My goth in the making.

My daughter is quite a character. I never quite know what's going on in her mind, even when she tells me.

In the car the other day, she was talking about what my son wanted to be for Halloween. See, I'm a bad mommy and I KNOWINGLY got them the wrong costumes this year. My son wanted to be Dracula, but he's going as Batman because Batman cost $20 and a cape cost $30, with the suit extra. She wanted to be a unicorn, but she can't squeeze into those really furry costumes that people make babies wear, so she had to be a princess. And it was a REALLY nice costume!! What kind of girl fusses about being a princess? Apparently mine does, despite pretending to be a princess 90% of the time.

Anyway, she reiterated that she wanted to be unicorn and my son wanted to be a "Vampirate". Now, even though she made a mistake, that's just about the coolest costume idea I can think of. Dracula wearing an eyepatch and a parrot on his shoulder. There's just no way to explain that to people when you show up on their doorstep though. Especially since most of my tiny city is elderly and may have a bit of trouble hearing. "He's a WHAT?" "VAM-PI-RATE!"

This morning when the kids woke up, my son looked especially tired, and I asked him about it. He told me he didn't get much sleep the night before. I asked whether it was because he watched all "those shows" with Daddy yesterday. My husband thought it was a good idea, for whatever reason, to let them watch ghost reality shows on tv. You know, "Ghost Hunters", "Scariest Places on Earth", etc. Right about the time Chillingham Castle comes on, he put a stop to it. That scared the crap outta him, and he decided it might warp them. Yeah, ya think? Remind me to kick my husband's butt over this.

So when I asked him if it was the scary shows that did it, he answers yes. My daughter pipes in with "Yeah, and that place where the basement walls bleed." Quoi?!? I am starting to get furious that he would let them watch something like that, when my son says, "Huh?" I realize that she is off in her own little world, and that world is a bizzare and scary place. They argue for a minute over whether there was blood on the walls or whether there was a man lying in blood or on top of metal (a morgue drawer. My husband is going to be fitted for his soon if he lets them watch this crap again!). And that's when she says, "Yeah it did bleed. Daddy said everything was, 'Make bleed'." As in MAKE-BELIEVE!!!!! My son starts pulling his superior intellect thing and telling her that means it was a fictional story. I look at him and tell him, "Don't talk. Just don't. She doesn't know what make believe is. Telling her it was fictional won't help." Then I look at my daughter and explain that "make believe" means "pretending". It makes me wonder horrors she would have imagined every time Mr. Rogers Neighborhood came on.

First, no more tv. Ever.
Second, no trick or treating. Who knows what she'll think of that.
Third, my husband gets his butt kicked. HARD!
Fourth, keep her away from the blue-black hair dye and eyeliner.
Fifth, show her pictures of Bela Lugosi and Johnny Depp and point out the subtle differences between the two.