What My Kids Don't Know Hurts Me

Neighbors Give 'Dirty Chocolates' to Tinker Belle on Halloween

by Chris Hollenback

This Halloween, my one-year-old son, John, dressed up as Charlie Brown. To make the costume truly authentic, we drew the jack-o-lantern design on the back of his bald

head like Lucy does to Charlie Brown in "The Great Pumpkin." Lucy wants to practice before actually carving the pumpkin, and this gave us some practice for ours, too.

Clearly, John has a future in male modeling.

Meanwhile, my daughter, Belle, who just turned three, dressed as Tinker Belle. She wasn't happy when I drew the jack-o-lantern on John. "Daddy!" she reprimanded. "Mommy said we're not supposed to draw on John."

Luckily my wife stood up for me. "That's just for his costume, Belle. It's special for Halloween."

"And I don't use permanent marker," I added. "This will wash off in less than four weeks."

Belle threatened to cry several times because her antennae wouldn't stay on. (Sound familiar, parents?) But the promise of candy quickly turned her around. She and John scored some good loot from neighbors. Belle kept pointing to hers.

"Look, Daddy, I have Snickers!"

"Actually, those are Ghirardelli chocolates," I said.

"Yes," she said, "Dirty-ol-chocolates."

"No, Ghirardelli chocolates."

"Right, dirty-ol-chocolates."

There's no shaking her conviction--kinda like when people stubbornly voted for Walter Mondale.

Tinker Belle's like Linus, who sits in the pumpkin patch, patiently waiting for the Great Pumpkin to rise up and bring