I want candy

Sort of. Only certain kinds of candy, though.

This just in: Boy Wonder has received his first Pez dispenser. His latest October-birthday classmate (there are 10 kids in his class, and FOUR of them have birthdays in October) brought in party favor bags on Tuesday, and they were a Boy Wonder dream: a Spiderman cup, a Halloween pencil, fruit-flavored candy, Tootsie Rolls ("For you, Mommy!") a couple of other Spiderman toys, and a Halloween Pez dispenser. (We thought it was a Black-Suited Spiderman Pez dispenser for a minute, but it's just a black skeleton.)

Boy howdy, does he ever like Pez. Before I knew it, he had scarfed down a whole package of them. I thought he was playing with the dispenser as he chattered away, but then he said, "Those sure were good, Mommy! Can I have another package?" I had been doing the nod-and-smile thing, saying "Uh-huh" every few minutes as he expounded upon topics such as Halloween, Spiderman, who else in his class is going to be Spiderman for Halloween, when trick-or-treating will be, Spiderman, wanting to find his pencil sharpener, and Spiderman, and said, "Uh-huh...WAIT, WHAT? NO YOU CAN'T! Give me that Pez dispenser!" It was shelved until after dinner tonight, when he was permitted to eat four Pez (since he is four years old, he likes his snacks in groups of four). Hey, we'll be trick-or-treating on Sunday. Soon, there will be enough sugar around for ten people.

Of course, I'll get to eat half of it (or my coworkers will get to eat half of it). I don't think I've mentioned this here before, but Boy Wonder is anti-chocolate. I think it's a texture thing; my mother used to keep those little Hershey candy bars in her cookie jar, and two-year-old Boy Wonder was fascinated by all those shiny, pretty wrappers. So she gave him a bit of chocolate, and he put it in his mouth, looked horrified, and said, "Grandma, chocolate is HOT." She tried explaining to him that chocolate GETS hot when it is in our mouths, and that's called melting, but he was having none of it. And since then, he has had none of it.

Not that he's anti-candy, or anti-sweets. His favorite candy is Smarties, and he's quite fond of the astonishing array of fruit-flavored snacks available in grocery stores today, all branded with favorite cartoon characters guaranteed to make your child take fifteen minutes to decide if he wants to bring Ninja Turtled, Spiderman, Scooby-Doo, Backyardigans, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob, Care Bears, or Sesame Street snacks to daycare for his birthday treat. (One box of Ninja Turtles and one box of Scooby-Doo, in case you're interested.) Basically, if it's fruit-flavored and can be chewed, he likes it. (This does not apply to lollipops; he also had his first lollipop when he was around two, licked it once, and then stuck it to the side of his neck.) He loves vanilla ice cream, likes Rice Krispie treats (bleargh), and he likes cheesecake (Dragon is particularly proud of this last preference). He also likes cake frosting (this works OK; he eats the frosting, I eat the cake).

Action Hero, so far, has no such preferences. Sure, he likes vanilla ice cream, frosting, and Smarties; he also likes whatever else is not nailed down. This will likely be challenging on Halloween; we may have to institute a rationing system.