Writing -- Baby Talk: Spooky!

The following article featured in a weekly column on parenting in the Women on Wednesday supplement of The Evening Echo, one of Ireland's leading regional daily newspapers. It appeared in the 10 November 2004 issue.

The twins turned four last week. Their birthday falls around Halloween, so we decided to throw a birthday-cum-Halloween fancy-dress party for them. As the big day neared they picked out their outfits. I explained that Halloween was all about ghouls, ghosts, goblins and other scary things. They thought long and hard on this advice before coming up with the perfect Halloween ensemble: fairy princesses.

No matter how I tried to convince them that witches and werewolves were the way to go the fairy princesses won out and I had to concede defeat. Well, if I couldn't make them scary, I thought, at least I could do something with the house. I spent a good part of the evening before the party performing surgery on a selection of horrific-looking vegetables to adorn the windowsill.

Hollowing out the pumpkin and cutting out the face was quite easy, but on its own it didn't look at all scary. The unblemished orange skin was too smooth, and if anything the whole thing was just too symmetrical. When I was a child you couldn't get pumpkins anywhere, and I'm convinced that pumpkins at Halloween must be an American import. At home Dad just used to hollow out turnips for us and they were much more frightening.

Inspired, I hopped over the wall and headed next door, where I knew our neighbours grew some of the most misshapen turnips imaginable. They handed me two of their most grotesque examples. Now, this was more like it. Gnarled and twisted with ugly cracks and fissures all over their pock-marked skin, these specimens would be perfect!

As soon as I arrived home I set about them with a kitchen knife and within ten minutes had almost amputated both thumbs. The vindictive vegetables were fighting back. These weren't just scary looking turnips, they had attitude!

My wife, who was busy decorating the butterfly birthday cake (hardly in keeping with the Halloween theme, but you try telling that to the fairy princesses!), told me to be careful. Good advice, if a little late.

Convinced there had to be a better way of dealing with a vindictive turnip I headed for the tool shed. After rummaging through my toolbox for a while I surfaced with a wide-bladed wood chisel. Just the job! I'd recommend one the next time you find yourself confronted with a malicious vegetable.

The pumpkin, which looked quite mundane on its own, took on a much more sinister quality flanked by its monstrous turnip henchmen. The overall effect was chilling. "Remember they're only four," called my wife from the other room, but I was on a roll and there was no going back.

I did start to question how far I'd taken the Halloween theme when preschool children started arriving at the door the following day to be greeted by a 6' 5" vampire, complete with flowing black trench-coat and fake blood. Luckily most of them knew me, and a few upbeat words and a smile quickly dispelled their initial apprehension. The party went off a treat, and the fairy princesses loved the fact that everyone was dressed up. They never even realised that their outfits were out of kilter with the assembled witches, warlocks and zombies. We played an eclectic mix of traditional Halloween and party games, and all of the kids won little prizes. They had a ball… and if I'm honest about it so did I.

It wasn't until after everyone had left and our little mob was safely tucked up in bed that I realised the scariest part of proceedings was yet to come. As I walked into the kitchen it hit me: somebody still had to clean up the mess!