I actually think I wrote that very sentiment two years ago, so I’m clearly not original in my thinking, even amongst my own thoughts!

But don’tcha think it’s true? A few weeks ago, NPR predicted record Halloween retail sales, even in the face of an economy so scary it makes the big kids’ haunted house at our school carnival look tame.

There’s ample evidence in my house, where I’ll admit I take holidays far smaller than Halloween to the nth degree. (Groundhog Day cookies, anyone?)

I say, why not. Life is short, holidays are fun. Go for it. But then I wind up looking and feeling like Sophie, the morning after a late night at the aforementioned carnival. She woke up with a big face-painted eyeball on her forehead (which she insisted on wearing to ballet) and two big bags under the real ones.

I mention our carnival because for me it’s come to symbolize the real kick off of Halloween, even if the house has already been decorated for weeks — the start, really, of all the debauchery of the holiday season, since I have to brace myself for the onslaught of Christmas on November 1.

Every year, I ruin much of my Christmas season (like I even technically get one, as a Jew — it’s a sad power grab I shamefully make each year) by being pissed at the world for refusing to honor the Day After Thanksgiving rule. Last week, as I glared at the Santa hats hanging jauntily on signs on the diaper aisle at CVS pharmacy, I willed myself to let go — who cares? More to celebrate, right?

And it’s not like I haven’t started my own holiday shopping yet.

Back to Halloween. Sometime, today (around a full work day), I have to get over to Safeway to purchase the accoutrement for pumpkin carving, since Annabelle has a friend from East India who had never carved a pumpkin til she did it last year with us — and the girls want to repeat the experience. Tonight. I also have to shovel the backyard til I find the table I know is on the patio out there, somewhere, under a summer’s worth of crap. (Not literally crap — at least, I hope not. I don’t think so.)

I have to remember to buy icing and candy corn (no small feat, Safeway was entirely out of CC the other day — further proof of Halloween Gone Mad) for the kindergarten Halloween celebration, and figure out what they’re doing in Annabelle’s class. I need to buy candy that the kids and Ray like but that I won’t want to scarf down. And I better get rid of the real cobwebs on the front porch; too scary.

The costumes are ready. That’s good. As long as both girls agree to stay those characters. Every day, Sophie announces a new choice. Let’s hope the temperature dips below 90 by Friday, or she’ll be sweltering in her full-body furry Cookie Monster costume.

OK, now I have to go try to get the spray paint off my hand — after a very messy but satisfying experience with glitter, glue and baby pumpkins last year, I tried to short cut it with glittery spray paint (a friend swears by it, but every craft she touches turns to glittery gold, while I have no such luck) and made a big mess, so I switched to chalkboard paint on the pumpkins — you know, chalk Jack o Lanterns.

Too freaking cute, huh? I do make myself a little sick.

For years, Ray has stood by watched all this. Sometimes he’ll pat my head, sometimes he’ll get mad. But as the kids have gotten older and love it all so much, he’s softened. This year he insisted we put all the Halloween decorations up as a family.

We’ll see how pumpkin carving goes tonight.

The other day, Sophie pointed to the top pocket of the thing hanging on the back of her closet door, (as opposed to the thing hanging on the front of her closet door, the thing hanging on her bathroom door, on my bathroom door, in Annabelle’s bedroom, on the back of my own bedroom door — you get the idea, at one point I thought those plastic shoe holder things were the key to organization) and asked, “What’s that?”

I thought she was pointing to one of her foot braces. For years now, Sophie’s worn flexible (well, somewhat; the first were totally stiff) ankle braces that fit down into her shoes. This has dramatically limited her choice of footwear. Frankly, for the most part, that’s bothered me a lot more than it’s bothered Sophie. We had one memorable afternoon in Nordstrom’s, trying on shoe after shoe; I hated the thought of sticking her in clunky white athletic shoes. Trish had the brilliant idea of getting her hot pink Converse, which unfortunately didn’t please the physical therapist.

To be honest, Sophie’s walking so well that we cheat a little (ok, a lot) and don’t always put her in her braces. She wears Crocs and Mary Janes and cute tennies that wouldn’t accomodate the braces. So don’t feel so sorry for either of us, though I still don’t put her in clogs; she’s too unsteady. (For that matter, I trip on my own clogs all the time.) I had a buying spree at Last Chance this summer that greatly increased Sophie’s shoe wardrobe and she has a lot of hand me downs from Annabelle.

I was thinking about the shoe thing less because today Ray’s taking her to the orthopedist and we expect she’ll be switched to a hidden plastic insert, and more because of what happened the other night, with the closet.

