Perhaps We Should All Just Think of it as the First Halloween Post of '08

So I finally sit down to upload my Halloween photos and I can't find the USB cord. Then I find the cord and my computer won't turn on. Then it will turn on but whoops, Nate bought Guitar Hero III (Because hell, why not have it on both PS2 and Wii. We're millionaires!) and Pat Benatar is calling to me.

So now it's 96 hours later, you are all so over Halloween, and pretty much already onto the deleting of the 8 million new posts in your feed readers thanks to NaBloPoMo.

But you know what? Tough. I have some cute kids in some cute freaking costumes and dammit, I'm posting them here so you can delete this in your feed reader too.




I have no idea where Thalia got the idea to be a peacock, but from the day she understood that Halloween meant dressing up in a costume, she insisted on it.

"Oh sweetie," I'd say as we navigated the crammed aisles of Ricky's and stressed about my lack of free costume-making time. "Why don't you be a ghost? Or a bumblebee? Or something ready made on the store shelves like this slutty nurse? Isn't she soooooo preeeeetty?"

Nope. It had to be a peacock.

Oh, and Sage had to be a butterfly. HAD TO.

So with a bit of legwork plus much help from Grammy (God bless Grammy!) while Nate and I were out of town, a Danskin leotard, some feathers and a blue mask conspired to turn my girl into a peacock for the night. But wait...Grammy had other ideas. With the addition of a tiara and a wand, Thalia became no mere peacock. She was a princess peacock.

Which, as Nate reminds me, makes her a bit of a drag queen peacock, peacocks being necessarily male.

I admit I scoffed a bit at the concept when my stepmother first described it. I couldn't imagine why Thalia needed to be more than just a cute animal. I have managed to shield her from the princess crap thus far in her life and now, 2 years of avoidance were about to be felled by a dime store tiara and wooden wand.

Still, I went with it. I was just grateful I didn't have to make a costume myself. (And that Sage's was, at the last minute, available through BabyStyle.)

As we headed out the door, Thalia beyond thrilled at this crazy idea that you can just knock on strangers' doors and they will hand you candy, the excitement was dashed by a creepy recorded sound emanating from a neighbor's apartment.

WHOOOOOOO-OOOOOOO.

Thalia didn't like it one bit.

"I heard a scary noise."

Normally unflappable, she cowered at my legs and clutched my knees for comfort.

"You know sweetie," I found myself saying as I bent down to her level. "Maybe what you can do is wave your magic wand and say 'go away noise!' And then, maybe it will."

"Go away noise," she said. Then more confidently. "Go away noise!"

And with that, the tape ran out or the magic worked - but indeed the noise was gone.

"Daddy!" she called, running in our door. "I heard a scary noise and wave my wand and said, 'go away noise.'"

He looked at me in disbelief, and tried to undo whatever horrible damage I had apparently done. He sat Thalia down and tried to explain in that annoying guy way that noises can't hurt us and that sometimes magic doesn't work and tons of other stuff that Thalia didn't really hear. She was just delighted to have a magic peacock princess wand in her possession that's capable of making scary noises go away.

And me, I was delighted right along with her.