Three Posts in One Blow
I had a lot planned, but just when I thought I was better, I was sick again and stressed and bummed and just in time for the holiday! The one with the turkey, not Black Friday. So I figured I would throw together a few posts because starting tomorrow is gonna be the FUN countdown to Xmas! Happy Holidays, Fox!
“Thing One: The Musical”
Thing One was in the musical “Crazy for You”. She had a small role yet was the star because Thing One. We enjoyed playing “Where’s Waldo” with her each time they changed scenery. “Where is she?” I’d ask my parents. “Oh, THERE she is, in the corner.” And while she may not have had but one line “Thank you, Mr. Zangler.” she was always animated, unlike some of the other kids who learned to nap with eyes open.
The fairly new musical was built around a bunch of old songs because – because. Quick rundown of the plot. Guy’s rich mom wants him to be a banker, but he wants to sing and dance and wear shiny pants. Zangler is there with his Folly Girls (Thing One was one of them and wore this awesome slinky dress and make up and her hair done up so beautifully, aw) and he tells Shiny he’s a moron. (I liked that part) So Shiny goes to the Old West (or Nevada, whatever) and he meets this cowgirl and they are sort of in love but bad news their theater is going under, but Shiny has a way to save it – put on a musical! He pretends to be Zangler, and gets a LOT of girls to come down to do the show. For some reason, it doesn’t occur to him that there are only 13 people in the town, so this idea is probably not going to work.
Thing One in Folly dress- the family resemblance is striking!
Cowgirl falls in love with Zangler, not realizing that duh it’s Shiny. Then dancing girls showed up who I thought were just doing random numbers but no, they were supposed to be his delusions. They came out a LOT, so prayers for Shiny. Thing One was this lady with a suitcase, or sitting or standing off to the side, looking awesome. Since I was just a few days out of surgery, I began feeling very sore midway through. So that’s when they really brought out the songs. I mean there was a song for everyone and for everything, even stuff that wasn’t happening. But the songs finally ended, and the musical. Thing One had a wonderful time, and went back to one of her favorite activities: sleep.
“Thanksgiving Post”
I watched a show on the history channel that was, shock, about history, the history of Thanksgiving. Did you know that we made a lot of that up? Shock! Like they found a letter from one Pilgrim who said yeah some Indians did help with the planting. The Pilgrims showed gratitude by shooting off their guns in an attempt to scare off the Indians. The Indians sent out a big scout party to check this crap out, right when the Pilgrims decided to have a big meal after reaping this awesome harvest all by themselves! Well, the Indians see this, and decide to invite themselves, seeing as how there were twice as many of them as there were Pilgrims.
Guess who’s coming to dinner?
I would have loved to see the looks on the Pilgrims’ faces when they showed up. But anyway, the Things took some pictures of “A Pocahontas Thanksgiving”, which makes as much sense as the other made up version.
Pilgrims Mel Gibson, John Rolfe, Bella Swan, and Blondie present gifts to the Indians: a life-size Manga comic, and a portable video game cartridge.
Indians Chief Powhatan, Jasmine Flower, Koko Puffs, and Pokey all love their gifts.
Chief Powhatan is totally ready to trade Pokey for the portable game cartridge.
Koko Puffs admires comic while Bella admires Koko’s . . . face. Bonjour!
Pokey and Powhatan teach Pilgrims to plant in return for gifts.
Chief: First you do push ups, then drop seeds in ground, heh.
Pilgrims and Indians eat hotdogs, salad, and peppermint – the first Thanksgiving!
“25 days of Olaf”
Get ready, folks. Since I was little too disturbed by Mr. Elf on the Shelf and his network of spies, I bought the Frozen version. You’re supposed to hide Olaf the stuffed snowman in a new place every day. The Things and I have already thought of many, many places to stick that snowman. We’re planning to take a new pic each day for you guyz. Also to scare the crap out of each other with the places and situations we put the snowman in. Stay tuned!
The Stalking Snowman!
Alice
The Noxzema Incident
I know several bloggers with small children. Mostly I think oh thank GAWD that’s not me. But if there’s one thing I occasionally envy, it is their ability to chronicle all the goofy stuff their children do so they don’t forget. I know my kids have done hundreds of things I don’t remember that were absolutely hilarious at the time. But there are some incidents that stick out in my mind.
One we just call the Noxzema Incident. A friend, I’ll call her L, and I were hanging out at her house one day. Our usual activity was to sit in front of the TV with Thing Two, who was about two years old at the time, while her youngest (4) and my Thing one (6) ran off to play. As long as we didn’t hear blood-curdling screams, we figured they were okay. Since we had young children, and she had few stations, we OD’d daily on PBS. She’s the one who came up with the idea for “Reefer Tree” which made much more sense than the nauseating “Big, Big World”. Haven’t heard of that show? Oh oh, LINK DROP!
Anyway, we were, as usual, sitting on the couch amongst piles of laundry (we looked at it sternly every once in a while, but rarely moved it), and Thing Two was on the floor putting marbles in her mouth, when I noticed an unusual smell. (Click to enlarge pictures I actually didn’t steal off Google Images!)