“What’s that?” Sophie asked.

“Oh, that’s one of your old braces,” I said. Don’t ask me why I’ve saved them all. I honestly think they’re pretty ugly (I realize now I didn’t even bother to take a picture). Once the orthopedist, whose wife is a fantastic local artist and who dabbles himself, took a much larger but similar brace from another patient and turned it into a planter, for a show where artists made planters out of different stuff. I couldn’t look at it.

But those darn braces — the purple ones, the pink ones, the one with butterflies (the babysitter accidentally drove over the other one, luckily without Sophie in it) — they’re all shoved into those pockets on the back of the closet door. It’s not like anyone else can use them, since they’re custom-fitted. And I’m not making planters out of them; no way. I’m just compelled to keep them.

Sort of like I’ve kept the pink velvet overalls I can never put Sophie in. (What? You’ve never heard my riff about how people with Down syndrome should not wear overalls? Not a good look. Perhaps related to “Of Mice and Men”.)

“NO!” Sophie insisted, in the way that only Sophie can insist. “What’s THAT?”

I caught a glimpse of red glitter, and pulled. Two ruby slippers (Target’s finest) that Annabelle’s outgrown emerged. You know, the shoes that have become the requirement for every little girl in America, now that someone brilliantly thought to mass-market them.

“GIVE ME!”

So I did, checking the size and warning that they were likely too small. She tried cramming her foot in anyway, then agreed and silently handed the shoes back.

At first I cursed the braces, cursed Sophie’s spaghetti ankles, cursed that extra chromosone.

Then I had to face the fact that really, it’s all because I’m disorganized. Three months ago, those shoes would have fit just fine, and Sophie would have had a great time in them.

Whatever. Life is too short to get upset when there’s an easy solution that’ll cost less than $20. We gave the slippers to a friend with a 2-year-old. And the next time I’m at Target, I’ll pick up a new pair.

I love all birthdays but mine — and not for the reason you’re thinking.

This morning, my friend Terry emailed to wish me a happy birthday, adding,

“every year gets better.

really.”

Terry’s got a few years on me, it’s true, but I already know she’s absolutely right. I don’t mind getting older. Not really. But I do dread my birthday, because of the inevitable let down of unmet expectations.

This year it didn’t come.

It’s definitely been the best birthday celebration ever. Maybe it’s because 42 snuck up on me — I’ve been too busy between family and work and extra work (thanks a lot, John McCain, for making it this far; I’d hoped to be done with you by now!) to worry about something as trivial as a birthday (and for readers of this blog, you know that’s saying A LOT, since we’re all about the celebration in our house). Maybe it’s because a year ago, the doctors were getting ready to crack open Sophie’s chest again, to get at her heart. Maybe (ok, most certainly) it’s because Ray scored on the merch (SOMEONE’s got to save the economy, I suppose) and because I was showered with songs and cards and gifts by so many friends (if you want people to remember your birthday, sign up for Facebook!) and because my mother pulled out the stops, as usual.

Or maybe it’s because I’m finally growing up. This year, I didn’t get upset when I had to remind my father to wish me a happy birthday. I didn’t care that I had to work or that it was Monday, always the busiest day of my week. I also didn’t wake up with butterflies in my stomach.

I was just glad to be around, and glad that I’d carved out time this weekend to wash the car and get a pedicure. And so glad to have my party girls. Annabelle and Sophie love a birthday; doesn’t matter whose. Yesterday I snuck out of the house before dawn to go for a walk, and as I tiptoed past Sophie’s room, her bell of a voice rung out: “Happy Birthday, Mommy”. By today there had already been so many celebrations the girls had lost track; they were surprised my birthday hadn’t passed already. (To be fair, I guess that could be what happened to my dad. Nah.)

Come to think of it, maybe I enjoyed my birthday this year simply because everyone spoiled me rotten. I’ll take it. Among my favorite gifts: the felted purse I’ve been drooling over (luckily not literally); a handsewn sock money with two extra arms; Ray’s bag of gifts from a boutique so perfectly girly my friends want him to coach their husbands; and old family photos, including one of my maternal grandfather in drag (it was Halloween, my mother swears).

But the very best presents: art work. Sophie glittered a sign that is gorgeous (sadly it won’t reproduce here).

Annabelle drew a picture of the two of us getting our pedicures yesterday. And my mother painted the girls. And if I could figure out what I’m doing wrong, I’d post pictures of both!

Summer will not end. Every year it’s the same, but I never get used to it. I only hope it’s cool enough on Halloween for Sophie’s Cookie Monster fur and Annabelle’s white-vampire-cat tights and leotard.

