Sucker

Halloween is getting close again and the decorations and television shows are just awesome for helping my kids sleep at night. This is about the time of year we have the deep discussions about if ghosts are real, skeletons can walk, and are zombies really going to eat my brains. I am cool with dressing weird and candy. Demonic possession on Nickelodeon… ehh. I would rather avoid that topic.

My children are creepy enough anyway. For instance, I got a phone call from my wife when I was out of town overnight. Our oldest, Jane, woke in the middle of the night with a nightmare. I got a secondhand account of the story so I can only imagine how it went down in person.

“MOMMY!” A shrill voice rang out in the night.
“What is it?”
“It bit me!” Jane shrieked through her tears.
Supermom asked, “What? What bit you?”
“There was a black mist and it was eating my legs and then it bit my back and now my back really hurts.”
“…”

So that happened. I later linked it to an episode of Harry Potter and a Dementor attack. I suppose I should cancel that Catholic priest who I had lined up to sling holy water all over the house.

Then yesterday. Don Threeto drew me a picture and her coldblooded mafia persona held true.

“I drew you a picture Daddy.”
“Oh very nice. Looks like two pumpkins.”
“Yes.”
“I see the words there. What are they saying?”
“This one is saying ‘Do you know why your mom is never coming back?’”
“Ummm. What is that one saying?”
“I love my Mommy.”
“That is a tragic pumpkin story.”
“Yeah, can we hang this up somewhere?”
“No.”

Maybe I reacted too quickly but seriously, that was creepy. Then you can add in the voodoo cursed foot swelling that we had to deal with on Monday. Something that looked like a fire ant bite quickly ballooned into a red lump of mini-sausages. Off to the doctor. Steroids and two days later it was better.