Izzy:"Daddy why did he go outside?"
Daddy:"He has traced the problem to outside the house."
Izzy:"What, he is playing outside?!!?" She went to look and noticed that his truck was gone.
Izzy:"Oh god daddy, he's gone. The computer guy is gone. He took his tools and his truck and crap and just left."
Daddy:"No, honey he has traced the problem to outside and now he's gone to fix it."
Izzy:"Oh he's traced the problem outside , has he? I thought you said he was playing outside but you said he traced the problem outside. That makes sense now. (Insert big fake almost uncomfortable laugh here)
Izzy:"Daddy?"
Daddy:"Yes?"
Izzy:"What does trace the problem outside mean?"
We will soon be in the midst of Izzy's (and my) favourite Hallmark holiday... So we started the beginning of the festering season off on the right foot by going out to get costumes for Izzy and The Boy. Izzy was absolutely certain, as she is every year, of what she wanted to be. A vampire...Count Draclia (he's more worse than Count Drastic says Izzy) The Boy was also set on being the maniac from the Scream movies.
We got to the store that had a big sale on Halloween stuff and lo and behold, nearly every child size costume had been sold...well any with an ounce of interest. The Boy lucked out and found the last small adult Scream costume in probably 50 miles. Things like that always work out for him. I'm hoping to take him to Vegas for his 12th birthday and turning him loose at Slots of Fun.
No child of mine would show the slightest interest in little witch costume with crinoline underskirts that light up and big pointed hats, no Izzy went looking for a vampire cape and big Bela Lugosi looking medal and when she couldn't find it, headed straight for the sexy Pirate Captain costume and the sexy She-Devil. Thankfully they didn't fit, I can't imagine the tales I would have to make up on wear your costume to kindergarten day.
"You see, we went to the cheap store and this was all they had left...well, this and the sexy She Devil and that was damn near obscene..."
But then, like a ray of sunshine something caught Izzy's eye and we were just about to leave when she let go of my hand and went back to the rack.
"I want this!" she burst out. It was a black smock with a hood, a rubber skeleton torso and rubber bones on the arms and legs. Complete with bone hand and shoe covers, it came with a evil looking skeleton mask or you could get a less intense looking mask. She was in love with it.
"Are you sure this is the one you want? If you change your mind, you can't get another one. This is it."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want it."
"Ok," I said. "Which one do you want? The scary looking evil one or the cutesy one?" I tried to inflect my voice as much as I could to get her to pick the evil but no such luck.
"His name is Cutesy?!!?? Oh god, Daddy I want to be Cutesy. I love Cutesy."
So off we went with bloody knives and cutesy skeletons, the kids barely holding their excitement at the prospect of trying them on when we got home. Normally in these situations Izzy would have handed me the costume the second we opened the door and demanded that I help her put it on. This time she showed to her mother and then set about putting it on herself. The only help she needed was the hood but who wouldn't? And Cutesy the skeleton came to life in the living room. I secretly still wished she would have picked the scary one but it was pretty damn cute.
The Boy also loved his costume in all of it's blood dripping mask gore. I knew he had never seen the movies but I thought he had known who"Scream" was.
"What does Scream like... do?" he asked on the way home.
"He was a killer in the Scream movies." I said. "I don't think he was ever actually called Scream I think they called him the killer or the Ghost Faced killer but whatever you call him, he was the killer in the movies."
"Oh, he was a killer..." his voice trailed off a bit and I could tell he was figuring something but he must have rectified whatever crisis of the soul he might be having because ten minutes after we got home, he had the costume on and was going about the house saying "Trick or treat, time to die!"
Izzy was not nearly so amused by The Boy's choice of costume until I explained just how difficult it was going to be for all of us to go Trick or Treating and leave The Boy to his own devices and that her brother did not disappear when the scream character appeared anymore than she disappeared when Cutesy came out to play. I got a "Oh Daddy!" from her and a roll of the eyes but I think the point got through...Now to break it to her that Halloween is still three weeks away.
We were remarking the other day about how well Isobel's drawing is becoming. It has gone from random blobs of colour to virtually recognizable faces...and random blobs of colour in a very short time. The faces look like faces and trees are starting to look like trees...ok maybe it's not a huge deal to the uninitiated or non parents out there but when your child comes up to you and says "Look Daddy, it's you." and it is instantly identifiable as a human face, it's a major milestone. But it got me to thinking of the old days, when it really was just random scribbles and she would say "Look Daddy it's a ducky."
"That is a damn fine ducky." I said to her without giving it much thought. From then on she would ask Mrs. Narrator or me , "can you draw me a Damn fine Ducky." or "Can you make me a Damn fine Horsey."
Now the boy had been sitting back for sometime and had not said much but when Izzy asked HIM to draw her a Damn fine Ducky, the language police showed up and he couldn't stop himself.
"Izzy, can you stop saying that word!!?! You're going to get us in trouble. It's just a Ducky, a plain Ducky."
A while later, she asked me to draw her a Ducky.
"A Damn fine Ducky?" I asked.
"No," she said. "Just a plain Ducky. Damn fine Duckies are troubled."
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