More Halloween Recap

Here are some more photos of the wonderful Janney Elementary School kids in food-related costumes. There were also two kids dressed as milk and cookies and later on I saw three kids dressed as peas in a pod.

I particularly liked how the kid who dressed as a stick of butter put tablespoon marks on his side - a nice touch! Clearly, this kid's on a roll!
Get it? Butter... on a roll??
And of course, I had to follow through with a picture of the girl I devoted an entire entry to:

Franny's friend Rebecca as...

HILLARY CLINTON!

For a six-year-old, her campaign literature was pretty impressive. She definitely has MY vote.

Halloween Recap

Happiness is... a principal who is willing to get into the Halloween spirit by not only donning a costume, but actually shaving his head (but for Charlie Brown's signature frontal tuft) to complete the ensemble.

Way to go, Mr. Cartland!

As some of you know, my girl Franny originally lobbied for a store-bought costume. However, due to unforseen events, that did not come to pass. She ended up developing (with some guidance from her grandma, Maryann Sewell) a top-notch home-made costume, to wit: The Girl With a Pearl Earring. Many adults and kids fawned over her, praising her creativity (which never happens when you go as yet another Disney character!) and only one very small child misidentified her as "a magic mirror." (Franny was momentarily troubled by this, before I pointed out that he couldn't read yet - her title is clearly displayed on the frame).

Hey, a magic mirror would make a good costume, too... maybe next year.

Food costumes were big at Janney Elementary this year (see "More Halloween Recap" and "It's All Greek To Me" entries).

Addie (right) is a bag of jelly beans, and Isabel (left) is a container of baking powder.

I think I saw Isabel later Halloween night trick-or-treating with a friend (sibling?) dressed as a container of baking soda. Would I make this up?

It's All Greek To Me

Technically, this is NOT my favorite Halloween costume of the year (that honor would be held by my daughter Franny's costume... see "Halloween Recap" entry) but it IS my favorite Halloween costume worn by a child outside of my immediate family (namely, Franny's friend Elena).

The costume, as you can see, is: GREEK SALAD. Gotta love kids who are creative enough to shun the obvious costume choices and dream big (can you tell that I was once a child who insisted on dressing up as: THE SCHOOL LUNCH MENU?). Extra points for kids who are also clever enough to convince grown-ups (in this case, a talented aunt) to break out the sewing machine and fashion a cucumber hat, soft-sculpture olives and tomatoes and styrofoam feta chunks!

Excellent job, Elena!!!

Scary? Vairy!

Only in Washington, DC would a six-year-old girl say (as one did in Franny's class): "Guess what I'm going to be for Halloween? I'll give you a hint: she's in the Senate!"

I froze momentarily in a parental panic. I don't think my child knows any senators. (In fact, I'm not sure I could cough up that many guesses, though if she had said the Supreme Court, I could have done a respectable job... of course, since the Court's not long on women justices, it wouldn't have been too hard...). Luckily, the little girl blurted out the answer: HILLARY CLINTON!

Wow.

Okay, I admit it. I was a surprised that a six-year-old girl, when presented with costume options ranging from princess to angel to bride to cheerleader to Barbie to... (hey, wait a second. Maybe Hillary is not such a bad costume idea after all.) But seriously, that a child given the opportunity to transform herself for one magical day into ANYTHING in the whole wide world would choose to don a bright suit and helmet hair (and NOT because she was going as a DoodleBop). Only in Washington, DC, I guess.

Plus, I hope she realizes that she's going to have to report all those Milky Ways and Skittles as campaign contributions. Might be wiser to decline them so questions don't get asked later. Either way: pretty scary!

Suddenly, dressing as Barbie doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

No Ifs, Ands Or BUTTS?

So, here's some good news: my mom is NOT the only one reading this blog!

As it happens, my "comments" feature was set in such a way that no one could post comments! Of course, I discovered this when my mom told me that she tried to post a comment and failed. BUT another person, and then another alerted me to this problem as well, thus alleviating my concerns that I am blogging to an audience of one (see my earlier post re: this concern).

So, now that my web guru, Ed, has tweaked the comments control, I encourage both... er, I mean, ALL of you to go for it! Comment away! I can take it. What's more, now that this technical problem has been fixed, you can give it.

In other news (not yet bad, BUT we shall see), I submitted a book to my publisher that may well either not come to press OR may grace the banned books list in years to come. Its sin? The title contains the word, ahem, BUTT. And it is not a YA book (see The Earth, My BUTT and other Large Round Things), or a middle grade book (see The Day My BUTT Went Psycho... FYI: this book was published originally in Australia as The Day My BUM Went Psycho) or a first chapter series type thingee (see The BUTT-Ugly Martians books) or even a 4-8 y.o. picture book (see Walter The Farting Dog, Perry Poops, etc.).

No, friends, it is a board book. A Lift-the-flap style one, designed for the humor of preschoolers (and their hip parents). A board book with the word BUTT in its title.

This book's fate, as I mentioned, has not yet been decided. BUT I am concerned that, although many of my hip pals are with me and think 1) this book is hilarious and 2) the world is ready for it, other pals have filed the minority report that, however funny it might be, they would be loathe to take responsibility for teaching their little darlings THAT WORD.

So, now that the comment doors are wide open, I invite both, er, all of you to weigh in on this important topic: should "baby books" (for toddlers and preschoolers as well) be confined to subjects like patting bunnies and counting cheerios, or should they branch out into slightly more daring material, like the hind quarters of certain cuddly animals?

Not that I'm trying to influence your responses or anything, but I'd like to mention one title (alas, not mine) that I encountered during my recent foray into title research on this subject: The Book of Baby Animal BUTTS.