Oliver!

Somewhere on my list of Top 10 Most Fun and Rewarding Parenting Experiences would have to be the time Cookie, Teebo, and I became villagers of the little Russian village of Anatevka in a community theatre run of Fiddler on the Roof. Though the kids were just eight and five that year, it was a great chance for them to experience the way poignant family drama and masterful music come together to create a two-hour onstage miracle.

Twenty-six years later, what went around back then has made another circle. This time I got to be in the audience watching and listening as Cookie sold roses and Sooby, Pooh, and Bootsie took on the roles of orphans and thieves in a community theatre production of Oliver! I attended on April 15 and 16.

No, once was not enough. I had to make a weekend of it and see every ounce of cuteness twice. Proudly, I wore my new sweatshirt that says "My Grandkids Shine Like Stars"--and sweatshirts do not lie. Although anyone could see that the kids--ages eight, seven, and five--were truly the stars of the show, the production was certainly not hurt by excellent casting, wonderful set and costuming, strong vocals, and a phenomenal five-piece orchestra.

I saw the show the second weekend of a three-weekend run, when most of the bugs had been ironed out and the cast had jelled into a comfortable ensemble of 1850s Londoners. Based on the novel of the same name by Charles Dickens, the musical transported its audience to a bleak landscape wrought with poverty, disease, hunger, and an ominous criminal element. It was a place where kids went to bed hungry and were spirited away from workhouses to learn the art of  picking pockets.

This writing introduces a series of four blog posts devoted to the kids' experience as actors and singers in their first stage production. For each of the next three days, I will feature one of them, along with some observations about each one's unique experiences with the show.

Here is a preview of what you will get to read about in the next several posts:

Now, sit back, and enjoy the show!

Bootsie's Spring Art Show

You may not know that I am a connoisseur of art, but I am. This is because I have a five-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter who is an artist.

One of the hidden pleasures of tidying up after all the grandkids have been here for a big Easter weekend is exploring the more obscure nooks and crannies of the house. Inevitably, in so doing, I will find remnants of their visit that I was too busy to notice while they were here.

One such treasure is the many drawings left behind by Bootsie, who expresses her talent through the media of colored pencils and paper snitched from the laser printer. Here are just a few of her masterpieces of the weekend past, along with a little Googie-analysis of her technique and her motifs. I am calling this installment of her work "Images of Spring," and I share them with you here.

First is a pastel I have named Spring Promises. Here, we find the promise of fair weather, indicated by the blue sky and the sunshine in the upper right corner. The cross on the top of the building, along with the stained-glass windows tell us this is a church filled with the promise of resurrection and life that comes with Easter. A second religious theme is executed in the rainbow that reaches earthward from the sky and completely envelops the church. Even casual observers have to admit that, for a five-year-old child with one piece of paper, there is a lot of promise in this one.

This one I like to call Pink Ocean. Here, the artist gives the color blue, routinely reserved for bodies of water, to a dolphin, which constitutes the focal point of the piece. Instead of blue, this water is pink, and it is obvious that this makes the dolphin very happy. ( I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never seen a dolphin with a smile this big.) Looking on, two winged creatures--an owl and a goose (maybe)--hang suspended in the orange spring atmosphere wishing they, too, could immerse themselves in a vast pool of pinkness.

Finally, we have Leaning into Springtime. Here, the artist adds an international flair as she juxtaposes Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa with the majestic tulips of Holland. Of the three pieces, this one displays the most vibrant and varied colors, and I would not hesitate to award it the coveted title "Best of Show." Unless you have tried this yourself, you can't imagine how hard it is to draw a tower that leans to this precarious degree without falling into the tulips.

Left behind along with Bootsie's artwork was a story by Sooby, "The Serpent of the Island of Rapheliaton." But I will share that with you another time. It is close to bedtime, and it might bring on the nightmares. So for now, I will leave you with the soothing and optimistic images of Bootsie's spring art show and wish you sweet dreams.

Beenie's Bounce House Birthday

Four years ago today, on our thirty-first anniversary, Pa-pa and I got a pretty special present. That day, Beenie entered the lineup as our fourth grandchild.

A couple days ago, we looked up the anniversary list to see what special designation the thirty-fifth anniversary has. Since we couldn't figure out exactly how to work coral and jade into our day, we opted to spend a glorious day at Beenie's fourth birthday party. So instead of coral and jade, we celebrated with superheroes and an inflatable bounce house.

This great day, which we shared with all the grandkids ages two through eight, started off with pizza, cycled through presents and the raucous cacophony of six bouncing children, and ended with cake, ice cream, and gift bags.

With the possible exception of snorkeling off Black Rock on Ka'anapali Beach, I don't think there could have been a better way to spend a milestone anniversary. Indeed, we were blessed with the combination of unbridled merriment and no broken bones (at least that we know of now). Although our unpredictable Missouri weather was a little on the cool side, there was no rain, and there was too much jumping going on for anyone to feel the slightest cold.

