News of Two Sorts

First off, I feel I should deliver an update on Daughter's performance of Lumiere, given my last post.

Sorry for scribbling out your face, girl over Adelaide's shoulder

She did so well!  She sang, she danced, she spoke in a French accent that was still understandable- a real worry of mine weeks before the performance, when I tried to gently remind her that yes, she was supposed to be French, but the audience still needed to be able to understand the words coming out of her mouth.

As for those candlesticks:  she made around 80% of them herself.  Did the hot glue drippings, the painting, glued toilet paper tubes inside so she'd have something to grip- nearly everything.  The only thing I helped with were creating the papier mache flames.  That and tailoring that blasted men's suit jacket from Goodwill.  It hung on her like a garbage bag when we first got it, and silly me thought it would be a relatively straightforward matter to extract the oversize shoulder pads, amend the lines of the opening and way it hangs, add gold filigree, and so on, and so on.  

After copious seam ripping and repeated plunges into the bowels of the jacket, however, I realized that men evidently require a lot of padding in their clothing.  Then I got mad thinking about how you would never find this in women's clothing; our fabric instead trends toward the uncomfortably sheer.

One of many fistfuls of shoulder padding

As for the musical itself, well, we listened to Adelaide wail about how poorly practices were going and about how this person kept storming off stage and how that person couldn't even be bothered to show up for the (hours long) practices- etc, etc.  Our expectations for the outcome of the show lowered accordingly each time she uttered such a critique, so said expectations were subterranean by the time we arrived at opening night.  But somehow, through seventh grade magic or possibly just lots and lots of hard work, those kids pulled it off.  It was so entertaining.  Adelaide and her friends acquitted themselves admirably, and we were so proud.

Also of note:  my sister Kelli and her family braved predictions of a winter storm, car problems, and the reality of sticking three tiny children in a car for hours and hours to make the drive up and surprise Adelaide that weekend.  I got almost no pictures while they were here, possibly because I'm a terrible sister/aunt, but mostly because I was trying to soak up every second of their presence. 

That is our giant daughter carrying all the toys Kate felt she needed from the second floor down to the first while also making sure she made it safely downstairs.  Please also see that the shirt Kate is wearing is one that Adelaide wore when she was that little.  Which was forever ago, but simultaneously three seconds ago.

Just two other details pertinent to the story of that weekend:  

One: people approached me after both performances multiple times to tell me that they didn't at first believe that Adelaide was a girl.  She was so convincing as a boy, they claimed, from the sound of her voice as she sang to her mannerisms as Lumiere!  My response to this the first couple times was to laugh, but after that I wasn't sure what the appropriate response was.  "No, please, you're too kind"?  "I bet you get that all the time, too"?  

Two:  Adelaide's dear friends got friendship necklaces, which they presented to her that weekend.  They look like matching puzzle pieces that, when fitted together, read "Always together, never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart."  (Commas added by yours truly because why on earth wouldn't I?)  The girls gave her this because she's been struggling with the fact that our family is moving.

To Connecticut.

More on this tomorrow.

I'm Sure It'll Turn Out Fine

The roads are slick but my coffee is warm and today's high temp is several degrees above zero- no small thing this time of year. 

Let's just get this out of the way:  middle school.  I hated it the first time, and I'm not exactly pleased with it the second.  Not that I have to traverse its halls every day; no, that falls to Daughter now.  All we have to do is deal with the emotional fallout every evening, which is super.  Basically it's a continuation of elementary school:  learning how to get along with a set of diverse human beings markedly different from yourself, but now, with hormones! 

One of the good things we're finding about middle school is that there are increased extracurricular opportunities for our less than athletically- inclined eldest child.  When they're younger, around here kids can do sports, or they can do 4-H, or they can do sports.  Now Adelaide is venturing out into the wilds of jazz band and choir, the latter of which includes a school musical this spring.  This is proving to be a learning experience for us all.

