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)

My littliest one's blog

This is my 6 year old's blog she just started. Now we are really fighting for the computer...

Optimist Rules

There is nothing more perfect than the first few days of school. Every pencil is sharp. Every item is neatly in place. Notebooks are blank, ready to be filled with brilliance, or at least some pretty cool doodling.

We arrived at school early and already everyone was vowing to get to school early every day.

This is what happens when you’re a family of optimists. A family of realists probably accepts that early arrival is strictly a first week thing. They blast right through the first week completely delusion free, mentally prepared for a year peppered with tardy slips, lost homework, and mismatched socks.

But with optimists it’s all possible. We can get there at 7:05 am! We can ignore the fact that it’s completely dark outside. True, my theory has always been that if God wanted us up that early, he’d have the lights on. But who cares! It’s a new age! We’ve got alarms, enthusiasm, a passion for learning, and plenty of sugary cereal. We can do it!

The first week of school there’s no homework, but already there are promises to get it done the minute we arrive home, thrilled with the very idea of spelling, math, and science. It’ll be a breeze, we’ll get through all of it so fast it won’t even feel like homework. It’ll be a joy, pure joy!
The first week of school backpacks are neatly hung up, lunch is made in plenty of time and in the refrigerator, outfits are selected and set aside.

It’s like some sort of Disney movie complete with soundtrack and happy meal tie in. I can just imagine it. Kid run into the fast food place to see what the toy is and oh look! It’s the Organized Prosapios! Let’s get the whole set! Look this one comes with a clean car! And the little one – look she’s got the cutest matching shoes! And the big girl, her hair is brushed beautifully!”

Of course in a month we’ll be back in reality TV land with last minute scrambles for hairbrushes, signed permission slips, and homework finished off on the car ride. If there was a fast food tie in to that reality, it would probably feature duct tape, some crushed crackers, an inside out t-shirt, and four dozen socks that don’t match.

But that’s October. For now, everything is still possible.

The Tooth Fairy's Third Cousin

Recently I heard that a fellow mom and writer's son had a pomegranate seed removed from his ear.

The mystery for his mom was that he had never, to her knowledge been near a pomegranate, let alone figured out how to peel it and stick a seed in his ear.

Of course I knew what was going on. This was the work of the pomegranate fairy.

If you haven't heard of the pomegranate fairy, you're not alone. She's often overlooked in the news because no one really eats pomegranates anymore and the tooth fairy has more extensive marketing.

The tooth fairy's fame is in large part thanks to major contributions from dentists in an ongoing effort to bring some positive publicity to the loss of a tooth. But that's another story.

Anyway, the legend of the pomegranate fairy goes way back to medieval times when mother, in a fit of exasperation, pleaded for divine intervention while eating a pomegranate. Her children had, for the 384th time forgotten to pick up their plates from the table, and, quite frankly she had HAD it. She hurled the pomegranate through the window, beaning a passing fairy.

This fairy, rather than fluttering on to a quieter neighborhood decided this was a sign that things were getting out of control and somebody better start listening or else!

Thus the first pomegranate was planted. Pomegranate fairies planted pomegranate seeds in children's ears so they would develop the ability to listen to their parents. Like so many things of singular importance, modern science has not determined exactly how this works, although the theory around our dinner table is that it probably has to do with the sticky, red juice.

Whatever the mechanism, the great news was that for generations children were listening to their parents, eventually leading to the birth of the greatest generation of all.

Unfortunately, with changes in fairy legislation in the 1980s requiring adherence with 13 international treaties and 94 new FDA guidelines referencing pomegranates and their use in the outer ear, fewer than seven PFs (as they are known in fairy circles) are working in the US today.
Those valiant seven are overworked, underappreciated and just plain tired (sound familiar?) and, as with most people with way too much to do, they blow it routinely.

As a result, some of the seeds, instead of being properly planted, are slipping into the ear canals causing distress to the recipients, freaking out parents, and sending children to ENT doctors for pomegranate seed extraction.

Of course, they don't teach about the pomegranate fairy in medical schools these days, so when a seed shows up, everyone is astonished. Mothers search their gardens and children don't listen to a word that is being said until they hit their 20s.

Which explains a lot, don't you think?

The Return of the Dog People

Before we had children we were dog people.

You know, those people who buy expensive toys for dogs, who take their dogs everywhere, who have pictures of dogs on their desk. Those kind of dog people.

Then for the first few years of being parents, the dogs faded in priority. Suddenly they were just, well, dogs. I missed the time I had with the four-legged friends I'd referred to more than once as "my training children."

Ha! That goes to show I had no clue.

I just couldn't find time between diaper changes and soccer practice to give them any where near the attention I used to just a few years earlier.

But I've made it up to them. Our German shepherd and beagle – Aussie mix now have far more fun with my daughters than they ever had with me.

Our girls have both become dog people. They have taken the leash from our hands and run off with the dogs to places I never imagined.

They have taught them tricks I never thought of, a half dozen of which involve the trampoline.
They have discovered the joy of the doggie vacuum, bringing in the dogs for clean up duty when the goldfish crackers get "accidentally" knocked over.

They have become regular hostesses of previously forbidden left overs lunch party, where many a rejected food item is snuck outside while I "wasn't looking" (often because I was told "Mommy! Don't look!").

They have loved on these dogs, full body hugs, even when it seems clear to me that both dogs have had a skunk visiting during the night.

They have taught both dogs to find the ball when it's buried in the playground, tossed into the pretend grocery cart, and stuck in a tree. Did you know a beagle/aussie (known as a Bossy around here) can, when properly motivated, climb a live oak?

They have taught the dogs to wear feather boas gracefully and tolerate a change of fur color when the poster paints are brought out for "rainbow dog day."

And most of all, they've taught me just how fun it can be to have a couple of dogs in the family again. Even if they smell like skunk.