It was an odd weekend with the girls. Fun as always - how can it not be with those two - but odd nonetheless. I picked the girls up late Saturday afternoon. We had a nice dinner, followed by some games and puzzles in the evening. Zoe is very fond of our sheep throwing game. I basically chuck a large sheep at her while she runs towards me. Sure - it sounds bizarre. But we both get a kick out of it. OK - mostly me. Anywho - we were playing the sheep throwing game when the sheep kareened off Zoe's head and into one of Mom's MANY oil lamps. I watched in slow motion as it fell off the table, bounced on the carpet, dislodged the top glass part which then broke apart as it hit the floor. Oops. Zoe immediately yelled out "AUNTIE SANDRA DID IT". I started laughing. Mom wasn't impressed. Whatever - it was fun. That pretty much ended the sheep game. So - we helped Jasmine finish her puzzle - and it was around there that Zoe got hold of the video case for E.T. I remember telling her last year - maybe even the year before - that I thought the movie would be too scary for her. Perhaps remembering that, she made it clear she had no interest in actually seeing the movie....but could I possibly go through the entire storyline for her? She was particularly interested in the pictures on the back of the case - is that ET? Who is the boy? Where are they going? Not thinking anything of it, I went through the storyline as best as I can remember it. It's been what....20 years since my last viewing of ET. I was fuzzy to say the least - but I made stuff up as I went along. Zoe had to see pictures of ET. So I googled some pictures and showed her - and she commented how "cute" he was. Seemed fine. Then she said "what if ET comes back". This should have been my first clue. I didn't catch on. "Ummm - well - I don't know. I guess he would be with Elliott". She didn't like this. Suddenly she was having visions of ET landing in her bedroom at midnight. I took her upstairs to read her some stories and get her mind off of ET. Right. The questions started and I took a new tact. "You know Zoe" I said "ET is just a movie. It's not real. ET isn't real. Elliott isn't real....". "Elliot isn't real???" she exclaimed surprised. "Well....I mean - yes - Elliott is real - but he's an actor". "What's an actor" she asked. Yeah - this was going well. It was 9:00pm with no end in sight. Luckily she was tired - and after a few more questions answered - and hopefully the image of a midget in a plastic costume resonating in her brain - she fell asleep. With a death grip on my arm. I tried to leave twice - unsucessfully. When she started to snore, I thought I was clear. I sat up and moved my arm - which despite her being fast asleep - was STILL in a death grip on my arm. At around 10:00, Mom and I headed up to bed, and Mom woke Zoe up as she came into the room. I was in the bathroom when Mom walked in, followed closely by Zoe. Clearly Zoe had no intention of being alone when ET came back down to earth. She wasn't crying or upset - she padded back to bed and fell back asleep with Mom. Jazzie was clearly not as affected by ET. She did not wake up at all - so no midnight stories to share from her.
The ET theme continued the next morning. We all got up and headed to Tutti Frutti in Vaudreuil for breakfast. Zoe continued asking questions about ET. Where did he live? How did he get lost? Why was Elliott helping him? Who were the bad people? How did he get home? How did his parents know where to meet him? When she ran out of questions, she would ask the more generic "tell me the story of ET again". When Mom was talking to me about something else on the drive up, Zoe tried to interject with another question. When Mom told her to wait a moment while she finished her story, Zoe waited patiently for at least 3 seconds and tried again to get her attention. When that didn't work, she blurted out "hey - I'm not getting any attention back here". That had us all laughing. At the restaurant, we had a wonderful brekkie of pancakes and loads of fresh fruit. We then walked around the mall complex while Grampie paid. At the end of the mall was a Halloween Store. Now - in retrospect - perhaps after traumatizing Zoe with ET, we should have reconsidered going inside. But in my mind - I was thinking there would be pumpkins, spiders, cats, some silly masks. I was NOT expecting a life-size Jason and life-size Freddie Kruger to be flanking us as we walked through the door. To boot - each was speaking (Jason with his KKKK-KKKKIIIILLLL and Freddie mumbling something about dreams) and each was moving - Jason swinging his "sword" down as you went by. Oh great. Fabulous. Could be my last babysitting gig. Zoe wasn't too disturbed - she simply walked quickly by and stayed at the back of the store with Nana. Jazzie was scared - but intrigued. She kept looking back - while hiding behind racks so Jason couldn't see her. She didn't want to go up to him - but I did let her watch me walk up to him and poke him to show he wasn't real. She seemed ok after that. We saw lots of great costumes and masks - and they wanted me to try a few disgusting smelly ones on for a laugh. We left the store and headed back home. We weren't in the car 5 minutes before Zoe said "tell me the story of ET again".
I suspect the afternoon continued in a similar fashion after I dropped them off to their parents. As I was putting on their jackets and shoes to head home, I quickly put on Jasmine's shoes and left the straps open - figuring I was carrying her to the car and she had a short walk into the house from there. But as I put on her jacket, she looked down and said "Fandrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaah....you idn't frap me" whereupon she bent down, clearly annoyed, and tried to do it herself. I started to laugh and couldn't stop.
Well - Happy early Halloween all! :)
