Halloween's Comin'...

That's the title of a song Q came home singing from his music class one year, and which we sing every Halloween around the Johnstadt home. Goes like this:

Halloween's comin',
Halloween's comin',
Hide your cats
Release your bats
Halloween scares you, too.
BOO!

I haven't figured out why it's necessary to hide your cats. I picture some sort of previously widely-known semi-tradition of catching and hanging cats on Halloween, and in fact odd little tingles of memory spark and snap waaaay back in my brain at the thought of it. Was that true? Did people used to do that? And did it make it into a children's song...? I fear for us all.

Anyway, in preparation, we carved up some pumpkins today. Q here re-enacts the opening of his pumpkin - I was too slow on the trigger to get the actual first opening, so he faked it for me right afterward. Note what a fine actor he is:



Here's the happy young man post-gutting:



And T also happily ripped the innards out of an innocent calabash:



Then we all set to, carving ourselves into a frothy tizzy. I copied an idea I saw in a hotel lobby on Friday - a large pumpkin biting a tiny one, and the tiny one is sad. In this photograph, I rest the tiny pumpkin atop my sturdy belly and scrape out its flesh with a spoon. It's titled, "Paunchy Papi peels a pumpkin":



In other news, Q has recovered his moxie in soccer. Shot four times on goal Saturday and scored once. My favorite moment was one of the missed shots - He wove through five, count 'em, FIVE, defenders before sending it wide. It was a rainy and muddy day, which somehow seemed to set his teeth on edge and set him afire. Today (Sunday) we did quite a bit of juggling outside (my new personal record for touches without the ball touching the ground: 14), and for the whole time, Q would be quietly getting better off on his own, no encouragement needed from me. Big fun. And he's now into playing goalie against the woodpile - he defends an ample range of pile as delineated by the end of the pile and our little red plastic teeter-totter, and I fire away at him from 15 yards or so. He wears winter gloves and really makes some very athletic saves. He's caught soccer fever again - just in time for the season to end. But we can keep playing 'til the snow - and keep juggling in the garage until spring.

T, meanwhile, attempted a cartheel on the couch today. Tumbled off at the end of it, landing on her behind and sending her head forward to collide with the corner of the coffee table. I'll get a picture up here tomorrow of the chichon she's got. We had a good half hour of comforting to do before she calmed down - and I admittedly didn't hold up through the procedure as well as I might have. The unreasonable nature of the demands started to send me over the edge - "I don't want any more ice!" "OK, you don't have to use it." "I DON'T WANT ANY MORE ICE!" "I'm not trying to make you use it!" "I DON'T WANT IT!!!" "There! I threw it away! It's gone!" "I DON'T WANT IT...!!" Janneke came in and took over when my voice got more shrill than Tie's. Best for all concerned. I had to find the ice and apply it to my own forehead at that point. But she's fine now, no complaints at bed time. We'll wake her up when we go to bed to make sure she's OK.