These wee seventh graders are undertaking a production of Beauty and the Beast, Jr.  What makes it a "Junior" version, you ask?  Not a clue.  No kissing at the end?  Gaston doesn't swallow a bunch of whole eggs?  All of the participants freak out about having to touch each other, even while playing a part in a stage production?  I mean, pick one.  Adelaide auditioned for several roles, but we all breathed a sigh of relief when she got her part of choice- that of Lumiere- because she had gone to great pains to reassure us that her life would be OVER if she was cast as pretty much anything else.  A teeny, tiny, masochistic part of me hoped that she would get a different part as all this kind of talk was communicating to me that she has much to learn about being a gracious loser and making the best out of less than ideal conditions.  Honestly, though, that lesson has been hammered home in other parts of her life (field day every single spring, and P.E. several days per week), so mostly I was happy for her and the peace of our family's life when she got the part. 

What I didn't consider upon first hearing her joyous news, however, was the costume.

Here are five facts:  We are providing Adelaide's costume.  We do not want to pay a million dollars for it.  We do not want to pay a hundred dollars for it.  As a matter of fact, we want to pay a small percentage of that hundred.  We also do not want to dedicate every spare minute to creating this costume. 

Those five facts do not coexist in harmony. 

So here's what we have so far:  gold leggings.  A gold bowtie.  A men's suit jacket from Goodwill.  An excess of confidence in my tailoring abilities. 

We still need a bunch of things, but chief and most worrisome among these are her candlesticks. 

Are you now remembering that Lumiere is a candlestick?  Daughter Dearest has to keep her hands up by her head for the bulk of the musical, arms at 90-degree angles, which will surely make for tired shoulders but whatever, okay, that's her problem, and besides, she's twelve, she'll bounce back in right around 20 minutes, no matter how sore she gets. 

On both those hands need to be fake melting candles, with fake flames, big enough to be seen by the audience, oh, and mom, I'd really really like it if they actually lit up! 

Google returned disturbingly few helpful results.  I can either make something that takes one hour and looks like trash, or I can go to a trade school, become a licensed electrician, and only then be able to follow along with the Lumiere costume how-to YouTube videos I found.

The closest thing I found to any kind of middle ground is this:

First of all, I don't plan on making a candle for her hat, because I believe in setting healthy boundaries.  Second of all, I found this via a google image search, but the description on how to make it was cut off, and when I tried to find the original image and website, it was no longer available.  So what I know is that I need oatmeal containers, sour cream containers, small plastic plates, white paint, hot glue (for the wax drippings), and gold tape.  What I can't figure out is how they made that flame!  Papier mache? (Mentally add your own accent marks to that second word, there, I don't have time to copy and paste- I have to turn our twelve year old into a candle!  A french candle!)  Balloons?  A good old-fashioned Catholic miracle?  Who knows?!

I also don't know how she's going to keep those on her hands.  Lumiere does a fair amount of gesticulating, and as comical as it would be to me if one of her candles flew off and hit the Beast in the face, I'm pretty sure she would be mortified, so I need to figure out some kind of internal handhold.  And making them light up?  Do I mount little LED flashlights in there?  Incandescent flashlights so that there's a potential for a real fire?  (Exciting!)  Fairy lights wrapped around that flame I still can't figure out? 

I'm sure we'll finagle some kind of solution, but for now my plan is to craft something absolutely horrendous-looking in the next week, convince her this is the final draft, then let her persuade me into trying again so that whatever we actually end up with will come as a relief and look satisfactory to her eyes.  See also:  my entire parenting philosophy.

She Should Have Been a Mole or a Bat Instead

Some time ago, my mother sent me a photo of herself, her sisters, and a couple other girls, all dressed up for Halloween in the sixties.

Now, all of her accompanying text within that email contained useful information, but the one thing I haven't been able to get over is her final statement:  "I don't have any glasses on, this must have been before the school nurse figured I was half blind at school."

