Memories

"It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" was on t.v. tonight. This is my most favorite Halloween show ever. I own the DVD, but it's not the same. You have to watch it the night it airs on t.v. And you can't record it. That's cheating. You have to make yourself sit down and watch it when it comes on and sit through commercials and everything. Those are the rules. I used to make my students watch it as a classroom assignment. I don't know how I got away with that because I didn't really tie it into anything meaningful. I just felt that every American kid should watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and I was going to make sure they did.

So, I have my Ramen Cup of Soup and my egg roll and I sit down to take a trip down memory lane tonight. I was actually giddy. As I'm watching the show I start to think "I can't wait until this becomes a tradition with our kid." With that in mind and as I continue to watch I then start to think to myself "I'm really going to have to teach our kid that it is not okay to call someone a 'blockhead'." All of the sudden Lucy starts to seem really mean to me this year. Next thought: "Okay, we're going to have to have the talk that Lucy is a bully and it's not okay to be a bully or let someone else bully you." Then I thought "I'm going to be one of those parents. Oh my gosh, am I going to be able to let my kid enjoy these things without making everything a life lesson?!?" And before my all-time-favorite Halloween show is over I let the thought creep in "Charlie Brown has a really low self-esteem. We're going to have to make sure our kid feels good about himself."

This is just one of many freak-out episodes I've had recently. I'm sure once we're all ready to start the holiday traditions that I will have calmed down significantly and I probably won't have to explain anything and maybe, just maybe, our future kid and I will sit down with a bowl of popcorn (or Ramen and egg rolls) and create some new family memories. This makes me smile.