The great pumpkin, some hocus, some pocus, and Little Jack Jenkins...

Part I

(In which the author updates her friends on Week 2 and 3 of the new Halloween/October movie tradition).

So week 2 of our Friday night Halloween Movie gig went smoothly...mostly because I SNAFUed Netflix and didn't get a scary movie delivered for P and I. I accidentally had "Sex and the City The Movie" delivered, and well, other than the premise of basing your whole existence on whether or not you marry Mr. Big (I'm still 100% Team Aiden), it's not very scary.

Boy Wonder, on the other hand, got a copy of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" We watched it while P cooked Dinner last week and the kid loved it. Loved loved loved it! Thank you Charles Schulze, you saved my fledgling tradition.

This week (the movies are already waiting for tomorrow night!) we have "Hocus Pocus" for Boy Wonder. Probably my favorite Halloween Movie ever, mostly because I have a lifelong fascination/strange love of all things Bette Midler (especially when she had buck teeth!). Even though it's not animated, I think he'll love it.

For us, I remembered seeing the 70s version of "The Omen" and it scaring the wee out of me. Since P likes the religion good v. evil stuff a lot more than some random schiz hacking his family apart...I'm hoping for a mark in the W category. Wish me luck...

Part II

(In which the author talks about the new thingy she's doing with Boy Wonder)

We've signed three reading contracts with Boy Wonder's kindergarten teacher so far this year. I'm not sure if she's losing them or if I'm just signing on the wrong line or in the wrong color pen...but they keep coming home and I keep signing them and sending them back.

The gist is that we're supposed to read to Boy Wonder every single day. Every single day. It sounds so great in theory, doesn't it? But in practice, it's pretty hard. And the books he brings home are those really short, few words a page alliteration books that are supposed to help kids memorize the words so they can start recognizing them by sight...

Anyway, after the third night of the dish, the chair and the spoon running away to New York only to have the fork, the knife, and the dog meet them there (seriously...that's the story in four pages), Boy Wonder and I needed something more.

And there was born "Little Jack Jenkins."

I spend countless hours each week typing away at whatever work in progress I've convinced myself will lift me out of the M-F work week mundane life I lead, and I never really thought of writing for my son. Until he asked me to.

So when I have time, I take a couple sheets of notebook paper, and I write about Little Jack Jenkins, a flashlight named "Blaze," and a stuffed dog named "Marvelous Marvin." And I read them to Boy Wonder at night. And he recognizes himself in these stories. And his stuffed dog. And hopefully, if it all goes well, he'll learn (like Little Jack Jenkins does) that anything can be an adventure in life.

So far, Little Jack Jenkins has met the hobbity gobbity when he wouldn't go to sleep like his mother told him ("Little Jack Jenkins Meets the Hobbity Gobbity"), he's flown to outer space to return an alien boy's toy ("Little Jack Jenkins Plays Outerspace Baseball") and he's even crossed swords with his own dinner ("Little Jack Jenkins and the Spaghetti and Meatball Monster").

When I have time, I've been hand copying the stories in to an extra journal I had lying around.
I know in a few years, Little Jack Jenkins will be lame and embarrassing, but my hope is that when it comes time for Boy Wonder to have his own baby wonder, maybe "Little Jack Jenkins" will help him out and he'll have something to remember our times together.

That's the hope anyway. That, and it's way more fun making up your own bedtime stories once in a while. True story.

I'm currently working on Little Jack Jenkins and the Sleep Pirates... What are sleep pirates, anyway?? Yaaar!

Life is good, life is good...