in her normal incorrect spelling. The plane said:


I would like to pause here to say that hungery should be a word. If adding a 'y' to the end of a word means 'having', then why can't we say hungery? That would mean having hunger. It's legit. She is as brilliant as her mother. And while I'm on that train of thought, I think that there are many hundreds, nay thousands of words that should be considered legit that we mock and say are incorrect. I also think that if we can say PH makes the same sound as F or that the letter E or the letter A can make 74 different sounds based on what's around them, we can do whatever we want. I've often thought that English is just a mixed up mess anyhow.

So anyway, the kids got fed and all was well. Again, I don't think it's a reflection on my status as a good mother that I had Pateriko make a box of mac and cheese to feed himself and his sister. I think it's just good parenting that I'm teaching him to cook....only I wasn't in there. Still counts.

I think.