I mean

First of all, just for today, we're going to ignore the girl in the nightmarish mask- we'll have to address that on a separate day, when I have emotionally prepared myself to do so.

For now, I'd like to focus on the girl in the cheetah costume:  My mother.

Seriously, though.

Does it really take a brilliant diagnostician to realize that the girl smiling thirty degrees to the left of the camera can't see a dang thing?


Every other person looks as if they've gone through the requisite party ritual of, "Okay, everybody, say, 'Cheese!'"  All look at the camera and parrot, "Cheese!"  Unless you're poor, blind Lorri, however; in that case you're wearing a vacant smile and staring at nothing.

Now, you could argue that the object of her gaze is merely out of range, that I have no way of knowing what she's looking at.  As a terribly, terribly near-sighted person myself (thanks, mom), I heartily and vociferously disagree, as I have pasted this facial expression on my own visage many times, when the contacts are safely soaking in their case, my glasses are on my nightstand, and Derek says something to me that requires a reply.  I have to wait for him to move in order to know where to turn my head and aim my voice at; otherwise, no idea.  None.  Just a blind smile, staring forty paces to the left of the person attempting to interact with me.

Kinda like this, actually.

I wonder how many walls she offered to "Trick or treat" that night.  Bless her heart.  Still, things could have been worse.

What the heck, 1967?

Halloween, Take Six

The theme for this year's Halloween costumes, I believe, was "Fine."  They were fine.  Nothing extravagant, nothing high-maintenance, just fine.  Of course, when it comes to Halloween, "fine" suits me right down to the ground.  It seems to have become one of those holidays where America has done what it does best, which is to throw so much money at it that it becomes virtually unrecognizable and no longer much fun.  How many parents did I talk to this year whose kids' threw out-and-out tantrums because it wasn't precisely what they wanted?  Too many.  Our children obviously would never do that, because they are so perfectly well-behaved at all times.  Or they had the looming specter of their father and I eating every last piece of their candy at the slightest hint of whining.  One of those two.

Adelaide's was my favorite, because I had to do jack squat to put it together.  She is now old enough to costume herself.  Hallelujah.

Dapper Derek there in the background went as Dapper Derek.

This vampire already owned her white t-shirt, black pants, black cardigan, and that red tie belonged to Derek's grandpa.  The black satin was culled from my scrap fabric bin, and while she did wonder for five seconds if I might hem it for a cape, my hysterical laughter answered that.  I never even had to utter the word "No."  I did graciously loan her a safety pin to secure it to her clothing for trick-or-treating, because I am a generous monarch, always going out of my way for the serfs who inhabit my kingdom.  The blood- or red lipstick- was also loaned by Us.  That's the Royal We in action, to you peasants.

Adelaide was the tiniest bit put out when people kept mistaking her for some kind of scary Harry Potter; for me this only enhanced her costume.  We did not make the mistake of voicing this opinion to Daughter.

Caedmon was Batman.  

Cutest- I mean FIERCEST- Batman ever.

He had, at one point, mentioned something about being a ghost, but when I realized I didn't have enough white fabric on hand to make this happen, I ever so gently steered him toward super hero-dom.  I did not say words like "cape," "muscle costume," "we already have all these things," but I did speak about such high-falutin' concepts as "honor," "bravery," "protecting all the other little kids out on Halloween."  Caedmon ate this up like the tastiest deception he's ever consumed.  Adelaide rolled her eyes.  Atticus was too worried about his own costume to pay any attention to how his mother may or may not be manipulating holidays to fit her own whims.

Atticus wanted to be a dragon.  He's had grand plans for me for months:  How I could sew spikes down the back of his shirt, and craft wings that would attach to his back, and figure out a way to get fabric flames on something that he could hold in his mouth.  This was a subject of great humor to me, as I had no intention of doing any of those things.  I told him he could wear the costume he already owned, and when he protested that it was an Iron Man costume, I pointed out that the print on it was CLEARLY dragon muscles, not human, and after all, it came with a dragon mask, didn't it?

