Week 197: Hallowee, Jokes, and Legs

The big event for us this week was, of course, Halloween. Mandy is still too young to know what the heck is going on, but Sam took much delight in the festivities this year. Indeed, her obsession started months ago, when she insisted that she wanted to dress up as a dragon. We had initially written it off as a passing fancy brought on by one too many viewings of Shrek (the scenes with Donkey and the amorous dragon are her favorite). She surprised us by holding fast, however, so Geralyn found a great Lady Dragon costume in a mail-order catalog for like $20. You can tell it’s a lady dragon by how they gave her enough lipstick, mascara, and rouge to outfit an entire red light district. Mandy was not quite sure what to make of it but she was amazed by the candy.

When the time came to trick or treat we let Sam go for it, wandering up to the door and receive sweets. She seemed to mutter “Happy Halloween” and “Thanks” under her breath for the most part, but whenever someone made the mistake of saying “What a great dinosaur costume!” Sam found her voice and would shriek “I’M A DRAGON!” quite loudly. Then she would demand satisfaction in the form of more candy. We lasted maybe 30 or 45 minutes before she got tired and had me carry her home.

When, by the way, did it become traditional to ask kids to tell a joke when they come to your door? The kids who came to our house were ready with the quips, but these requests bamboozled Sam when she was making her rounds. By the end of the night she had kind of caught on, but had concocted a hodge podge of humorous gags:

“Daddy!”

“What?”

“Where do ghosts like to eat fruit?”

“Where?”

“ROBOT BUTT!”

Followed by peals of shrieking, sugar fueled laughter. As far as I could tell this was an amalgamation of “Where do ghosts like to water ski?” (answer: Lake Eerie) and “What’s a vampire’s favorite fruit?” (answer: nectarines). I have no idea where robot butt came from. My favorite joke of the night: “Did you hear about the bomb disposal technician who got the entire left half of his body blown off? No? Well, don’t worry –he’s all right now.” Know who came up with that one? ME.

While Mandy didn’t do much trick or treating beyond going along for the ride, she is busy nailing more developmental milestones. She can now stand up. She can’t pull up by herself yet, but if you get her into position she can stay that way pretty much indefinitely. I started to time her once, but then got bored and lost track.

That picture of Mandy standing upright, by the way, highlights something that I guess is incontrovertible at this point: Mandy is a Madigan. I mean, look at those legs. Specifically, notice how long they are not. Now look at her torso. Notice how it’s pretty much normally proportioned. Mandy, if you’re reading this years from now, just know that your Aunt Shawn and I really do feel for you. We do. But there are benefits! Pants that are shorts on ordinary people magically become capri pants on you! You can reach things on the lower shelves of the supermarket without stooping. That’s invaluable! And best of all, with short arms and legs it’s easy to start lifting weights and make them look totally huge and buff where tall, skinny people (like, say, your sister Samantha) have to resort to dangerous steroid abuse.

You see, you have to have a positive attitude about these things.