The Mickey Mob

I didn’t mean to do it. It just came out. As the words left my mouth my husband shot me over the look that I normally give him when he says something that will possibly upset the kids. I let it slip that the business trip I was taking was going to be at a hotel at Disney World.

Max was the first one to protest, “You’re going to Disneyland without us? No fair!” He’s right. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that for two years in a row I’ve gone to a place that the kids dream of going (OK, so I’m not a complete monster. Max and Natalie have been to Disneyland but more than 3 years ago). What they don’t understand is that other than a few hours at the park when I’m actually working, it’s not like I’m enjoying a 3-day passport complete with funnel cake consumption, roller coasters and lots of fun animatronic eye candy.

I was in the passenger seat of the van when this all erupted and for a few miles, I could feel the heat of my children’s eyes burning into me from behind. There was no way to fix it. I was going to Mickey’s house, they were staying home and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Even though Aidan didn’t exactly know what was going on, I turned to give him a wink and found him pouting, bottom lip turned up so far out that it was practically hitting his nose. He was being pulled into an angry mob and his 3 year-old brain didn’t even know it.

Paul even got in on the act. “You didn’t tell me the hotel was a Disney property. You were even there last year? You didn’t tell me that.” Way to have my back. The thing about my kid’s disappointment is that I would feel the same way. If say, I was 6 going on 7, and I found out my mom was going on a trip to Disneyworld, I would have led the angry mob.

Before I left, I promised that I would take them when mommy wasn’t working. They all nodded but I could tell they were still a little skeptical. As I walked out the door Paulina yelled, “Don’t forget to buy me a present!”

Book was way better than the movie

At an hour when my older kids are typically sound asleep, I had to hear their stream of consciousness discussion about why the movie they just watched was a little “jank.” If you are like me, I only recently learned what this word meant by looking it up on the website, Urban Dictionary. It is an adjective that means the following: of questionable quality, broken or ridiculously moronic. I doubt that my children know it means any of these things. This did not prevent them from using the word about 50 times in the 20 minutes it takes us to drive home from the theatre.

The movie was Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Since we finished reading the book together more than two weeks ago, there hasn’t been a day that passed that they didn’t mention that they wanted to see it on opening day. It wasn’t that they didn’t enjoy it, they loved it, but they both agreed that the book was waaayy better than the movie, and proceeded to pick it apart point-by-point and character-by-character. I had mixed feelings. I too was a little disappointed that it was so much different what we read but also secretly elated that they could recall so many details from the book.

By the morning, they completely forgot that they had called the movie “jank” only 10 hours earlier and asked if they could see it again at a matinee showing. With one bag of popcorn, one drink and a bag of M&M’s costing us $25.00, I think we’ll wait for the DVD release.

"Don't sit on no bees."

Paul’s insight during story time is never boring. Last night I read the kids The Story of Ferdinand. It is one of their favorites and always keeps their interest. I don’t know if it’s the image of the big bull smelling flowers that keeps the girls interested but I know that the boys love when Ferdinand accidentally sits on a bee and bucks so wildly that he is chosen to go to the bullfights in Madrid.

The story has an amazing, if not controversial history. It is said to have been a favorite of Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt, and was ordered burned by Hitler. Published only a few months before the start of the Spanish Civil War, it was interpreted as a pacifist response to the war. Ironically, the author, Munro Leaf, contended that he only wrote the story to allow the illustrator, Robert Lawson, an opportunity to showcase his work.

The reason why I bought the book is that I love a morality tale that reads like any great story. Ultimately, the book is about Ferdinand marching to beat of his own drum, choosing to sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers while his peers only goal in life was to fight. After we read it, I asked Max and Natalie what they thought about the book, trying to figure out if they understood the meaning of the story. They had lots of ideas, none of them really getting the idea of individuality.

In the middle of this discussion, Paul walked in and I asked him what he thought, winking at him to talk about the moral of the story. Without skipping a beat he said, “Watch where you sit and don’t sit on no bees.”

A Tough Day for Tooth Fairies

Natalie lost her first tooth. She had been playing with it for weeks and was elated when she bit into a California Roll (don’t ask me what was hard enough in a California Roll to jar it loose) and it finally came out. This episode couldn’t have been more different to our experience with Maxwell. When his teeth showed even the least bit of movement, Max would literally rip the tooth out of his gums. Last summer he ripped one out in a NYC taxi on our way to the Natural History Museum.

There was talk for weeks about how much money she was going to get from the tooth fairy. When it came time to put the tooth under the pillow that night she went into hysterics saying that she didn’t want the tooth fairy to “steal” her tooth. While I was trying to calm her down, Maxwell came in to try to help. He told her that he got $5 for his first tooth and as he was convincing her to put the tooth under her pillow, he looked over her and winked at me.

I don’t know if he winked at me to tell me that the jig is up, that he in fact knows that Paul and I are the tooth fairy or if the wink meant that he hoped that our passionate discussion of the subject was calming Natalie down. In the end, neither of us could get her to put the tooth under her pillow.

Just before she fell asleep she asked me to put the tooth in my jewelry box to hide it and to write a note to the tooth fairy. She asked me to communicate that she did in fact lose a tooth, preferred not to give it away and asked that the tooth fairy still give her money for it since it is her first tooth. Natalie should definitely consider becoming a lawyer.