Abbie and Trish graciously sent the above photo along today — I think it was taken in May, the day of Sophie’s birthday party. When summer still seemed like a good idea…..

OK, so I don’t want to go all Martha on your ass or anything, but if you’re looking for a fun and easy craft to celebrate the Halloween season and Day of the Dead — one that even a kindergartener with Down syndrome can do! — go to www.mexicansugarskull.com and buy a mold.

Here are some examples from that site:

No, ours did not look like that. And true, I had some help (OK, a lot of help) with the royal icing (and be sure that’s what you use — the stuff really is like cement) but I’m still shaking my head over how simple those skulls were. The girls loved it. So did Ms. X, who joined us.

And really, just about anything in your craft cabinet will do! (Not sure Martha would say that, but I’m sure my friend Kathy Cano-Murillo, would. Check her out: www.craftychica.com — and bow down. The woman has HER OWN LINE OF GLITTER. A goddess.)

Here are ours. See if you can figure out whose is whose. The photos don’t do justice to the 3-D nature of the skull.

I’ve owned those darn molds for years, and never made the skulls. (As is the case with much of the contents of the craft area, the only organized place in the house, mainly due to non-use.) But this year I was determined. There’s been a lot of dying going on. The other day, Sophie came home with a beautiful drawing from a kindergarten friend, and Ms. X explained the little girl drew it for her because Sophie announced that her cat had died.

Yeah, in June.

So it’s nice to do some honoring, although Sophie clearly wasn’t think about Ernie when she made her skull. (That’s fine, it’s too early for her; ditto for Annabelle.)

But not for me. I didn’t have time to finish a skull, but I did put some bright blue royal icing eyes on one — just the shade of my grandfather’s eyes — and put it aside for a late night alone. I wonder if I can find some teeny tiny playing cards and poker chips to tuck in there somewhere?

Grandpa would not have known what to make of a sugar skull. To be fair, it wasn’t just him — I had no immersion in Latino culture before I moved home to Arizona as an adult. In the early 1990s, the Day of the Dead made its way into pop culture and I remember visiting an Arizona State professor who “studied” it, to learned about the holiday and its icons and write a story for the local daily paper, my first job out of school. Today an editor would likely poo-poo that story idea as over done.

Mostly, Day of the Dead is kitschy and fun (aside from the pesky death stuff); and the crafts are spectacular — and you can get the stuff for a song. So I filled my apartments and then my house with grinning skeletons and sparkly skulls, and I would have topped my wedding cake with a skeleton bride and groom couple if my mom hadn’t stopped me.

Making those skulls didn’t just remind me of loved ones who’ve left, it reminded me of my struggle to find stuff to love about Phoenix. I still maintain that the coolest Mexican import store I’ve ever seen was on the border between Little Italy and Chinatown, and I did recently travel to Amsterdam almost entirely to visit Kitsch Kitchen, where they do things with Mexican oilcloth that you can’t even imagine, but it’s nice to be close to the source of the craft action, too.

Someday — maybe in 2009 — I’m going to travel to Mexico with one of my Latin America-obsessed gringa friends.

But now I have to reorganize the sequins.

When it looked like the creation of sugar skulls (a tradition honoring Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead — celebrated November 1, All Saints Day, in Mexico among other places) was iminent, I called Kathleen.

I have two gringa friends — tall blonde women who have long been inexplicably obsessed with all things Latin – but one is living in Puerto Rico, so I called the one who lives across town. Kathleen has more sugar skulls in her collection of Latin American art than a Oaxacan cemetery the day after Halloween, and she’s damn crafty (has an entire room at her house devoted to beading) so I figured she’d been around the sugar skull block once or twice.

“No way have I ever made them,” came the quick reply. The subtext: You might have been able to get me to drive to LA to see Crispin Glover’s horrible movie starring people with Down syndrome killing snails (a story for another day) but no, I’m not coming over to help you shove wet sugar into plastic molds.

Normally I would have said screw it, but this damn election has created so much work it’s caused me to miss most of the Halloween/DOTD season, and I’ve always wanted to make sugar skulls. So I forged ahead.

And let me say that it’s amazing how well you can do at a project when you actually read the directions on the back of the package. They’re not perfect, but even Annabelle was impressed when the first skull face slid neatly out of the mold.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow, when it’s time to decorate.

It fell out today.

And not a moment too soon, since it’s been hanging by a thread for days. It finally came out at school with some advice from a friend (“Pull it!”) and two complete twists. When I heard that, I swooned — and not in a good way.

