wicked

Last night we watched two episodes of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theater.  Yes, the series that many of us saw when we were little kids (rent it from your local library or watch it on Hulu).  The series ran from 1982-1987 and featured some of the hottest stars at the time.  Last night we watched Hansel & Gretel, which featured Ricky Schroder (omg, did you see that he just turned 40!) as Hansel and Joan Collins, of Dynasty fame, as the evil stepmother and wicked witch.  Oh it was a gem and BigBoy was a little frightened by it, particularly the part where the old witch wants to feel Hansel’s arm to feel how fat he’s getting because ultimately she’s going to cook and eat him.  That’s really freaky if you think about it too long, but the Brothers Grimm didn’t get their name for stories of sunshine, rainbows and unicorns, did they?  BigBoy knows how the story ends so it wasn’t too bad for him.

As I go to his room to do our nighttime routine, I see that his books are still a messy pile on the floor and I had already asked him three times during the course of the day to clean it up.  “Grrrr….”  I told him that he was in trouble with me, but we cleaned it up together and I made him pinky-swear that he would clean them up the next time that I asked him to.  (When he gets sent to his room for being naughty sometimes he throws a temper tantrum and expresses his anger by knocking down books from a shelf, so it’s bound to happen again.  And we’re working on appropriate ways to express anger…I’m open to parenting tips here!)  He had never heard of a pinky-swear before and I told him in the olden days if the person that entered into the pinky swear broke their promise that their pinky would get cut off. (It’s true!  The internet says so.)  Husband swears that I’m going to permanently damage our kids with dark tales, but I think a healthy dose helps right the moral compass.

Between reading books, BigBoy put his hand on my leg and looked very seriously at me and said, “Mom if I break my promise are you going to cut off my pinky?  Are you a witch?”  I paused (for dramatic effect) and said very slowly, “I will not cut off your pinky, but I will be very upset if you break your promise.  As to if I’m a witch or not, I think you’ll need to get your answer from Daddy on that one.”  And then I gave a wicked quiet laugh which made him raise his eyebrows and I kissed him good night and sang his lullaby.  I laughed about that for the rest of the night.

Sure enough this morning, BigBoy says to Husband, “Mom’s not really a witch, is she Daddy?  She was only kidding me, right?”  I only cackled giggled and walked out of the kitchen.  They’ll learn the truth sooner or later and I don’t mind keeping the boys guessing.

Cue The Eagles “Witchy Woman” and pour me a glass of deep red wine.  Cheers friends!