Halloween Hi-Jinks

Yesterday afternoon, Lana and I were waiting for my prescription* to be filled at Mega Grocery Store Chain that is Not Wal-Mart, and we had about 20 minutes to kill.

We wandered around the store for a few minutes, and I just let her look at whatever she wanted to look at (with the exception of a rack of birth control products in the health and beauty aisle, which I think she was drawn to because the boxes were so many different colors. I am sure that the marketing geniuses at Trojan and Lifestyles would love to know that their boxes are eye-catching to four-year-olds, but, I really wasn’t ready to have “that talk” just yet.)

We came to the “seasonal” aisle, currently decked out for Halloween, which I had been vaguely trying to avoid because Lana is totally a Sugar Addict (as am I), and I didn’t want to have to have a fight about the fact that we were not going to buy a gigantic bag of fun-size Nerds. (Mostly because, if we had a giant bag of fun-size Nerds six weeks before Halloween, they would be LONG GONE before Halloween arrived, which really isn’t something that anybody in my house needs. Talk about a sugar rush.)

In the middle of the aisle were two of those giant inflatable items. You know what I am talking about – recent additions to holiday decorations, also used for sporting events? This is what I mean - http://www.inflatableseasons.com/ ). Anyway, there were two of them: one kind of like this http://www.inflatableseasons.com/4-ft.-Ghost-coming-out-of-Pumpkin-p-16239.html and one kind of like this http://www.inflatableseasons.com/Skeleton-Head-Hard-Shell-Mini-Tornado-Globe-p-16230.html except that it had a spooky looking house inside instead of the skeleton head.

Lana was fascinated by the ghost coming out of the pumpkin, because, well, she’s four and it was a giant inflatable pumpkin. And also because about once a minute, the ghost would settle back down into the jack-o-lantern and then pop back up again. It was a jack-in-the-box-jack-o-lantern, if you can imagine.

She stared at it. She was TRANSFIXED by all its air-blown glory. At first she just stared at it quietly, and then she made a sound, a sound like, “oooooooooooooohhhhh” - a sound of complete and utter delight.

One of the store employees walked by and said, “Do you like the pumpkin?”

“Shesh” she breathed, almost reverently. (This is how she pronounces ‘yes’ – I don’t know if it’s a speech impediment or a by product of the fact that she is still learning to speak English.)

“What are you going to be for Halloween?” the store employee asked.

Lana looked up at me, confused. (We haven’t really discussed Halloween with her. This contact with the giant inflatable jack-o-lantern-jack-in-the-box was her first exposure to the concept.)

Lana looked at me for an answer to the employee’s question.

“This is her first Halloween,” I said.

The employee looks at me like I’m nuts.

“We adopted her from Vietnam eight months ago, so, she’s never seen Halloween before.”

“Oh,” the employee said. “Well, this is sure going to be fun for her. What about Christmas? Do you think she celebrated Christmas before.”

“Probably not,” I said.

“Well, if she’s that impressed with the pumpkin, I think she’s going to be REALLY excited when Christmas rolls around.”

I think the employee might be right about that. Very, very right.

Gretchen

*Evidently, one of the reasons I have had NO SUCCESS in losing any weight is because my thyroid has crapped out. Which is why we were waiting for a prescription to be filled.