halloween planning in April

Anyone out there good at cutting out pieces of felt shaped like internal organs?

What?  Is that question coming out of nowhere, you think?  Well, let me start back at the beginning, then.

Last night, as Red and I were doing our routine few minutes of snuggling before bed, she apparently wasn't feeling very creative with her bedtime-postponing-brainstorming-of-ideas, because she pulled out a boringly classic one- "My stomach hurts.  I want medicine."  As usual, I was exhausted, and I scrambled to think on my feet as quickly as possible to avoid the likely wail that would escape from her loud-as-all-out mouth when I broke the news that she wouldn't be getting any medicine for a condition that hadn't been in existence the whole evening.

"Well sweets, I actually don't have any medicine for your stomach."  (Big deep breath and then rapidly soldiering on right over the rumblings of the beginning protest in hopes of distracting her.) 

"You remember that book that we like to look at at your doctor's office?  The one with all the diagrams of the parts of the body?"  (Nodding from Red, and an instantaneous silence.  Home run!) 

"Well, remember the long tubes that carry the stuff you don't need from the food you ate from your stomach and down toward your bum so you can poop it all out?" (More nodding, and no sign of the previously threatening storm on the horizon.)

"The thing is, your body doesn't need medicine right now.  You know what I bet it is?  All that yummy food you ate tonight is getting digested in your stomach and then it needs the whole night to travel through those tubes- your intestines- and then you'll feel better.  So, you need to go to sleep so that your body can focus on pushing all that stuff through, and get this... (leaning in for the whisper)... I bet when you wake up, you'll have to poop!"

The response that this gets is on the opposite end of the spectrum as the fit would have been, but it's undoubtedly at the same intensity level.  Just as I quietly shush her and hug her for the final snuggle, she burst out with a gigantic squeal and joyfully exclaims, "I know what I want to be for Christmas!"  (pause)  "Oops, I mean for Halloween!"

Completely unsure of where this is going, I have to ask for her to share her idea.


"I want to be the inside parts of the body!"  Squeals galore.

In just an instant, I was transported back to my elementary school years, as this image flashed through my mind.  And I'll be damned if I didn't remember the guy's name, too!

Oh yes, this dude, his gigantic white-man-fro, and all his illustrated innards came to at least one of my elementary schools, and I remember seeing him on television, too.  Looks like he is still doing school shows, but only out West, so I don't think my kids will have the pleasure of missing math for one of those assemblies.

But, if I can get my act together over the next six months to make some sort of costume for Red, I may just clinch the trifecta for the town's costume contest, since JAM got it a couple years back, and Pudge claimed it last year.  I wonder if Slim Goodbody makes house calls, because I know one little almost-four year old who would LOVE him.


Aware of my simple concept of the workings of the digestive system,