FIRST WORD!

You read right. I repeat: We had our first word today! I was standing and holding Punky in the kitchen while I was waiting for her breakfast to heat up in the microwave when A came strolling in. He kissed her cheek from behind and said, "Hey gorgeous". All of a sudden, her face just lit up, she got a big smile, and plain and simply said, "Daddy!"

Daddy.

So sayeth the Punky.

In other, considerably less significant, news, A and I spent Halloween passing out candy with Beelzepunk. We both love Halloween to the point it's sacred for us, and you know, I don't remember so many kids just phoning Halloween in. I can't even tell you how many kids came to the door just wearing normal clothes, maybe smudging a little extra eyeliner under their eyes, and thrusting their Wal-Mart bags at us and calling it a costume. It was disheartening. Not to mention I've always found store-bought costumes to be a total cop-out. My mom always sewed our costumes, and they kicked ass. My mom is a wizard with a sewing machine and a Simplicity pattern.

Halloween costume hunting began in late August, early September, when I would sit on the stools in the fabric section of Wal-Mart, pouring over the pattern books and looking for the perfect costume. After weeks of agonizing, and remembering awesome costumes from the year before, I'd finally make my selection, Mom would buy the pattern, and for the next few weeks, she'd carefully sew my costume, we'd seek out the perfect accessories, and I'd spend the next month in eager anticipation of the greatest holiday of the year.

We'd take part in the town Halloween parade, and both my brother and I won just about every year for our respective age ranges. Even if it meant sacrifice on our part -- like the year I went as Cleopatra and we discovered I was really, REEEAALLY allergic to Maybelline mascara, as by the end of the parade my eyes were swollen nearly-shut -- our costumes kicked ass. People remembered our costumes. My mom lived vicariously through me in a lot of different ways, often in overbearing ways, but damnit, our costumes were incredible, and she took great pride in her sewing and creativity skills.

So it's sad to see so many kids not care, or their parents not care, at least. I told A that I want Punky's favorite childhood memories to be of Halloween. He told me I can't dictate her memories, to which I told him THE HELL I CAN'T. I'll send her into therapy where she'll blame me for everything when she's 30, but damnit, that kid will look back on Halloween with fondness and WIST, damnit. WIST!!!! I yelled, with my fist clenched and directed to the sky.

But even more annoying was the rather geriatric age of the trick-or-treaters. The last year I went trick-or-treating, I was 13. And I was horribly self-conscious about it because I knew I was too old and hated myself every time I got the judgmental stare from the neighbors who hesitantly handed me candy. It was shameful. But we saw mobs of teenagers -- and one grandmother, like that mask is going to hide the limp of your arthritic hip, you stupid old bat -- who seemed to have no problem raping us of our candy.

And so, A and I devised an ongoing list of stipulations for trick-or-treating retirement age. We have decided that you are too old to trick-or-treat:

1.) If part of your costume includes high heels. (Not including high heels that come in a pack from Wal-Mart with a tiarra, clip-on earrings, and Pretty Princess pink lipstick.)
2.) If you have obvious acne problems.
3.) If you are in desperate need of a bra.
4.) If you are going door-to-door drunk.
5.) If you are in the midst of menopause.
6.) If you can drive yourself up to the house, get out of your car, take candy, and walk back to your car.
7.) If you went to high school with the person who is handing out candy... 10 years ago.

That's what we'd devised so far. Our list kinda began to taper off after A suggested the whole "you can't be drunk to trick-or-treat" rule, because I think that girl was um, "mentally handicapped," and even for A, that was a fast-track-to-hell statement. But it's a general statement, too.