We have a haunted house village.  We have built it over time and it has developed a life of its own.  We have children in costumes walking the streets of our town.  We have haunted structures such as a fortune teller, movie theatre, radio station and diner.  On the streets of our town you might find a gentleman pulling a hay cart, a dad carving pumpkins, or any of our other residents hob-nobbing with Dracula, Frankenstein or his bride, and a friendly witch or two.  We have a sea port and a wrecked ship with a swarthy pirate on look out.  We have a water wheel with a skeleton fishing off the back porch of the mill.  Obviously I don’t need to tell you that the over all aura is spooktacular.  I have looked at this village for years.  I think it is around ten years old or so, but I never really saw it until I looked at it with my grandson.  It is all he can do to only look, but he knows the rules.  Still we go over the entire village at each vist.  He frowns his charming little frown and recounts all of the people and places that we have gone over a million times.  He knows that the children are flying around the house.  He knows there is a horsy.  He looks for the punkins.  If a piece gets moved he knows where it should go.  This town is locked in his memory.

A few days ago The Precious was looking at one of the haunted residences and he was telling me everything he saw.  “It’s a bat!”  “Yes, it is a bat.”…”It’s a punkin’.”…”Emmy see the black cat?”  “Yes, I see the black cat.”  “What’s that?”  “That’s a gargoyle.”  “Dardoyle?”  “Yes, it’s a gargoyle.”  “Emmy, see the moose?”  “What moose?”  “The moose right there.”  He is pointing furiously at one house.  I can’t see the moose.  He knows he is not supposed to touch the village pieces…only point.  “Show Emmy where the moose is.”  “Right there.”  Still no moose that I can see.  I got my daughter down beside me to try and find a moose.  “See the moose Aunt Ninna?”  We were beginning to think the kid had been in the backyard feasting on mushrooms or something when Ninna finally asked him to gently touch the moose.  “No touch it!”, he told her with his little finger in her face and a full on scowl on his.  We assured him that on this one occasion it would be okay to touch the piece.  He looked at me for confirmation.  “It’s okay this one time.”  “One time?”, he asked his brow furrowed like he believed we had been pigging out on those mushrooms.  He pointed a little closer to the structure.  “Right there.”

Somewhere in the adult recesses of my mind a tiny flicker of light came on.  I looked at The Precious and pointed to the top of a tree above the haunted house.  “Is this a moose?”  “Yeth.”, and the smile on his face was absolutely angelic.  I had heard and understood.  Perhaps there was hope for me yet.  Ninna still wasn’t getting it.  She was looking at the both of us as if we had lost our minds.  I asked the Precious to tell Aunt Ninna what the moose said.  He looked at her with a perfect smugness on his angelic face and said “Mooooooose.”  I cracked up.  That was when Ninna got the joke.  I asked him to tell her again what the moose said and once again he puckered his cupid’s bow lips and said, “mooooooooose.”  It was quite a sight to see.  He emoted “mooooooooose” beautifully.  We were all three laughing now.  Two of us chuckled because we had seen the moose through the eyes of The Precious.  One of us laughed because he had been understood.  There was indeed a moose in the tree.  The only problem was the moose was a ghost and the ghost said “boooo!”

He teaches us new things all the time, this one.  We now have a language of Precious speak.  “La-loo” is love you.  “Pa-sicker” is popsicle.  “Hold you me” is pick me up.  The greatest thing about hold you me is that his daddy said it and so did his uncle and aunt.  I think it is amazing that hold you me has been handed down to the second generation.  Sports are easier to understand…”touchdown” is crystal clear.  “Baxketball” is self-explanatory.  You might not understand “Go Chees” unless you noticed his jersey and the fact that Boppy and Daddy are also both cheering for the Chees.  The Chees, my darling ones, play  buttball…in Kansas City.  They have evolved from “eyeball” players.  The only thing I could figure out for the football to be called eyeball was the shape.  That seemed really advanced for a child of 15 months or so, but hey…I’m his Emmy.  I went with it.

I hope you are all close enough to be part of the life of a two-year old.  You will look at things quite differently.  Remember, it is possible to be standing in the middle of a totally spooky Halloween village and see a moose.  In a tree or in the attic of houses, moose are everywhere.  Just think like a child.