I advised Annabelle to ask Tabitha Fairchild just one question tonight. “Save the rest for the next tooth!” I said, warning she was going to run out of things to ask her tooth fairy. But every time she’d finished, Annabelle came up with another question; she wound up with six:

Are you married? (No, but I have a boyfriend)

Do you brush your teeth? (Of course!)

Will I ever see you? (Crap, forgot to answer that one)

Do you have a tooth fairy? (Yes, she brings me hair accessories)

Do you have parents? (Yes, I’m very lucky, they’re very nice!)

Now for the glitter and the silver dollars and the note and the barrettes I snuck to Walgreens for and the nervous breakdown inducing tooth removal. Wish me luck.

I was pleased to hear last night that Annabelle’s teacher went around the room yesterday and asked each kid to talk about Fall Break. I knew AB was busting to tell her class about the fairy rings.

I’d never heard of a fairy ring til last week. As we were driving north, Ray gave his sales pitch for what a great trip it would be. “We’re going to a place called the Crystal Forest,” he said, “And we’re going to look for fairy rings! But the fairy rings won’t be in the crystal forest — they’ll be in the real forest.”

“Huh?” I thought. (I was sort of napping at the time.) At that point I hadn’t been enlightened to the wonders (not so much) of the Crystal Forest, at the Petrified Forest. And I’d certainly never heard of a fairy ring. I have no idea where Ray picked that one up — he’s the keeper of all sorts of knowledge, useful and not, the kind of guy who reads about the ancient Romans for fun. Handy to have around, for sure.

And the fairy ring was the ticket. Along with fashion design, Annabelle’s been into the whole fairy thing. When we go to the bookstore, she grabs those enormous (expensive!) fairy books with the pop-ups and the cut outs and the little envelopes you can open and take stuff out of — all about fairies. She most definitely wanted to see a fairy ring. The stakes were high.

Ray explained that a fairy ring is a circle of mushrooms. I know about mushrooms; we used to find them on the lawn, as kids. I don’t know why we don’t get them at our house now. Maybe because of irrigation. All I recall was my mother warning us that they might be poisonous (as if I was going to put THAT in my mouth) and worrying about the dog getting into them. No rings.

In the end, we found two fairy rings on our trip. None in the petrified forest (of course) and none in the real forest (not that we looked so hard, or really spent much time in any real forest) — instead, one was in the yard at La Posada in Winslow and the other in my parents’ yard in Flagstaff.

Wow. It really was a little circle (a clumpy little circle but still) of mushrooms, growing right there next to a tree on the lush green lawn that backs up to a very loud train. “Where are the fairies?” Annabelle asked Ray, who assured her that they only come out at night and promised to bring her back, flashlight in hand.

She did her own little fairy dance on the lawn.

I had an idea. As we were packing to leave on our trip, there was some consternation over the fact that Annabelle was about to lose a tooth. She never did, that thing was still hanging there last night when I put her to bed. Ray started calling her Snaggletooth, and it’s true, the thing is looking pretty gross. (The tooth, not the kid.)

So I ran to the bank and got some more silver dollars and packed some Tabitha Fairchild stationary, as well as my favorite pink glitter, “Cheeky,” which I’ve been sprinkling on the tooth fairy letter each time. More than the stationary or the money or the small gift I include (indeed, I go way overboard, shoot me) Annabelle’s taken with the “fairy dust”, which she saves in a small box in her room. (And here, big thanks to Mrs. M., for the idea!)

My idea was to run outside when no one was looking, and dump some glitter on the mushrooms, so Annabelle would see them sparkle when she and Ray headed out that night.

I felt like a criminal, creeping out the back door and crouching to sprinkle the pink stuff, but no one was around. I even made it back up to the room, sparkle free, with no questions from the kids. And that night, the plan worked! Sophie skipped the trip into the cold (wise girl) but Annabelle headed out and back in to report on the discovery.

The next morning, Annabelle told me she’d had a dream about a fairy, describing her in beautiful detail.

“I don’t know, I think she’s getting a little too obsessed with fairies,” Ray said later.

I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out his role in this obsession. Anyhow, a little magic is not a bad thing. Right?

The second fairy ring was dead, so we skipped the glitter, though AB insisted on going out at night to check, just in case.

Of course, before I wrote this, I googled “fairy ring”. I found several web sites for lawn care, and a great picture of a gigantic fairy ring. (Apparently they can be quite a problem.)

And naturally, there’s a Wikipedia entry for fairy rings. Now, maybe it’s just because of my profession (as a journalist, it’s all about getting the info before you write the story) but I’m constantly struck with how scarily easy it is, these days, to get ahold of information. I’m not saying it’s always accurate — you’ve got to fact check — but it’s darn good stuff, I realize, now that I’ve given into the wiki thing a little.