Beenie liked coming down head first:

But some of us, though exhibiting impressive form, were not quite so brave:

Thanks to Beenie's daddy, son Teebo, for coming up with this wacky idea to celebrate the joy of family on this most special day. If you ask me, the photos above commemorate a thirty-fifth anniversary better than any amount of coral or jade ever could.

And as for you, Beenie-Boy, I hope you have had the most wonderful of days. You got yourself a new stash of superhero gear and action toys and even a new Spider Man backpack for preschool next year. Your mama baked you the best cake ever, and you blew those candles out like an expert:

As I write this, your fourth birthday has most likely wound down, and, at the end of a day that couldn't be interrupted for the likes of a nap, I suspect you have already fallen asleep, maybe in those new Incredible Hulk boxing gloves.

I hope your dreams are full of hugs and bounces and sweet whipped-cream icing. You came to us as a special gift four years ago, sweet boy, and you remain so every day that we are blessed to share with you.


  

Bad Guys and Vampires

It doesn't seem unusual for little boys to be fascinated by superheroes. I would expect to be buying toys and T-shirts featuring Batman, Superman, and the rest of that familiar lineup. With four grandsons, I have certainly bought my share of those.

Then, a couple years ago, Pooh developed an affinity for bad guys, particularly Horace and Jasper, the dog thieves in 101 Dalmatians. On every visit for several months, I would have to role-play one of them while he played the other. This wore me out. It seems that, in the process of dog-napping, thieves must expend a considerable amount of physical energy.

More recently, Beenie, who will be four in just a few weeks, always wants me to show him, on my iPhone, images of every bad guy he or I can think of. To this end, we have engaged in numerous discussions of Joker, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Riddler, and  Jesse James. Once, I even threw Clyde Barrow into the mix. It seems I need to increase my repertoire of bad guys I can think of off the top of my head.

Last night, however, Beenie decided to pretend he was a vampire (I have no idea where he learned about vampires--I swear I am innocent this time.). As the potential victim of this particular bad guy, I had reasonable cause to worry. I had to pull my collar up around my neck and think fast.

"What does a vampire look like?" Beenie wanted to know.

"Well, he has sharp fangs, I said." And that's when, by the miracle of free association, I thought of apples. Sure enough, there was a single apple in the fridge that we were able to stretch into a play session of half hour or more.

"How?" you ask. Like so:

Yes, a secret yet untapped by apple promoters worldwide is that apple slices make perfect fangs. A typical apple, we learned, will afford you about ten sets of fangs. Each set will last several minutes from the victim's initial shriek of terror to the vampire's inevitable ingestion of his own teeth.

Luckily, no necks have to be harmed in the process of this particular vampire game. Last night, our biggest problem was the fact that we had only one apple and, thus, had to ration our fangs very carefully.

As it turns out, a little boy's preoccupation with bad guys isn't doomed to an undesirable outcome. As an added bonus to lots of fun and laughs, the kid, in the natural course of play, ends up with a healthy snack, and you can't beat that.

Star Wars Yahtzee Jr. Gets Five Stars

I've been thinking about Pooh all day long, and I hope the force is with him. By that, I mean I hope he and his sisters are having fun playing the new game Pa-pa and I delivered to him over the weekend as we observed his seventh birthday just a few days early.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with our launch of Star Wars Yahtzee Jr. I have always enjoyed the dice-rolling excitement of a good Yahtzee match, and I have to say this particular version adapts quite well to the needs of kids age four and older.

Instead of the usual numbered dots, the six sides of most dice feature pictures of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, R2D2, Chewbacca, and Yoda, who acts as a wild card as players try to collect as many pictures as possible of a single character in a three-roll turn.

Since there is evil in every universe, one side of one sinister die is reserved for the picture of Darth Vader. If Darth turns up on a player's roll, that player loses the advantage of that fifth die for the remainder of that particular turn.

Further, the game is designed so that kids don't have to keep individual scores on note pads as they make decisions about how to count the dice rolls. Instead, they use color-coded game markers to mark their choices on a game board visible to all players at all times. This enables discussions of options with kids who may need help figuring out rolling and scoring choices. The board, game pieces, and dice (and a set of four happy players) look like this:

The game can be easily adapted for two, three, or four players, with the difference being the number of turns all players get. Once begun, things move quickly, and the kids seem excited both to take their own turns and to watch what happens as their opponents roll the dice, consider options, and strategize.

In our experience, the downsides of the game are few. You have to caution the kids not to bump the scoreboard and displace markers that have already been played, because then the cumulative scores are lost for that game. Another issue is the number of relatively small pieces (twenty score markers, five dice) to keep track of when a number of boisterous kids are involved.

But I have to say the five of us (Zoomie and I were partners) had a great time with Star Wars Yahtzee Jr. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. In the event of a number of kids who are fairly young, though, I would recommend flying a reconnaissance mission into the box ahead of time to punch out score markers and place the stickers on the dice. I did this, and am pretty sure I saved us some time, potential chaos, and possible damage to the game components.