The truth is my dear friend Shayla handed a sack full of costume items to us awhile back (which included both of this year's costumes), and I have no idea if that mask is supposed to go with that costume, or if it's even a dragon.  All that mattered was that Atticus believed it, which he eventually chose to, but not before proposing a compromise to me:  He would wear the costume, but only if I sewed some wings to the sleeves of it, made out of some felt still in its Clearance wrapper he'd found in my fabric bin.  Oh, and it needed to start here and end here, and he wanted the bottoms of the wings to be cut in scoops, like this.  He is a canny negotiator.

This is why you always take a moment to poke through the Clearance bin at craft stores:  37¢ in 2012 is 2015's dragon wings.  

One of the best parts of the night was when we walked up to the house of an elderly gentleman sitting in front of his house with two bowls:  One with candy, and one with rocks.  The children got to pick an item from each, and I am not kidding you, the air around that house was filled with cries of, "Rocks!"  "Dad, look!  I got a ROCK!"  "Wow, look at this rock!"  No sarcasm, no irony, nothing; those kids were genuinely thrilled to be receiving a rock along with a sweet.  

Now, yes, they were smooth and polished rocks, but still, ROCKS.  Somehow that guy had the right idea, and was a popular destination in our part of town.

I can't help but wonder if he had one of these bad boys:

I remember asking for and receiving one of these for Christmas as a kid.  Shockingly, the results didn't exactly match those advertised.

Oh, yes, and for those of you keeping track (please tell me you don't), this has been our cheapest Halloween yet, because we already owned every last piece of these costumes.  So I win!  Except now, looking back at more extravagant Halloweens in our past where we spent all of $5 total, I'm amazed at how cute our children were in their little costumes.  Remember Caedmon the Chick?!  Or Atticus the Roasting Pan Turtle?  Or Adelaide the Tiger, and the first real post on the blog?

Deep breath, and repeat after me:  I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday, I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday, I will not get sentimental over this ridiculous holiday...

Halloblaaarghween *Updated*

Halloween is two weeks away.  Uuuuuggh.

I feel like I should be more excited about this, but when you live in a time and place where people think nothing of spending waaaay too much money on their kids' costumes (note: anything more than $10 TOTAL constitutes "too much" in my book, which practically guarantees our children are going to have those sad "my mom tried to get creative with a black trash bag and now I want to kill myself" looks), Halloween fills you more with dread than excitement.  

Adelaide is still undecided, costume-wise.  I keep killing her buzz with questions like, "So how exactly are you going to execute this coffee mug costume?" and "You do realize I'm not going to allow you to draw on your face with Sharpie, right?"

Atticus wants to be Robin Hood, but the only Robin Hood-ish costumes I've been able to come up with are made from my own brown and green clothing, so it'll be a battle to make sure he has a "robs from the rich to give to the poor" look and not a "I like to prance around the woods in women's clothing" Robin Hood in Drag look.  

As for Caedmon, I'm pretty sure he's going as a Communist, as all he likes to talk about anymore is working.  "Welp, I'm going to work," "No, mom, I'm working," "Mom, working is more important than anything."  I just won't feed him for the next two weeks and dress him in burlap for trick-or-treating.  On the plus side, he won't be able to complain when I divide his candy equally between each member of our family.

And real quick:  Nobody panic.  I'm not going to force our six-year-old into tights or starve our four-year-old.  I just need to get these negative Halloween feelings out so I can work on actual obviously-homemade costumes that our kids can proudly complain about for years to come.

I don't know how I'm going to top last year's four-dollar roasting pan and spray paint turtle costume, but I'm working on it.  I'm working on it.  (Heh.  I just looked, and Atticus is wearing my clothes in this photo, too.  Hrrmmmm...)