Too good to be true, if you ask me, which is the same thing I think when I use my iPhone or drive through Starbucks. Or take my Netflix movie out of the mailbox. Or find out they serve brown rice at my favorite Thai restaurant. And then there’s etsy.com.

Sorry for the digression, but really, these things tell me that the end of civilization is nearing. It’s all too easy. I listen to the financial news and I don’t understand any of it except the part about how we’re probably really, really screwed. I think it’s because I love my iPhone too much.

So yeah, give me some magic. It’s nice to think about fairy rings, and even learn everything you could imagine (and then some) about them with a few keystrokes. But don’t read too much. As my own luck would have it, fairy rings are considered incredibly bad luck by a variety of cultures! They portend an early death and French lore warns that bug-eyed toads guard them, putting a curse on anyone who comes near. You must touch iron or sprinkle marjoram and thyme to ward off the evil.

The good news is that you pretty much have to step inside the fairy ring for anything really crappy to happen, and our rings were way too small for that. And there was mention of the belief that the fairies use the mushrooms for parasols and tables. I prefer to imagine that. Shakespeare alluded beautifully though scarily to them, in The Tempest:

I also found this traditional Scottish rhyme:

And what of she who sprinkles pink glitter on the fairy ring?

Yeah, I’m screwed.

I just hope my Netflix movies still come.

Yesterday morning, Sophie and I made a quick trip to Safeway, which was very exciting for her because we ran into none other than Ms. X, Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire.

It was the last day of Fall Break; Sophie hadn’t seen her teacher in more than a week. She eyed her shyly as Ms. X complimented Sophie on her princess pajamas (bad mom didn’t bother to dress the kid) and asked how her trip to Winslow was.

Sophie finally warmed up — maybe she didn’t remember her at first? — and grabbed Ms. X’s hand, a huge grin on her face.

She talked about the encounter all day, while I spent the day bragging about what happened next.

After we were done shopping and Sophie had announced to the clerk that she was “82″ when asked her age (something that had never happened before but I suspect will continue, given the entertained reaction she got) we stopped at the Starbucks counter on the way out of Safeway. Sophie requested her usual — “iced moh-ka!” — and I ordered her a kiddie chocolate milk with ice and a little whipped cream. It arrived with red sprinkles, a real treat.

When I went to get Sophie and her drink out of the car, she held up the cup, looked at my name scrawled on the side, and read “Amy”, then spelled out the letters for me.

I was stunned. I know it’s not “War and Peace,” but I think Sophie actually read a word — and not “and” or “the” or “dog” under a picture of a dog.

This morning when we arrived at school, before I could stop her, Sophie had run off to the playground on her own. I held my breath and let her go, for the first time not following, but warning Ms. X when she emerged from the classroom to fetch the kids that Sophie was out there, somewhere.

I stood and watched the kids pour down the breezeway. Annabelle came and went with her classmates. Finally, I saw Ms. X’s head above the crowd. She caught my eye and gave a thumbs up, and suddenly there was Sophie, walking with the rest of her classmates, running over to grab her backpack and lunch box, barely saying goodbye before she disappeared into the classroom.

Annabelle still requires a squeeze and an “I love you” before she’ll enter her classroom, so I fetched my hug and went on my way. It was a good morning.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled navel-gazing to bring you this shameless plug — my dear friend Deborah Sussman Susser and I are co-teaching a one-day writing workshop at MADE in downtown Phoenix, on October 25. Check it out. Spread the word. Thanks! (This one’s for everyone, not just moms….)

TRICK OR TREAT?
with Amy Silverman & Deborah Sussman Susser
Sat., Oct 25
10am-1pm
$30

Halloween: The time of year when we dress up as what devils and/or delights us and count our treats. Join us for a creative writing workshop that promises to be creepy and delicious, and to help you strengthen and refine your writing.

Please note: Participants will be contacted by the instructors, given a writing assignment (essay or poetry, your choice, no longer than two pages) and asked to bring copies to read aloud and workshop.

Amy Silverman and Deborah Sussman Susser have co-taught the workshop Mothers Who Write since 2001. Amy is managing editor of Phoenix New Times. She’s written for the New York Times, Travel + Leisure and salon.com. Her radio credits include This American Life, transom.org and KJZZ, the Phoenix NPR affiliate. She lives in Tempe. Deborah is associate editor of Jewish News of Greater Phoenix and a regular commentator for KJZZ. She lives in Tempe, too.