Happy Birthday to you, Pooh. You are the most special first-grader in my universe. May the candles on your cake tonight glow like light sabers, and may your life be filled with a lot of Yodas and very few Darths.

It's in the Stars

It was meant to happen, clear as day. You know what I mean--that split second when, in the course of shopping the after-Christmas clearances, your eyes land--BINGO!--just like that--on the prize.

And I don't mean just a good bargain--watchful eyes land on those all the time. No, this day brought one of those delightful instances of serendipity when the perfect piece of merchandise met Googie at the crossroads of "It's about time you saw me hanging on this rack" and "Please don't let me snatch you up with such force that I raise the suspicions of the store detective ."

Let's rewind a bit. I was not at our town's new Kohl's store looking for anything in particular. I was simply cruising the aisles with a 30%-off coupon burning a hole in my billfold, along with a Kohl's cash certificate worth $10 off any purchase. There were already a few miscellaneous--comparatively unimportant--items in my cart at the time I scored the find:

Now, I realize that, at first glance, this may not look like all that big a deal to you. In fact, it may look mysteriously like just another "Grandma" sweatshirt--the kind that if you've seen one, you've seen them all. But au contraire mon ami--look again as you slowly absorb the utter wonder of this particular shirt. There are several reasons why only something like fate could dictate that I would end up with it.

First, it says, "My Grandkids Sparkle & Shine like Stars." That sentence contains a simile, a figure of speech that compares two things using the word like. It is, therefore, a poetic statement, and I am a poet. In fact, I am currently in the early stages of a book of children's poems titled Harvest the Stars. Yes, stars. What are the chances that, given those things, I would find this shirt today?

But it gets better. The shirt has exactly six stars, one for each of my six grandkids. Coincidence? I think not.

Next, it is not my nature to brag about my grandkids (uncross fingers now--it is too hard to type with them crossed), but my grandkids actually are stars. Sooby played Skippyjohn Jones' mother in a skit last summer in a kids' theatre class at our local community college. Pooh once gave a stellar performance as a mean mouse in The Nutcracker (I blogged about that a couple years ago--he ended up on stage too early and tried to kill the nutcracker). Bootsie danced in that same production.

The evidence doesn't stop there: For four years now on Christmas afternoon our family has sung a song together to post on Facebook as a Christmas greeting to our friends. This year we did "Rudolph," with all the kids donning antlers (except Sooby, who was Santa) and acting out parts as we sang. Last year we did "We Three Kings," with the three little boys--Beenie, Zoomie, and Heero-- looking astral as the stars of wonder, night, and royal beauty bright. The remnants of their costumes are a testament to this:

So there you have another manifestation of our "star" theme and sufficient evidence to prove that my sweatshirt find was, indeed, nothing short of miraculous.

I might also mention, just in passing, that I gave a total of $9.02 for this perfect-in-all-ways sweatshirt, which originally sold for $40. The icing on the cake is that, although I am sure it was on clearance as Christmas merchandise, there is nothing on it that restricts its use to only the Christmas season.

Add all these things together and you can see why my new sweatshirt makes this a great day. Although I didn't win the big lottery last week, I consider myself quite a winner, and for that I thank my lucky--well--stars.

Pretzel Art

It is really too bad that moms tell their kids not to play with their food.

As Zoomie and I discovered last weekend, that simply is not true, especially if pretzels are involved. We are living proof that, given a bag of pretzels, your snack can become an art medium and your kitchen a studio. Imagine that you are sauntering through an art museum, and you stop to contemplate the following works:

Pa-pa's Pickup on a Clear Day

Here you see Pa-pa's truck heading to the farm to feed the cows on a clear winter day dominated by blue sky. The salt on the pretzels doubles as bits of snow. So realistic is this representation that you can almost feel the warmth of the truck's cab and hear the crunch of the tires as they plow through a crust of white.

Stylish Snowman at Christmas

What shouts "Christmas" more clearly than this merry red background supporting a whimsical snowman? And what blares out "fashion" any more obviously than a snowman who would forego the traditional black top hat in favor of a stylish tam propped aside his head at a rakish angle? 

True, several pretzels were harmed in the execution of this piece. But you will be relieved to know that their remains were honorably interred and, in so doing, there were no "starving artists" residing at Googie's. 

Antenna-less Butterfly

Flying into snack time on dreams of hope, this unique butterfly acts as a harbinger of spring and the hope that January will be gone in the foreseeable future. Rivaling "Pa-pa's Pickup" in complexity (both require eleven pretzels), this beautiful insect virtually flies off a green background signifying an imminent return to all things spring.

So there you have it--proof that a kid's experience at Googie's can be enhanced when the line between snack time and play time is intentionally blurred. And--oh, yeah--if you wish to purchase any of these pieces for your personal art collection, just contact me. The artist is three-and-a-half and not yet taking calls.