Are You My Mother?

I know I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, but Nathan has been spending a lot of time at school. He was in the school musical and has been on stage crew all year. The drama teacher at our school (Mrs. Martin, whom the kids just call Martin) has seen him a lot more often than I have in the past four months. In fact, Nathan has spent so much time with her that yesterday he called me “Martin” instead of Mom.

I laughed my head off.

Today he told Martin and she laughed her head off too.

Eggs-capades

Tomorrow is Easter. Since 50% of our children have passed the age of hunting for eggs, the whole affair is much lower key than is was in days past. On the other hand, 100% of our children still enjoy coloring the eggs so they all participated in that portion of the festivities. And honestly, I think Nathan likes hiding eggs almost as much as he enjoyed finding them when he was younger!

Rubber Chicken, Anyone? (or Downtown Scavenger Hunt Part 1)

Last Christmas Seth and Danna gave us a gift certificate to do a downtown scavenger hunt. The kids are on spring break, so Kevin took the day off and we ventured downtown. We started at the state capitol, roaming the grounds to find a variety of landmarks, answer some questions, and a learn a few new things about our city. Perhaps the most random tidbit we learned is that Salt Lake is the country’s largest producer of rubber chickens. I guess we have to find creative ways to entertain ourselves since so much of the state’s population prefers not to get drunk. 😉

We ran out of time before we ran out of scavenger hunt, but luckily for us, we will be able to pick up where we left off on another day.

The Circle of Life

When I was a teen, I spent many, many hours at school participating in rehearsals for the school musicals. There were times that I arrived at the school by 5:30 a.m. and didn’t come home until after dark. They were long days, but so much fun. Nathan has followed in my footsteps and since it is school musical season for him, we haven’t seen him much for that last couple of months. Not only is he in the cast, but he’s in the stage crew as well so his hours are even longer than normal. But he’s loving it.

Nathan was very excited when they announced that “The Lion King” would be this year’s show. I may think the story is boring, but the spectacle associated with the show is super fun and Nathan was really looking forward to it. He auditioned and was called back, but when he got home from callbacks he was definitely in a funk. Apparently, he was asked to participate a bit at the beginning, but then was not called on to do anything again. Around 5:30, the teachers looked at him and said, “Why are you still here? I thought we went you home.” Needless to say, he was sure that meant he was not what they are looking for. I explained to him that being sent home early is not necessarily a bad thing. It can just mean that the casting crew already knows where they want you. It may have helped a bit, but he was pretty discouraged. Luckily for him, the drama teacher didn’t waste much time posting the final casting list and Nathan was thrilled to discover that he had been cast as Zazu! In later conversations, the teachers told Nathan that they knew from the very beginning which part was his.

Nathan dove right in, learning all his parts, building sets, creating costumes, programming lighting settings, experimenting with makeup, etc. He was seriously neck deep in pretty much every aspect of the show. And he was having the time of his life!

Last night was closing night. Even though it was a middle school production, I feel like the show was very well done. The kids all did a great job. The music was well rehearsed and well performed. The costumes were creative and appropriate. They had a variety of creative puppets. They even build an elephant! Nathan has really enjoyed himself, but now that the show is over, he’s looking forward to getting a bit more sleep…and he’s already talking about next year’s show.

(So I don’t know any of the pachyderm players, but I was so impressed with the elephant they built that I had to include a picture!)

It has been fun to see him immerse himself in a world that was mine when I was young. It brings back so many fond memories of the productions I participated in, the crazy things we did, the rush that came with performing and the euphoria that came with applause. I hope that his memories end up being as positive as mine are.

It Was a Grand Affair

Yesterday I made Malia clean her entire room. It was an all-day project. She objected, of course, but the need to clean her room so we had time to go to Hobby Lobby and get Jolly a new eye was fabulous (if kind of mean) incentive. Her room is perpetually such a huge mess that being able to play in a completely clean room is somewhat of a novelty to her. As such, this morning she conducted a ribbon cutting before playtime commenced.

She still dislikes the fact that I made her clean everything up at the end of the day, but she had such a great time playing when 1) there was actually space to play in and 2) she could find all her stuff that I’m hoping, with some encouragement of course, that she can learn to pick up after herself without having a huge meltdown or needing me to name each individual item and where it goes in order to get the job done.

We’ve Had a Tragedy

Malia was understandably distressed. Apparently, Matthew shoved Jolly into his indoor basketball hoop and then used one of his basketballs to get her out. We’ve talked to him on numerous occasions about 1) not being rough with Jolly, 2) the fact that she is not his and 3) the potential broken heart of his younger sister if Jolly gets destroyed. It would seem that none of those things have had any impact on him whatsoever.

So we took a trip to the medical supply store (aka. Hobby Lobby) to acquire a replacement eye and were lucky enough to find one nearly identical to the original. You have to look really closely to notice any difference. We performed the requisite brain surgery in order to replace the eye and since I was in the middle of an invasive puppy surgery anyway, we fixed her broken neck and weak legs. Malia stood by the entire time, reassuring Jolly that all would be well since Jolly was scared.

Post-surgery, she is (nearly) a new puppy and is ready for some more tough love…although I would definitely discourage any further moonlighting as sporting equipment.

Before:

After:

Wild!

I took Matthew and Malia to the zoo this morning. Not only do I try to do some fun things like that when they are off-track, but they did such a great job on migraine day that I figured they deserved an outing. The animals were super active and running all over the place. It was St. Patrick's Day and the zoo keepers had given many of the animals green paper chains, painted cardboard boxes, banners celebrating the holiday, etc. as enrichment activities. It was so fun to watch the wild and wooly ones explore the new additions to their habitats.

Matthew and Malia were also pretty wild. After a long, cold winter, they were pretty stir crazy and ready to be outside. I had to tell Matthew repeatedly to slow down and wait for his aged mother!

It was a great day!

Puppeteers

Matthew and Malia are off track. Unfortunately, migraines don’t respect the calendar so they were left on their own for most of the morning while I slept off the migraine. While I was dozing on the couch, Matthew concocted a plan to keep them entertained. They pulled a couple of socks out of the spare sock bin and made puppets that look like Charlie Brown and Lucy. Matthew also built a small psychiatrist’s booth. Then they set up a card table in the garage, draped it in a sheet, set up the soundtrack (“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”) and charged 10 cents admission to see the show. When I was mostly functional again, I was a willing audience member. Here’s a clip of the show.

I’m so glad that I have kids that are creative and can keep themselves entertained. 😊