"Thaaaaaat's Elmooooo's Worrrrrrrrrrrld!"

Have you ever loved someone or something so much that your love became an obsession? His or her image racing through your thoughts a million times per second, at least every other request akin to him or her in some way, and just the very mention of his or her name filled your innards with glee and swarming Monarch butterflies?

OR

Maybe it was just puppy love:

6/10/09

and you either outgrew it or once the newness of it faded, you moved on to someone or something 'newer', better, and probably more fun with more in 'the looks department'.
OR
Maybe it was everlasting:

In Carina's world, Elmo is all there ever has been. He gives her the multitudes of butterflies, he is the center of her universe, and he is Carina's 3rd most requested entity (Dada and Mama are tied for 1st and 2nd place). From the ripe old age of 3 months, she has been transfixed by this fire engine red descendant of The Muppets. While others may have differing opinions on the topic of The Muppets' having spawned the majority of all Sesame Street characters (both past and present), I'm convinced that Elmo is the lovable, literate, and perpetually 3 year old offspring of these 2 heart-ed individuals:

What does this have to do with Carina? No need to adjust the color settings of your monitor/ iPad / etc. Unless you're red-green colorblind, you're well aware of what this has to do with our little costumed Carina. She got her wish: a wish she probably didn't even realize she had. She was Elmo...for about 2 hours. Complete with hairbows! For her 1st celebrated Halloween, she was quite the trooper. Last year's Halloween, she was outfitted in orange-black striped leggings, a black onesie with a glow-in-the-dark ghost on the chest and was strapped into her carseat for 11.5+ hrs while travelling home from her Aunt Darci's wedding. =) And the year before that, she was the 'gem' of my 80s Treasure Troll costume while in utero. That kinda sounds creepy...ah, well.

Dada had a brilliant idea: let's put bows in 'her fur' so she's not mistaken for a boy! And so we did. While this worked very well for us and there was no confusion whatsoever regarding Carina's gender, I only wish that the parents of children whose gender is not clearly obvious and yet are determined to masquerade their children around in non-gender specific costumes would save me the painful embarrassment of referring to their little girls as..well, boys. Yes, that happened. And the child is a friend of Carina's from school who Mama didn't recognize. Crap. Our next parental run-in at school will be, to put it simply, "awkward".

Carina was not immediately taken with her fur and neither were the animals. Cheddar rubbed against her once and scurried off after he realized that she felt different. Jacques took one look, turned tail, and disappeared under the bench. Their uncertainty was not enough to silence her 'cat calls' though (see above photo). Wee, Booger, and Cruiser, were somewhat standoffish, but granted permission for one brief photo-op.

Elmo-Carina with Booger's hiney

Papaw, Elmo-Carina, and Mamaw

We didn't make it out and about early enough for Trunk or Treat at her school. It was complete smalltown pan-de-mo-ni-um by 6 o'clock in Dandridge, so we sheared Elmo because she was sweatin' buckets (seriously) and opted for Food City for grocery shopping. Next year we will head out earlier (around 4pm) and get a primo spot in Dandridge. That's totally the place to be around here! The majority of businesses in 'downtown' are open and handing out treats, some convert their spaces into haunted attractions, a couple of aware cops (and one 'a zombie likely ate my brain' cop) direct traffic, and supreme people watching vantage points from the courthouse steps and the main street. I can't tell you how many 'OMG Moments' we had while spectating at the spectacles of costumed folks. Frankly, some people's costumes were likely their daily get-ups and we just didn't know it. Since I had already learned my lesson from the gender discernment fiasco, I decided it best not to comment on costumes that might not be costumes. You never know what you're going to see around here...

Carina didn't seem to notice the difference between this day and any other: she was Elmo.
And that's all that mattered.