Then we noticed, hey, the kids have been awfully quiet. This is often a much worse sign than hearing actual screams. So we got up and walked to the hallway. The smell grew stronger. Yup, definitely that delightful chemical smell of Noxzema. WTF. We kept walking toward her daughter’s room. The smell got even stronger. Then we heard her daughter, E, shout a warning to Thing One.
Uh oh.
We reached the door and opened it. There, attempting to hide in the toy box, were Thing One and E. E was in her underwear, covered from head to toe in Noxzema. There was also Noxzema on the floor, the furniture, and her older sister’s favorite dress. Only Thing One had no Noxzema on her but only because she didn’t like to get messy at that age (This changed with therapy. Why did we give her therapy again?) I guess because of her cleanliness, she thought she could get away with it.
No honor among thieves.
I informed her that she was in just as much trouble as her friend, even if she was only the getaway driver. It’s not as if she attempted at any point to stop her little buddy. The only problem was that while we were telling them they were in SUCH TROUBLE we were having to not laugh. But our voices were wavering “You are in trouble, clean up this mess . . . no really, trouble, so . . . we’ll be back . . . to tell you . . . your punishment.”
Then we went back to the living room and laughed our heads off.
Thing One is . . . Thirteen?
13 Luft Balloons!
Today is Thing One’s birthday. Thirteen. I feel old. I told her I wasn’t ready for her to be a teenager. She said she wasn’t ready to be one either. Who is?
If you’ve been keeping up, yes, my children have birthdays 7 days apart. It’s like having twins, only different ages and stages and not exactly the same day so you still lose your sanity, just with a very short break in between. Before, we’ve done a joint party with kids. We’ve also had a lot of family parties consisting of my parents and cake because my tolerance for any sort of party, especially one with lots of small shrieking people, is very, very short.
But this one was special for Thing One, so I wanted to do something more grown up. This took some thinking on my part. Thing One is very hard to shop for these days. Not on purpose – she knows what she likes, she just can’t seem to convey this very well until she looks at something, and it’s all over her face that no, this was not a good choice.
No really you . . . shouldn’t have.
It didn’t use to be this way. I used to dress her however I wanted, which was “small Laura Ashley clone” Later she had an accessory sister. I dressed them in matching or coordinating clothes and they were gorgeous. Great pictures. Back then, Thing One loved wearing dresses with matching hair bows and lacy socks and shiny shoes. Her baby sister didn’t care because she was too busy eating her shoes or tossing them out of shopping carts. Still, they made a perfect set. Their grandmother loved buying them clothes, so even though I was poor, my kids were freakin’ stylin’.
But then Thing One got older, and decided she didn’t really want to match little sister. She likes jeans and T-shirts now, not dresses. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since I rarely wear dresses either, but losing my little “doll” was tough. For a little while. Until I realized I was getting a real, live girl in return. Thing One started out with a verbal delay. She didn’t talk well until after four, but the entire time she was listening and processing. And one day the results all started spilling out.
This girl has opinions – based on facts. Like her sister she is smart, beautiful, creative, and so funny. Unlike her sister, she spends more time thinking on things, turning them around in her head before speaking her mind. She has friends, but she doesn’t seem to need them around like Thing Two. She is content to entertain herself in a world of her own, or play the same weird computer game for hours. A game where you’re an animal that bounces around “chatting” with other animals or playing stupid games. Come to think of it, it’s just Facebook for the younger set, only more honest.
Facebook Training
She and her sister also love to hang with me, and follow me around, even though I’m not nearly as cool as they are. I know there will come a day when Thing One won’t need me as much, but right now she’s at such a tough stage. Not a little girl, not an adult, not quite a moody teenager really. She’s right on the cusp, and I remember how confusing and frustrating that can be.
Yet she’s much more self-determined than I was at that age, or even now. When her friend made fun of a strange, awkward girl, she stood up for the kid. She said to her friend, “Hey, wait, you got baptized. Aren’t we all supposed to be brothers and sisters and be kind to each other?” Oooh, snap! Yes, the kid reads and understands and puts good lessons to use! I’d have been a big fat weenie and not said a word, though I knew it was wrong. I was worried about fitting in. Thing One is more worried about doing what’s right. Thing One is awesome.
So I decided that since Dad had planned a rocking party for little sister, I would plan a day out with her. I got her a purse (that she picked out so I knew she’d like it) and a wallet with money in it. Money she could spend on a shopping trip with me, once we were done having manicures for the very first time together.
It was a great day. We got our nails done (I’m jealous, Thing One’s look better than mine.) while Thing One gave a commentary on the People Magazine. “Oh, wow, they actually reported on the Boston Marathon bombing instead of just Kim Kardashian?” Once again, love this kid.
Even 13 year olds aren’t impressed, Kim.
We went to the city and ate at an Italian fast foodish restaurant with free breadsticks. Not sure how many that kid ate. I miss having that metabolism. We headed to the mall next where she spent money on a bracelet and asked why she was being charged the Canadian amount. She’s still getting used to that whole ‘tax” thing. Bummer, that.
Fortunately, Thing One wears out as fast as I do. She is not my “shopping” kid. So after eating some double stuffed cookies (no calories there!) we headed home. The teenage years may be tough, but maybe they are off to a good start, at least.
Happy Birthday, my Thing One.
aliceatwonderland 