Big Kid

Today is the "observed" Halloween holiday at my school, and my kids have been screamingly excited about it for weeks. By screamingly, I mean they literally get up and dance when we do calendar every morning, as our pumpkins get closer to the big candy corn I put over the end of the month. My students in my afternoon literacy groups are just as excited. So, naturally, we celebrated today with a good old fashioned corny grade school party. We did the mummy wrap, we ate cupcakes and cookies at 10:30 in the morning, we had a parade wearing our Halloween costumes (I was a birthday party), and we watched the first ten minutes of Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. To top it all off, we played freeze dance with a mix CD that our music teacher let me swipe. While many of the classic Halloween songs were on there, I was out of my seat faster than you can say "who you gonna call?" when the Ghostbusters theme came on. Watching my stellar dance moves, one of my kindergarteners looked at me studiously and pronounced that I was "really just a big kid."

I've been feeling this way a lot lately, particularly in relation to being married. While I do a lot of grown up things like go to grad school, chase down goals in my career, and babysit friends' kids, I don't really feel any older or fuller of knowledge now that I'm a wife. When Kev and I would attend friends' weddings, I always thought that those couples looked a little more serious, a little more bonded, and a little more responsible than I. However, I've come to realize that marriage is the best kept secret ever- if people knew that it feels like having a sleepover with your best friend EVERY SINGLE DAY they would be rushing down the aisles.

A friend of mine brought her 6 month baby to work today, a baby whom I adore and babysit quite often. The baby even looks like me, and many of the kids and newer coworkers at school asked me if she was mine. While my heart was tugged by this tiny creature in a plush butterfly costume, I know I'm not ready for kids yet because I'm busy having too much fun. I love feeling like I have a partner in crime, and I don't think it's immature to admit that I love kicking Kev's behind in Jeopardy for hours on end, eating mac n' cheese when we feel like it, and drinking champagne just because we can. When I was younger, I was jealous of the big kids because they got to stay out trick-or-treating until 10 o'clock, when all the scandalous things happen. Now I do that every night and it's just plain awesome. Turning into a big kid was definitely worth the wait.