UPDATE:  I'VE GOT IT.  I'll just throw paint on the lot of them, and when people ask, "What are they?" I'll muster up as much disdain and superiority as I can and scathingly tell these obviously uncultured peasants that "It's ART," and if they look skeptical I'll string a bunch of nonsense phrases together relying heavily on words like "visceral" and "symbolism," plus I'll heave a bunch of huge sighs because true artists are never appreciated in their own time.  

I Will Never Be A Costume Designer

Yesterday it snowed.

First I cried because it was snowing in mid-October.

Then I cried harder because I realized it's not mid-October; it's close to the end of October.  In fact, we're just about a week out from Halloween.

Then I panicked.

Just a little bit of panic, though.  I have two of the kids' costumes more or less set:  my mom (thankyouthankyouthankyou) made Adelaide a cheetah costume for her birthday last May, and I made it pretty clear to her that she was going to wear that thing for as many Halloweens as I could stuff her in there.

I found one of those cowboy-riding-a-horse costumes (I have no idea how to describe that thing if you don't know what I'm not talking about, so... just wait for the inevitable post-Halloween pics I guess?) for Cade at a garage sale last spring, so he's pretty well set.  Just need to borrow a Caedmon-sized cowboy hat.

And then there's Atticus.  (I feel like I say that a lot, you know?)  He hasn't been able to make up his mind over the past few months, but I finally pinned him down to his most recent choice of 'snapping turtle.'  Okay.  So.  Time to construct a snapping turtle costume that 1) costs very little money and 2) requires very little time and/or energy of me, because spending oodles of time I don't have preparing something he'll wear for two hours at most isn't really my thing.

I knew where to go for ideas and inspiration (Pinterest, of course!), but I was half-terrified to do so.  Pinterest is chock-full of crazy-ambitious moms who apparently live to do things like weave their own fabric on hand-constructed looms and hand-dye it with natural dyes derived from the plants they grow in their native plant gardens that fill their backyards.  (You think I'm joking.  And... well, I am, but JUST BARELY.)  I knew that I would probably find a clever idea for a simple turtle costume, but I'd have to weed through 1) parents who don't mind spending a fortune on costumes and 2) parents who don't mind spending weeks sewing and gluing and losing sleep and probably pints of blood, because if 4-H taught me anything it's that you lose a lot more blood trying to sew late into the night while getting ready for an event, be it the county fair or Halloween.

I finally found the courage to brave Pinterest yesterday (after shedding my snow-induced tears), and I was right.  Partly right.  I found groups 1 and 2 (moneybags and time- and blood-donors), but I also found:

3)  Slutty turtles.

I'm not even kidding.  I'm well aware of the recent trend for youngish females to dress themselves in the strangely provocative versions of pirates and witches and medical professionals; I've spent many a merry hour with my friends being, um, perhaps a little less than generous in our commentary of these no doubt super duper smart young ladies.  But I really thought that I was now able to predict what kinds of costumes you'd see on these, ah, modesty-challenged girls.

I was so, so wrong.

I don't even know.  I just... I just can't.  Did I miss something in biology and my backyard?  I remember picking up a turtle when I was a kid, and I really don't recall seeing a green lamé bra anywhere on it, and it may have peed on my hand but it did nothing with its tongue that made me recoil in horror.


I did eventually get over my shock at the thought of sexually promiscuous turtles (oh, jeez, I don't even want to know what kind of skeevy human being is going to find this blog because of their google search for "sexually promiscuous turtles."  GO AWAY, CREEPER.), and found an idea for a turtle shell that involves a big disposable roasting pan and a great deal of paint.  Will his costume look tragically homespun?  Oh, no doubt.  But I presented the idea to him and his only concern was that it wouldn't be "like a snapping turtle."  I told him to eat his candy by snapping it into his mouth and then he'd be a snapping turtle, and he seemed satisfied.

I tell you what, you set the bar low when they're young and you make everyone's lives that much easier.  Feel free to write that down.