It’s October. October is long for us. Very, very long. A) Kelly hates, and I mean HATES Halloween. Scary, grotesque, ridiculously frightening holiday for any girl who lives most of her day in fantasy. Kelly doesn’t yet separate real from fantasy, and by God, there is just no way to make this phase pass. B) The majority of her stuffed animals have been in storage for almost 6 months. They are real to her, and therefore, we hear about their peril. Every.single.day. For 6 months, Kelly’s stuffed animals are suffering.

We just don’t have the room in this apartment, and we’ve kept as many as we can manage. Greg was regularly taking her to switch them out in storage so she could check on their welfare, but by mid-summer, it just became too much for her. The tears! We went stuffed animal cold turkey, and it seemed to help. That, and Papa Bump sending her an insane amount of birthday money which he insisted she spend entirely on stuffed animals. As he was near death, I let her. He suckered me with all that surviving and thriving he did afterwards. Those two probably cooked up his heart attack, just to add to her collection. DO NOT PUT THIS PAST THEM! I know when I’ve been schnookered by Ira and his tiny twin.

It was with sadness and great sincerity that Kelly informed me last week her stuffed animals had contracted an illness known as “aidrocardinoids” (she spelled it for me, and it’s apparently pronounced “eye-dro-card-in-oids”). She gave me the woeful turn of events thusly: Her raccoon decided he wanted the unicorns’ food, so he poisoned them. In his haste to cover up the crime (as if being a bandit-faced raccoon surrounded by dead unicorns wasn’t incriminating enough), he failed to wash his hands. As he must suffer from some version of a stuffed animal anti-social personality disorder, he then went out and shook the hands of every stuffed animal in the forest.

Casualties of War

And there you have it. Her entire collection in storage has a poison-induced disease known as “aidrocardinoids”. I had her recant the entire tale to her father over the phone while he was at work, and when they said their goodbyes, she replied, “Daddy is finally taking me seriously. I’m so relieved he understands my stuffed animals.” Unfortunately, their survival is dubious. In fact, she told my friend Stephanie last Friday, “They’re dead. They are ALL DEAD.” She recanted her story the next day when she discovered the WORLD’S GREATEST AND MOST AWESOME HALLOWEEN COSTUME!! OH MOMMY, CAN I HAVE IT?! PLEASE?! I MUST HAVE IT.

I told her she was welcome to spend her remaining birthday money on it, as she is on a stuffed-animal-purchasing hiatus. She replied,”That’s actually a much better plan. I don’t WANT to buy any stuffed animals during this aidrocardinoids crisis. They’ll only the spread the disease to the new animals. The cure is probably plant-based, because most cures are. I think we’ll find the answer in a flower, but it’s fall. The flowers are dying. I don’t see a cure arriving until spring. So, you see, I should buy this Queen costume instead. It’s just the smart thing to do, considering.” I was rather relieved to hear they weren’t “all dead”. Starting her collection over from scratch IS SIMPLY NOT HAPPENING.

So this is the story of how Kelly is finally looking forward to Halloween. She couldn’t be more excited to be a beautiful, pink Queen in a hoop skirt. Please don’t take that to mean she wants to leave the house or enter into any stores not pre-shopped by me (I have to go in first and check out the Halloween decor…if it’s scary…she isn’t going). That doesn’t mean she doesn’t cringe every time we get in the car. Scary ads for haunted houses drive her nuts. She has their locations memorized all over the city. In fact, I had to send my poison pen over to Simon Malls just this morning for a tasteless ad hanging in the center of the Castleton Mall. Shame on you Simon! Toddlers see that nasty sign every day! Scaring little kids is just gross.

While on the stuffed animal wagon, she convinced Daddy to MAKE her a lovey! Mommy’s scraps and a Sharpie. Advantage: Daddy.

This evolution of events hit me hard. Her stuffed animals are near death and she is almost-kind-of-sort-of wishing for Halloween. Does this smack of the end of her fantastical thinking? Huh. Do I wish for this to pass? I do and I don’t. Kelly has always been a little detached from reality, and I cannot imagine her any other way. I cannot imagine relating to her day-to-day without adjusting my frame of reference to include the reality of fairies, pragmatic conversations with an endless sea of loveys, and the hope that Santa will bring the imaginary toys she invents in her mind. It can be very challenging to hold a conversation with Kelly, but her fantasy has become my reality. Perhaps I like it more than I care to admit…

I have assured her the stuffed animals will be the first things to move into the new house, assuming that while I’m neck-deep in boxes, she’ll beg me to set up a triage center in the middle of the mess. If any of you have critical care stuffed animal nurses you could spare, I’d be so very grateful. Greg is on the opposite side of the fence. He thinks this evolution spells a new, and darker depth, of Kelly’s imaginary world. He sees Stephen King novels in her future. Wow. I suddenly feel a lose-lose scenario coming on. Either way, the next few weeks are sure to be a wild ride. Stay tuned…