Yesterday was the 4th of July, so we went to the parade in Sausalito. We do it every year. This was the first year that Rex was able to contain himself and not dash right into the middle of the antique fire trucks to join the parade. He sat relatively calmly next to his sister on the curb, both of them wielding huge paper bags to collect the candy that gets tossed off the floats. On the way to the parade we had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, which Rex loves. He said, "Look at the sea! It's so shiny! My favorite color is shiny."
It was interesting to watch the different ways my kids geared up to compete for the thrown candy. For days before the parade, Veronica planned her strategy, which was to get the most candy by boxing out the little kids who got in her way and not attempting to eat any candy -- a surefire distraction -- during the parade. Her plan was all about maximizing volume and then tallying her loot later (I can hear Kenny Rogers warbling, "You never count your money / While you're sittin' at the table" -- my child took a page straight out of that book.) Veronica had bouts of anxiety all week, mostly because she was afraid she wouldn't get enough candy. (I explained to her that even if she got a million pieces of candy, we would only let her eat two or three. It didn't matter.)
Rex's strategy, on the other hand, was all about rapid consumption. He didn't care how much candy he got, as long as he could eat it all immediately and as quickly as possible. When the goodies started raining down I was shocked that he didn't simply open his mouth and let them fall in, wrappers and all. He had gobbled two rolls of smarties and some Nerds before I could even register what was happening. Twice he attempted to escape into the crowd with his bag of candy so he could binge in private without being monitored. (This is something he has learned from the dog, who runs away and hides under the dining room table every time he swipes our leftovers off of the counter. Two or three times we've pried full sandwiches out of his throat while he's still on the run.)
Anyway, eventually I had to confiscate Rex's candy bag. There was surprisingly little candy left in it, but I did fish out six or seven slobbery plastic wrappers. I'm sure a few more remain in his digestive tract today, but I'm confident Rex's military-style stomach and bowels can handle it. He's an efficient eating and food-processing machine.
Not so much his skin, which was pretty blotchy yesterday. Rex's face especially gets all rashy on occasion because he just can't keep from rubbing himself all over everything he sees. Mainly he rubs himself on the dog. The other day I caught him dry humping Sanchi with his face. I'm still not completely sure what was happening, but they both appeared to be enjoying it. Rex isn't allergic to the dog per se, but he is allergic to most of the dogs in Sanchi's posse and to some of the grasses they run through on their romps with our dogwalker.
All this means is that yesterday Rex was amped on sugar, bitter he couldn't hold his candy in the backseat on the way home from the parade like his sister could (that girl has incredible self-restraint and hoarding tendencies, no doubt inherited from my brother who once kept his Halloween candy, untouched, under his bed until the following Easter) and rashy from rubbing his face all over everything. It was not pleasant. Things got a little better when we decided to take the kids to Benihana for dinner, because it's always fun for a three year-old boy to watch knives being thrown all over the place. The 'chef' (whose name was Jesus) even made a cool little volcano out of onion slices with water lava that bubbled out of the top.
They always take a picture of you when you eat at Benihana, and they took ours during dessert. In the photo, Veronica still has a full bowl of ice cream in front of her, which she took about half an hour to eat. Rex's face is mostly obscured by his ice cream bowl because he's tipping it back to drink the remains. He ate his ice cream in two minutes. I'm surprised he didn't try to eat it under the table.
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