Love, Jimmie

This cute little thing is DJ, Lynnette’s little boy.  He is obsessed with Spider Man and when we asked him to pose for his Halloween picture, this is what he did.  Don’t you just want to squeeze him till he pukes?

Spider Man!

This year, instead of giving out the standard 50 pounds of chocolate to my neighborhood kids, I got to see how the other side lives and take my own kids trick-or-treating.  Pooh and Tigger live out in the country, and while they can trick-or-treat at the measly three or four houses around them, they don’t really get the experience of neighborhood trick-or-treating.  You know, the kind where you get so much candy that you can barely lift your pillowcase anymore and your parents are screaming for you to quit with the chocolate already because it’s 12:30 am and you are still bouncing off the walls due to extra high sugar consumption.  That kind of trick-or-treating.  The good kind.

Coach, their daddy, drove them up to my house where we slapped on makeup in a frenzy and changed into costumes lickety split and then sat on pins and needles waiting for it to be dark enough to go spooking door-to-door.  All that anticipation from Pooh and Tigger, and also DJ because he needed to trick-or-treat in a friendly neighborhood, and we only walked through two cul-de-sacs before these children had more candy than they’d ever seen in a lifetime.

Dead Softball Player (why?) and Goth Fairy

“We are done, Aunt Jimmie,” they said, and I looked at them aghast.

“You’ve not even walked half the neighborhood,” I said.

“Yeah, but my bag is too heavy,” said Pooh.  “It’s too much.” Tigger nodded, and let her bag droop to the ground where it could rest on the concrete instead of her arm.

These children are amateurs, I tell you.  Total novices.

You know how I tell you all the time that I don’t want children? It’s the truth.  I don’t want any, and aside from all my physical and selfish reasons, that is largely because I already have the two cutest ones in the world.  (I’ll take three if DJ ever lets me count him as one of mine.) The whole point of this story before I got off on the trick-or-treat tangent was to tell you about the game that Pooh and Tigger love to play, the one I catch them at most often, because this is just about the cutest thing I ever did see.

One date night weekend I walked into Martie and Coach’s house to find Tigger wearing her purple fluffy skirt, her pink kitty cat sweater and her black boots. She had on her fake glasses and was carrying an old briefcase that Madre bought new in 1974.  Tigger was very earnestly finger-wagging at Pooh, saying, “You need to clean this place up. This is a disgrace.”

Abby Mace is Tigger’s Alias

She then withdrew a portfolio from her briefcase and selected a hand drawn form upon which she had written instructions.  She scribbled earnestly on the form and then in flamboyant flourishes wrote a number.  She handed the form over to Pooh who sighed heavily and looked around in dismay at her surroundings.  Tigger then marched off, boots whuffing as she breezed down the hall.  It was officious and intimidating and adorable because she was wearing a kitty cat sweater and a purple skirt.

“What are they doing?” I asked Martie.

“Playing health inspector,” she replied.  “It’s their favorite game.  They dress up in their most professional clothes and take turns writing each other up and assigning public health food scores.”

Weekly Schedule of Inspection Visits

Oh, you guys!  Oh, my stomach!  I laughed so hard that Tigger walked off in a snit.  She takes her job very seriously.  I tried to tell her that I loved it so much, that I could not get over the cleverness of it, but I couldn’t really get my words past the tears in my throat and the giddy laughter that bubbled from my mouth.

Sarah Marcs is Pooh’s Alias

I’ve worried these last few years about the effects of video games and lame crafty ideas and apps on a phone that do everything for you.  I worry that our children will have no imagination left. I guess that was needless on my part.  Give my kids some paper and a pen and pair of fake glasses, and the games they play will blow your mind.

Also, before I forget, I updated my last post about my date night with Pee-Tah.  You should check that out.