Kids' Art Supplies
 

You won't get any credit for this, but this is some of your best work - seriously.

Kids' Art Supplies
 

Ouch.

L'Shana Tova
 

Warning! This post will only be interesting to people with small children, and will also only be interesting to people who happen to be jews. You have been warned.


So, earlier today, I'm changing the Brazenette to get her ready for her nap. She picks up a medicine dropper lying on her changing table and puts it in her mouth and starts blowing on the end of it. Then she takes it out of her mouth, puffs up her chest, and at the top of her lungs sings out "T'Kyah!!!!" When I started to laugh, she gave me one of those don't-be-stupid looks and said "It's my Shofar, Mommy."

L'Shana Tova
 

If I had any clue what that meant, no doubt I'd think it was really cute.

L'Shana Tova
 

It's like a ram's horn (or some kind of animal horn) that is blown (not that kind of blowing, the kind that is sort of instrumental and makes noise) as some part of Jewish religious ceremonies or something.

L'Shana Tova
 

Confirm this with BRC, but I think she was telling you to fuck off.

My 3yo niece tells us when she has banged her keppele.

L'Shana Tova
 

What, you've never heard about how well Jews treat the hired help?

Halloween
 

What, you only love me for my Klingon? Well, ToQe' would be "you have acquiesced", sort of, which could be insulting (depending on what you acquiesced to). "taHQeQ" means liar. Neither is anywhere close to the curses my nephew has learned.

Question - I love Halloween. I am a suburban child of the '70s and have a decade's worth of fond memories of running around with a bunch of other people in costumes all night and eating sugar 'til I puked.

But now I live on a street in a neighborhood now that has no Halloween. (Our last place had some kids come trick or treating, and everyone else in my building would come out and hang on the steps and we'd drink grog and rate costumes, but now there are no steps and no kiddies trick or treat along the industrial strip where we can now afford rent.) This will not do.

Therefore, I am planning to have a Halloween party (the Sat before), and am looking for groovy stuff for little kids (who will of course be invited - what else is the point?). Question is: any suggestions for munchies, activities or decor, given that a bunch of the guests will range in age from about 2 to about 7?

So far, I have enlisted one friend to make her famous gelatin shrimp dip (which comes out a noxious salmon pink) in a brain-shaped mold, and I have several dozen chocolate eyeballs (Kosher!) on order. I'm figuring cider, mulled wine, beer, hot chocolate, maybe some apple bobbing for those looking to drown their kids. I have, Halloween geek that I am, a collection of rubber spiders, ravens, etc. from prior years that I can probably figure out how to stick on things to create "atmosphere." I will, without doubt, pull out my chalk collection and turn the sidewalk in front of our building into old-fashioned horizontal tomb covers (which the insurance co. in the ground floor shop will probably appreciate).

Since we now live up several flights of stairs, I was thinking of getting some blood-spatter sticky things to lead from the front door to our door, but I was wondering if that was too scary for little kids (or maybe I'm just being a ninny). I was also considering an old girl scout game I remember, where we'd turn out the lights and pass gross stuff around while someone told a scary story (e.g.: passing peeled grapes and telling a story about the eyeball killer). But maybe that's too scary for the age group. Or requires too much attention (from both the kids and parents trying to keep them from eating peeled food that's been handled by 15 people). I was considering buying a bunch of small pumpkins and letting everyone carve some to take home for Halloween proper, but I do value my rugs and 3 year olds with handfulls of pumpkin-guts-slime is probably not such a great idea, nevermind 3 year olds with knives.

Maybe I should just pull out the copper pots and the big spoons and let them make a ruckus while getting their parents suitably tanked?

Halloween
 

Uhhh, we're busy that night.

On our block I think the weedlet was the only trick-or-treater anyone saw all night last Halloween. Kind of sad, but she had quite a haul.

Halloween
 

See, that's just not OK. We were even glad to see the highschoolers dressed for school who, when asked what they were said "uh - a rapper!" in years past. (Then again, I remember a few years when I was about 10 or 11 when all the girls wanted to be either punks or hookers, and I imagine a lot of the adults couldn't distinguish that from our everyday clothes, either.)

I am horrified at the idea that an entire generation of children might grow up here never having tee-peed a house, soaped windows, snuck out after dark to have a seance in front of the local old coot's unkempt house. It's just not right.

Halloween
 

Have them decorate the pumpkins with markers instead of knives. Less potential for trips to the emergency room/ gunk on the carpet.

I saw that the gel gems people have some really cute halloween stuff. I think I saw them in the fancy grocery store. I was thinking about getting some for my office.

Dry ice was always a big hit when I was a kid for creating a good Halloweeny atmosphere.

Gummi worms are always a hit.

And this goes for you, too, Weed
 

If you miss it so much, why not just do what your parents did and move to the suburbs? Isn't worse if you know you're screwing your kids by trying to hold on to your dying urban hipster cred?

Halloween
 

Go here. You will find a cheap supply of bouncing rubber eyeballs, plastic spider rings, glow-in-the-dark necklaces, vampire teeth, etc.

here

Halloween
 

Or there's my favorite:

Archie McPhee

http://www.mcphee.com/pixlarge/M6133.jpg

Halloween
 

Do you have any historic cemetaries in the vicinity? A little All Hollow's Eve walk at dusk through an old cemetary, complete with stories of what went on in days of yore, can combine a little bit of a history lesson with scaring them out of their little gourds. And it will be memorable for years to come.

There is also a lot of interesting poetry in graveyards, and I know you appreciate that.