Princess and the Arachnid

There’s a phrase they use in theater that I’ve always found fascinating – “playing against type.” It’s when an actor, who is known for their roles in one kind of part, plays the opposite. Like when Robin Williams dropped the wackiness and played a doctor in Awakenings.

I’m trying to keep this phrase in mind now that Mireya has her first speaking part in the school play.

First, let me say, that anyone who decides to have a play with sixty first graders deserves some sort of medal of honor - after they return from a long trip to the Bahamas. I’m still amazed that they get that many children through the lunch line in school, let alone through stage direction in the auditorium.

But I was shocked when Mireya came home with her role. She had been completely confident that she’d have a speaking part, due largely to the fact that she can read.

So I was anticipating something interesting, but not too demanding.

Mireya is the spider.

My shock had nothing to do with the role. In fact, the role of the spider isn’t a bad role at all. From what I gleaned, her character undergoes a transformation from bad to good. And many great actresses excel as villains. Plus she is going to have the coolest costume ever, thanks to Grammy and a few black socks.

No, it was the enormous irony of the role. Mireya is terrified of spiders.

Run-screaming-from-the-room-from-even-microscopic-spiders terrified.

Yet now she’s going to be a GIGANTIC spider (as spiders go).

“Wow. You’re going to be the spider?”

“Yes.” She looked at the script a bit skeptically, as if it might grow legs right in front of her.

“That’s really great! You think this will help you not be afraid of spiders anymore? I mean, you’ll kind of have to get in touch with your… inner spider.”

She looked at me as if I’d lapsed into Swahili. “Um, no, mommy.”

“Oh. Okay.”

A few days later following her costume fitting, she made it clear she’d gotten more excited about her part.

“You know what is so cool about my part in the play?” she said.

“What?”

“I have more arms than anybody!”

Which begs the question: do you tell a 1st grade spider to break one leg before the big night, or two?

(Mireya after her successful debute)

Bare Inspiration

Sometimes people will ask me if it's hard to keep writing a column every week.

Not with this cast of characters.

In fact, there are weekends where my column just writes itself - like one particularly memorable weekend. I'd just dropped off my grandmother after we'd been out for twice as long as anticipated.

It's never good at my house for Mommy to be gone twice as long as anyone expects. This is how we end up with pet lizards that require live crickets for lunch and captured tarantulas that everyone is too scared to look at, let alone release back into the wild. So I was anticipating trouble.

When I pulled into the driveway, I came upon my husband and two daughters sitting outside in that unmistakable posture of people who have narrowly avoided complete mental breakdowns.

Apparently, while I was out (for once, my timing was perfect), my husband had released the girls to playing in the backyard while he vacuumed out his truck. A fairly picky guy about the condition of his vehicle, he was soon lost in the task of master detailer. He didn't notice the long stretch of relative silence that is a sure sign of impending disaster until it was too late.

Suddenly there was a cry from the back yard. He ran over to find that our youngest had been knocked over by the dog, bumped her head on a rock, and while fine for the most part, was quite upset.

And naked.

I believe I deserve some sort of award for not bursting out laughing at that point in the story. In fact I may have given myself a hernia in the process.

Everyone involved, including the four year old, denied any knowledge of exactly how or why she came to be naked. When I asked her point blank, she just looked at me as if the question itself made no sense.

So like the mystery of lost socks, the Bermuda Triangle, and why bumble bees can fly, the day Mireya decided to play in the buff is just one of those episodes in our life that will remain shrouded in obscurity.

Maybe shrouded isn't the right word. But you get the idea.

Hopefully the next time I'm delayed coming home I'll get another column out of it – as long as I can avoid getting a hernia in the process.

..

The Family Reunion Disaster

Our family reunion was exactly what I expected. Utter chaos surrounded by love, high pitch screams, too much food, and one disaster.

I imagine everyone who has been to a family reunion has a similar experience. Kids you haven’t seen in two years have shot up like NBA recruits. Several cousins have gone through different hairstyles. Small children find the best moments to completely embarrass their parents by doing what they do at home, like disrobing in public, despite all the bribes on the trip up. People who irritate each other over email, still irritate each other in person, but pretend not to be irritated until the last day.

Every night we all gathered around my grandmother – the one to blame for all of us, joked my uncle – and compared notes on our kids, our lives, and, of course, our mothers. Just like our kids will do in a few years.

It was going great, except for one little thing. My kids discovered I write this column.

Of course they’ve known about the column from the start, but somehow a little bell went off in their heads.

Surely this is not how Hannah Montana got started. Or, God forbid, Jessica Simpson.

Possibly it was because a few relatives asked if I was going to write about this or that during the trip, possibly because someone said “I read that in your mommy’s column,” but whatever the reason, the trap has been sprung and now my leg is good and caught.

For five days my daughters have looked up from every single activity and asked “are you going to write about this in your column?” At one point I thought it had faded away, then Mireya sunk a remarkable putt during putt putt and turned around and exclaimed, “Mommy! You can write about this in your column!”

Sierra suggested I include something about her whitewater rafting just as we were getting nailed by a bucket of ice cold water from the raft filled with “those boy cousins.”

Yikes. Sure, I’m used to my daughters mugging for the camera, but mugging for the keyboard?

Well, it looks like I’ll have to write about some other kids for a while until mine drop their guard and return to being their regular crazy selves. So if you see me taking notes in Landa Park, please, don’t call the sheriff.

That would be way too funny.